Well i am getting married in 5 months and i need to sort out my food early because i am a rather fussy eater, and my fiancee isn’t. We have totally different ideas for wedding food, he wants the usually wedding food (the random posh food which only a few people actually like) and i like traditional food like burgers and chips. He says it isn’t wedding food and he wants something that you wouldn’t usually eat. So we have reached a compromise. We are sending our guests 2 different menus and they have to choose from the brides menu or the grooms menu. The starter and deserts are the same but the main meal is different.

His is the venues set wedding meal of beef and potatoes etc, But I live in the UK and my favourite restaurant is the harvester. But i don’t want a meal of the harvester menu i want the pasta dish they have in their salad cart. But this means i would have to arrange meetings with the harvester managers and possibly hire out some of their chefs, because i’m sure they wouldn’t want other chefs making their signature dish (they keep many of the recipes quite secret) But i’m not to sure how to go about this. Should i call up my local restaurant and meet with the manager or should i call the head office ?

thank you.

I’m getting married next August. It’s still a bit away, but already I’m having to deal with the mother in law trying to take over everything.

Here is my issue as of right now:

First of all, my fiancee and I are paying for everything. The only thing that my dad (who does not have much money) is paying for is my $300 dress. Even if my dad had the money, we really want to handle this ourselves, because we’re both control freaks, we know what we want, and we don’t want to argue over what’s going down.

Anyway, my soon to be mother in law is having some issues with this. First of all, she thinks it’s very unfair to us that my dad is only paying $300. She is all caught up in the idea that the bride’s parents have to pay for the wedding (never mind that while she makes 90,000 a year alone for a family of 3, my dad makes 30,000 for a family of 5). She thinks my dad is trying to rob her son or something.

To top things off, she wants to pay for a rehearsal dinner. My fiancee and I don’t want ANY rehearsal dinner…because our parents WILL hate each other. We want them to meet, but the idea of having a rehearsal dinner is just a waist of time to my fiancee and I…and not to mention a disaster waiting to happen. Plus, we’re already making plans to go to medieval times with the groomsmen and brides maids.

We’ve tried explaining this to her…but she insists that we absolutely have to have a rehearsal dinner, and that it’s her role to pay for it. My fiancee has asked that if she wanted to pay for something, she could help pay for the venue (and we’ll allow her to help us with organizing that, which is a HUGE compromise for us)…but she absolutely insists that it is not fair for her to even HELP pay for the venue when it’s the bride’s parents duty to do so (as if this is the law). We don’t really want her to pay for anything, but since she’s insisting on paying for SOMETHING, we figured we would give that compromise a try. ><

The bottom line is, she is being obnoxious by expecting my dad to pay. We’re not asking her to pay for anything, so it’s not like we’re expecting her to dish out money while my dad doesn’t. But she is insisting we have a rehearsal dinner, and that she plan it. When we finally decided to give in, we told her we wanted a small non-fancy dinner at some restaurant..but she’s insisting we have this big backyard get together with catering and what not. So now my fiancee and I are back to trying to convince her NOT to have a rehearsal dinner.

Should I give in and just let her do a rehearsal dinner and cancel the plans we’re making with our friends…and also go through the stress of dealing with the fights that will break out between our two families? Or should I hold my ground and tell her “no”.

I cannot express how much we do not want a rehearsal dinner. I know it’s tradition, but who cares?

And isn’t it rude for her to expect my dad to pay more than 300? Personally I think it’s rude for her to pay for just the rehearsal dinner, and for my dad to pay for the rest of the wedding when one is quite obviously more expensive than the other…especially when she and her husband make a good bit of money, while my dad is barely scratching by while taking care of his parents and kids.

Anyway. Am I in the wrong? I’m so stressed out. Sorry for the rant. I’m just trying to figure out if I’m in the wrong, or if I should hold my ground. If I AM in the wrong, how do I handle my fiancee…he’s in the same boat as me through all of this.

So, my mom and I have started doing some planning. She wants to throw me a bridal shower, but I thought family members weren’t supposed to do that, I thought people say that’s gift grubbing or whatever. I suggested that and she seemed REALLY hurt, and apparently family threw hers and her mother’s before her. Apparently her MIL even threw her another shower, and my grandma is generally the manners snob of the family. Should I follow family tradition even if it is not typical and just let her do it? We are having a pretty small wedding and it’s mostly just family. I was thinking a compromise might be perhaps she works on it WITH my MOH and we hold it at MOH’s house or a restaurant or something so she’s still throwing it but it maybe looks a little less so. I’m not sure what I should do.

Normally I am more apt to follow family tradition than normal conventions, but I know people are so touchy about gifts, and my mom wants to invite a lot of family friends who may not be as adjusted to our traditions. Fiance and I only know 25 people each to invite and it looks like now we’ll have at least 100. I don’t mind at all as long as I know the people, but I feel like that may be a game changer in terms of what rules we should follow.
Some of you are misunderstanding. The issue is that my mom wants to throw a bridal shower, I thought it was inappropriate to have a family member throw a shower. It’s not that I can’t make these decisions myself, but I am trying to weigh family tradition vs conventional tradition and find some sort of a balance, or a way to tell my mom she can’t throw it without hurting her feelings.

I was only planning on inviting immediate family, grandparents, aunts, and cousins– which is about 25 people each for my fiance and I, but my mom suggested a few other family members and close family friends that she thought would be hurt if we excluded them. I only excluded them because I thought we were paying the whole wedding ourselves and we couldn’t afford to add anyone else, but my mom offered to absorb the cost of the additional guests. I don’t mind, or else I wouldn’t allow it. She is not deciding for me who is invited. These guests would not be included if I did not want them there.
For the record, I meant she wanted to add more relatives to the actual wedding, I have no idea who she wants to invite to the shower and since I’m not throwing it I don’t really care who is invited. Between my friends, close relatives, and a few lady friends I am envisioning like 15 people. I would agree 100 people would be a little on the tasteless side.

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