Demanding future mother in law, not paying for any of wedding....How do I deal!!!?

Hm... having your FMIL demand that people get invited is tough - we had to deal with that too (though at least in our case, they have contributed about 10% so far and we know she wants to do more, but we're not sure what the exact figure is...).

Anyway, I guess the first question is - can your venue hold all these "extra" people?

The second - can you afford all these people? (If you're like us, our venue could hold the people, but we couldn't afford them!)

If either of these are true, I think you need to sit down with her (and your FH) and discuss it. If it's the latter, mention that you'd love to have all those people there (even if you wouldn't ) but that you just can't afford to have them there. Mention that if they want them there, unfortunately they'll have to handle the finances of it because you're on a fixed budget. If it's the venue, well then, you should sit down and figure out how many of those spots you and FH will need and then dole out the rest to (cont)

If she's not financially contributing anything to the wedding you have every right to say no. As far as the extra invitees go, tell her you want to keep the wedding small and intimate or point out that you don't actually know any of these people and you don't want a bunch of strangers at your wedding. You have to be clear and firm with her.

Both sets of parents. Again, explain that you'd love to include everyone but because of constraints with the venue you fell in love with, you just can't.

If it's a matter of just not knowing the people, if you really don't want them there, maybe compromise a bit. Say that you're hoping to keep the wedding small 'cause that's always been a dream. You'd love to keep it to just close friends and family, but you'd love to share a certain number of spots with her for her closest friends too.

Good luck!!!

My FH and I decided that the guest list is the hardest and most stressful part of wedding planning.

I would tell her, first, that you are not organizing your shower, and that whoever is needs to limit it to people YOU know, and second, tell her that you will have to make some tough choices about your guest list b/c of (venue, budget, etc.) constraints, that you don't expect there to be many (or any) extra spots, but that you will let her know if there are. (An alternative - give her a number of people who she can invite and tell her that neither your venue nor your budget will allow any more.)

She's not going to be happy at being reigned in, so expect some sort of backlash, but I would do it anyway. She has no right to add to either guest list. Neither the wedding nor the shower are *her* social events, although it sounds like she would like them to be.

As some point, you put your foot down, nicely, and in a big red stiletto and let her know that this is your wedding, and finances/logistics of the hall have required you to make some difficult choices regarding who is coming and who is not; that even some of your friends/colleagues are not on the list.

As for the shower, traditionally, the bride has nothing to do with it (nor, in most cases the parents; the BM's initiate the event and would probably ask each mom about who should be invited, but these should only be people who are invited to the wedding.

I am a big advocate of "getting to 'no'". The fact that you are having so much stress over this is a clear indication that you need to take care of it now and get it off your emotional plate. Approach it without drama, get it over so you can stop dreading the conversation and move on to the aspects of planning you're really enjoying.

And good luck for a wonderful, intimate day with the people you truly want to be in attendance.

Thank you all for the great advice. Explaining budget restraints & caterer commitments (we have to pay for the exact amount of people whether they come or not, which I think is standard) and with a firm grip, is the way to go. I didn't mention she also asked us to move into her vacant home to save us money for the wedding as her contribution (which we did even though we didn't want to) but then after we moved she made us pay rent,(so we are moving out next week bc of the false pretenses under which we moved) so I've got a pretty good handle on her priorities and handling it with class now. Also, it's her daughter-my dear friend, future sister, and MOH that is throwing the wedding shower so it's all somewhat laughable.