Mother (in law) and Daughter Conflicts Over Wedding Venues
How do you prevent a fight?
By Natalie Tsang
November 7, 2011
Your mother or mother in law is pushing you to pick a venue that just doesn’t feel right. What do you do? How do you let her down gently? Or do you just go along with it?
Situation #1
Your family or future in laws has a discount at a venue. They are also paying for the reception and are pressuring you to choose this venue. What do you do?
It’s good to assume that this is coming out of pure and good intentions, and you should frame your response in those terms. Perhaps they are just trying to be helpful. It is best if you have another venue that you like that is the same price or less. However, if you do not, you should have clear reasons why this venue is not appropriate. For instance, the phrase “it just didn’t feel like me “ is extremely vague while rationale about size, place, and expense are much more concrete and specific.
Unfortunately, those who hold the purse strings do hold the power. Since they are paying for the reception, they should be included in the selection of the venue, but it still is your wedding. If it is your groom’s family, you should not count too much on your groom for support. It’s one thing if she is openly disrespectful to you, but if she's just pushy then involving extra people can cause the problem to snowball into World War III. The groom has after all grown up with her being like this and may not see anything wrong with letting her have her way.
If you cannot stand having your wedding at that venue, tell her firmly that this topic is not for discussion, but start considering financing your own reception.
Situation #2
You have decided that you want a small wedding. Your mother or your future mother in law wants to help out to make it a larger affair, but you’re happy with something small and intimate. What do you do?
The first thing you should do is to thank them for their generosity, but explain that their idea of a dream wedding is not the same as yours. Tell them that it’s not that you don’t appreciate them or you don’t want to take their money, but it is important that you and your fiancé do this together.
If she is stubborn, you can always draw up a list of compromises.If they are concerned about the guest list, some families do pay for extra heads to invite more guests. This happens when one family is significantly larger than the other.
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