Married CAGs: How to deal with MOMZILLA?

Dead of Knight

Dead of Knight

CAGiversary!
Feedback
15 (100%)
Now I know why brides go insane about their weddings. Even before I got engaged, it was agreed upon by me and both of my parents that we would NOT invite my aunt (dad's sister) and her family because she is a nutcase and a jerk. Neither of them like her. I don't like her. I know my fiance wouldn't like her. My grandma didn't even go to my aunt's wedding. So it was pretty much decided.

Then today, WHILE we are visiting reception venue places before deciding on one, my mom springs on me that we NEED to invite my aunt because otherwise my "grandma would be upset" and "it would look bad." That's nice, I don't care about appearances. I can't stand the woman and neither can my parents. And now my mother, after I told her my fiance and I had already decided on the guest list, decides to write up her OWN guest list for my side, including several people I haven't seen in like 10 years. Including a senile woman who when I last saw her 5 years ago called me by my mother's name. Including our neighbors for no real reason, and her friends and their children who I haven't seen in years.

I guess it was too good to be true that she would actually not be a goddamn nutcase about this, especially since she's going senile, but oh well. She claims that she won't pay for the wedding if I cause a scene; that's nice, I have more than enough money in the bank to pay for it. Keep in mind that it's not even really my mother's money because she's been out of work for 21 years, it's all my father's. She also said that not only is it me and my fiance's wedding, it's also HER and my father's wedding, because I'm her only child, and they're paying for it, and blah blah blah. My fiance then texted me that he didn't propose to my mother.

Anyone have any advice, or even just amusing related stories?

EDIT: Just counted my original list for my side of the guest list versus her list. I have like 35 people on my list, she has 70. We agreed that the wedding count TOTAL would be 75 a long time ago. My fiance has about 40 on his side of the list.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Elope. Seriously.

If you go forward with a planned wedding, and you have enough money and are willing to spend it, then call her bluff. It's your wedding, your day. You and your fiance are the bosses. What you say goes. Make that explicitly clear and see what happens. I hope it works out.

However, I'm not married. I could be completely naive in my opinion.:)
 
We would really like a wedding with close (key word: CLOSE, not people I haven't seen in 10-15 years) friends and relatives. We are planning on doing a court wedding prior to the date so we don't have to get a marriage license in MA, where we're having the formal wedding, but we really want to have a celebration with people we are close with. My mom trying to dictate otherwise when we explicitly told her months ago about our plans (and she agreed back then) is ridiculous.
 
My wife and I found a happy medium - we had 40 people attend the wedding and luncheon, all of whom we decided on. We then sent out invitations to everyone outside of those 40 - even the obscure relatives that we'd never met - to attend a larger reception later that evening. Worked like a charm. We ended up with a turnout of about 300 people at the evening reception, which was a nice boost for wedding gifts, plus our families were both happy when some of the obscure relatives showed up.
 
Id say to have a wedding you got to smile and wave and let the crazy loons come to. Ignore them, smile at them, and then you get more presents. Its the only time the loons get to party too!

Most of the time at a wedding your not going to care who was there. Your only going to be paying attention to one person any way. Your mouth will hurt the next day from all the smiling though!
 
I'm reminded of the Seinfeld episode where George cries to get his way about the wedding. Just don't skimp on the invitation envelopes.
 
Well yea there is a LOT of drama when it comes to wedding details. My brother's wife had a sister who kept on bitching about wanting certain flowers at the ceremony and my brother is allergic to them. This was like the day before the wedding!!!

The only thing you have to worry about is the weather. If it's one of those beach weddings (which seems to be some sort of strange fad these days..guess it's the economy.), then yea it might be a mess..but no one can predict what the weather will be like on your wedding day.

BTW...did you kill your neighbor and his dog over his music yet?
 
[quote name='ITDEFX']Well yea there is a LOT of drama when it comes to wedding details. My brother's wife had a sister who kept on bitching about wanting certain flowers at the ceremony and my brother is allergic to them. This was like the day before the wedding!!!

The only thing you have to worry about is the weather. If it's one of those beach weddings (which seems to be some sort of strange fad these days..guess it's the economy.), then yea it might be a mess..but no one can predict what the weather will be like on your wedding day.

BTW...did you kill your neighbor and his dog over his music yet?[/quote]

Kill'em?

She's inviting him!

Including our neighbors for no real reason.
Click to expand...

:cool:
 
It is your wedding, absolutely...BUT...it's also one of the biggest events in many families lives, and the invitation list can be as much political as it is about who you actually want to come.

It might vary, but honestly, at my wedding, I had less than five minutes to speak to each person, so unless they're chainsaw wielding maniacs, or are likely to start dancing on tables, it might be worth inviting them if it will smooth things over in the family.

In my case, my wife's mother did have a lot of input in the planning--both because generally the bride makes more of the decisions than the groom, and my wife is very close to her mom, but also because my MiL had eloped and missed having a "real wedding", so she lived vicariously through ours.

You could definitely also do the separate wedding/reception(party) thing as well.
 
The best advice my previous boss gave me when I worked in event planning was to simply lay down the law with people when you're planning you event. Tell them how it will be, and if they don't like it, they can stay out of the planning of the event.
 
[quote name='Anexanhume']Kill'em?

She's inviting him!



:cool:[/quote]


oh that's right.... she's inviting that dude and his dog!
 
I think paying for your own wedding really gives you a lot of independence from the family stuff. That's what we did, and there were very little conflicts with the guest list (or anything really). I doubt our parents cared as much as your mom seems to, tho.

My husband's mom still wanted to invite a handful of a-little-more-distant relatives, and we let her since they'd fill up seats for her table. (His parents are divorced, so they had separate tables.) We spoke to them for 10 minutes at most the entire night, and that's only because we didn't have that many people. Then again, he doesn't have any particularly weird relatives on his mom's side, which is why that was a pretty easy decision. If you want to appease your mom, just sit them altogether at the same table far, far away from you and visit them for like two minutes for the toast. Like everyone else says, it's more presents :p

[quote name='dtcarson']In my case, my wife's mother did have a lot of input in the planning--both because generally the bride makes more of the decisions than the groom, and my wife is very close to her mom, but also because my MiL had eloped and missed having a "real wedding", so she lived vicariously through ours.[/QUOTE]Part of the reason I always wanted a formal wedding was because my mom, who I'm really close with, never had one. My mother never affected any of the planning tho; she's not much of a control freak.
 
Now she's lying to me about my uncles' marital statuses. I compromised and agreed that her best friend would be allowed (I also know her and she came to my high school graduation party), and her boyfriend would be too since they're engaged. Then she lied to me and claimed both of her brothers are engaged. I knew this was horseshit and asked my godmother who was here for the night. She told the truth (one of them doesn't even have a girlfriend) and now she's pissed off at both me and my aunt. I hope that my fiance will talk to her tomorrow and lay down the law.

EDIT: Oh shit. My uncle (who is here with my godmother going around to venues with me this weekend, and is generally VERY calm and non-confrontational) just TOLD my mother. After lying at me and screaming at me, saying she was going to cancel my credit card (completely unrelated to the wedding, obviously, but she just wants to ruin me), my uncle got up from the couch, went to the stairs, and started yelling at my mom, saying "You're really being nasty and cruel. This is a wedding, it's supposed to be a happy occasion...." My mom got pissed and said if he doesn't like it he can leave. He said we would... but since it's after 11PM and he lives an hour away, my godmother tried to calm him down saying he was going to get into an accident like this. He then said to my aunt, "This is cruelty. I don't care if she's mentally ill."

oh-snap.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
[quote name='The Crotch']...

Are you engaged to my brother, by any chance?[/QUOTE]

Probably not, my fiance only has sisters, and neither of them live in Texas. :lol:
 
...

DoK, do you have avatars and signatures turned off?

EDIT: On closer inspection, these are loafers I see that it is more likely that you were making fun of me.
 
[quote name='The Crotch']...

DoK, do you have avatars and signatures turned off?[/QUOTE]

Not that I know of....

EDIT: My mom just came up to me and said, "You know I'd never take your credit card away. I was just upset." She also said she doesn't like my uncle getting in the middle of everything.

:wall::wall::wall:

[quote name='The Crotch']...

DoK, do you have avatars and signatures turned off?

EDIT: On closer inspection, these are loafers I see that it is more likely that you were making fun of me.[/QUOTE]

I'm so confused. All I see is an avatar that kind of looks like a Wii Balance Board and a Retro Game Challenge sig.
 
either someone is gonna get shot or the stress will cause the two of you to skip the church thing and get married in Vegas.

it's happened before.
 
Here's what I'll say, as the one year anniversary of my wedding approaches. Unless it's something critical and essential, you'll save yourself a lot of grief and heartache to be fairly easygoing. I mean this in the nicest way possible, but if you're even still in a position where your parent can threaten to cancel YOUR credit card, you don't have much leverage to be calling shots.

My wife and I faced a billion and one obstacles when planning our wedding, and when you start out, you seem to have this ideal of exactly what you want and how you want it. But as the event gets closer, and things come up, if you don't learn to roll with the punches, it will drive you insane and you'll lose sight of why you're even doing it. Getting upset because your mom wants to invite friends and allow them to bring dates, so they don't have to sit there by themselves and feel awkward is a little nuts. Think about it. Why would she want to invite friends? Because she's proud of you and wants to show off your day to the people she's close to.

Trust me when I say you'll never even notice those people are there...and at WORST, they'll keep your parents occupied so you and your new husband and all YOUR friends can have an amazing time. It's easy to get caught up in all the chaos and tension and turn into super bridezilla, but you really gotta break things down and recognize what actually matters. Like it or not, a traditional wedding is a dog and pony show. As my man Mr_hockey said, you just gotta smile and nod...and enjoy the honeymoon. ;)
 
The answer, as with so many problems in modern life, is drugs.

Today's pharmacopoeia offers a wide selection of agents to create calm and serenity during times of stress.

The real question is whether you dose the problem guests or yourself. The former presents a tactical problem while the latter has the downside of relying on your videographer, as you yourself will have no recollection of the event.
 
If you think It's bad now, wait for more thats gonna come down the road.
After your married every relative will want to get involved in your iife, especially if you have money.
I'm just glad I only have to see the relatives once a year (Christmas Day) to eat food and exchange gifts.

Oh, and when you have the baby EVERYONE is going to want to get in your business. At least you'll get free shit out of it.
 
I feel you, when my wife and I got married, I expected maybe 50 people at the MAX to show, when I saw the guest list was 250, I almost crapped myself. A lot of those people will just send gifts though, and not show up. If yours is anything like mine, it flew by, and I never really caught up with what was happening until we were cutting cake and leaving for the honeymoon. I really only remember a handful of people who were at our reception at the church. Now, the after party was a different story, and that was where only the people my wife and I invited, no old aunts and uncles, 2nd and 3rd cousins, or people from my wife's mom's work etc. Just people we wanted to share our day with.

Congrats!
 
My mother is from a huge Italian family, so my wedding was much larger than I wanted it to be. I did the separate wedding/reception thing. But as a couple previous people said, you just have to go with it. You won't even notice they're there. Most of them you'll see only when they shake your hand, and the put the envelope into the sack.
 
My mom said to me today while I was getting ready, "You can do whatever you want with the guest list. I'm not going to fight you anymore." Yayyyyy bipolar! I asked why she changed her mind and she said she thought about it a lot last night. Who knows what'll happen, I'm sure she'll change her mind again at least once.
 
Today, looking at a couple more reception places, was a complete disaster thanks to my mother's poor behavior. She completely embarrassed me, my uncle, my matron of honor, and my groomsman who were all with me. I don't really want to talk about it, but I am definitely going to speak with my father (and my fiance) about a major intervention. However, I am pretty certain of the venue now, it totally blew every other place I looked at out of the water, yet was about the same in price. And my mom didn't offend the people there. Also I'm pretty sure I have my photographer, who costs like at least half as much as more expensive photographers whose photos I liked less. So things are going well except for the mother.
 
Basically once this country gets it's mentality out of the bible and everyone is allowed to be married.. my mom will prolly be a loon with this.
Basically, my sister is probably not marrying her baby daddy..and my brother is 12 (and they are gonna be 50 this year :lol:) so I'm the only chance for them to throw a wedding...

and since my BF's family is white trash, it'll be that my family will pay for the wedding and his mom will bring the deviled eggs. Siiigh.
 
[quote name='lilboo']Basically once this country gets it's mentality out of the bible and everyone is allowed to be married.. my mom will prolly be a loon with this.
Basically, my sister is probably not marrying her baby daddy..and my brother is 12 (and they are gonna be 50 this year :lol:) so I'm the only chance for them to throw a wedding...

and since my BF's family is white trash, it'll be that my family will pay for the wedding and his mom will bring the deviled eggs. Siiigh.[/QUOTE]
You're also the bottom. I'm pretty sure it's the law that bottoms' families have to pay in gay weddings. ;)
 
That's also very true.

Good luck with your wedding shit. Weddings are so played these days and cost too much money for too much stress and bullshit. :(
 
It doesn't matter who comes. The only people I remember from my wedding were my 6-8 closest friends. The rest of the family on both sides were ignored the whole night anyway. You will be too busy doing your own stuff to notice even an obvious homeless guy stealing food.
 
The person above who mentioned your mom wanting to show you off and having company to keep her entertained had a really good point. Have you put that into perspective or does that not fit her M.O.? Also have you tried the guilt approach? Like "Did YOUR mother try and control your wedding too?" or something more subtle. Her spending money on you doesn't mean she should be able to call the shots on the most important day of your life or make you feel bad for saying no. I hope you guys get everything worked out and keep us posted!
 
[quote name='dingo_stole_mybaby']The person above who mentioned your mom wanting to show you off and having company to keep her entertained had a really good point. Have you put that into perspective or does that not fit her M.O.? Also have you tried the guilt approach? Like "Did YOUR mother try and control your wedding too?" or something more subtle. Her spending money on you doesn't mean she should be able to call the shots on the most important day of your life or make you feel bad for saying no. I hope you guys get everything worked out and keep us posted![/QUOTE]

Her mother died when she was 12, and her father when she was 21. Thanks a lot, asshole. ;);)

I DID actually make concessions on a lot of her guest list, and said we would put most of the rest of the people on the "B" (aka Z, according to my matron of honor) list. And I'm going to discuss with my father the possibility of having his sister there, since he would know a LOT more about how his side of the family, particularly his mother and aunt, would react if she were not invited. But I'm just sick of my mom's attitude. She refused to acknowledge that her attitude yesterday was piss poor.

I've brought up the idea of Cedar Point with my fiance, but he is not a fan of roller coasters and amusement parks in general. I've been there once with an ex, it's a nice place, but to quote Cartman, THE LINES. And they also wanted me to wait in line for 2 hours for the Dragster without wearing my glasses, which would make me blind.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']
I've brought up the idea of Cedar Point with my fiance, but he is not a fan of roller coasters and amusement parks in general. [/quote]

You're with the wrong guy. Don't get married. Problem solved.
 
[quote name='Anexanhume']You're with the wrong guy. Don't get married. Problem solved.[/QUOTE]

Rite. Just because we don't have one minor thing in common but practically everything else is, we shouldn't get married.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']Rite. Just because we don't have one minor thing in common but practically everything else is, we shouldn't get married.[/quote]

Yes. Any reason to avoid marriage is a good one.
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']Rite. Just because we don't have one minor thing in common but practically everything else is, we shouldn't get married.[/quote]

I rescind my previous statement. If you think roller coasters are a minor thing, then you're both crazy.
 
You need to let your parents invite some of the guests. They're paying for it, even though it's your day. You should be able to compromise a little. We had an A list and a B list. If we had extra spaces after inviting everyone on the A list, then we moved to B and picked a few of the more "important" people.

Just don't let mommy pick the song list for the band/dj.:D
 
F the parents. Seriously. If you can pay for it on your own, the wedding goes by your rules, not theirs. Obviously, be a little bit more tactful than "fuck you!" but seriously, it's your wedding and you've got to deal with all the planning and details. Set things up the way you guys want it and leave it at that. Make it clear to your parents that things are being planned with 75 guests in mind and that if more than that show up, the extra people will be standing outside/not having a meal.
 
About four months after I asked my wife to marry me, she got a new job that didn't have health insurance.
I was kinda kidding when I told her maybe we should get married sooner than we were thinking just so she could get on my insurance. But then it seemed like a good idea to the both of us and kind of a fun idea to just have a quicky wedding!
We went to a justice of the peace's house and was married right there in front of this old woman's TV with just her two sisters and a couple of her friends. I had a clip on tie and t-shirt and she had sparkly flip-flops. It was fun and the best idea we could have come up with. Instead of blowing loads of money on a big, stressful, wedding with a bunch of relatives we don't like that wouldn't be able to help pay for anything anyway, we decided to just save up money for a honeymoon since that's the fun part.

Unfortunately we haven't ever been able to save a dime towards a honeymoon in the five years we've been married. But I guess that means we wouldn't have been able to have a big wedding anyway.

But, seriously, don't spend money on a wedding. It's pointless, stressful, and ultimately disspointing. Spend it on the fun part, the vay-kay! Then have a get together later for your relatives to give you presents.
In five years, no one's gonna remember your wedding anyway, except that it was like everyone elses wedding in America.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top