Etiquette Tips on How to Decline Wedding Planning Help?

Hmmm...it's a tough one. I would first minimize any wedding talk around the parent, and also decline any financial help from the. UNLESS the step parent and parent have combined marital funds and so the help is also coming from the parents, if that makes sense?

And when they do ask about wedding stuff, be really vague and talk about how you are enjoying making plans, you've discovered how much you love all the little details...general stuff, and then change the topic. When you change the topic, make it something to do with them that will catch their interest.

If they have social awareness, they'll pick up that you don't want any help.

Since you've said that you don't speak about the wedding much around them, then they could honestly just want to be nice and contribute. FMIL's bf is paying for our DJ as a wedding gift and we've only met him a few times, but he insisted. But I also think it's a delicate situation because you don't want to be rude, but you also don't want them to think they have automatic rights to wedding decisions just because they had a monetary contribution.

If she offers again and you truly want no help, just kindly say: "Thank you so much for your offer, I'm really grateful, but I would prefer to do/pay for xyz on my own." or " Thank you so much for your offer, but we would rather do this on our own, and would love for you to just focus on being our guest, and enjoying our wedding with us!"

Yeah I mean you're always going to get a different reaction from people regardless of your delivery of your message! You can't control how people react to things, but I think it's important to stand your ground, especially during wedding planning. There's been so many posts on here of people asking for advice because they let xyz pay for something or xyz is being overbearing and taking over the wedding planning because xyz paid for something.