Should I Invite FMIL to Cake and Food Tasting?

I had so much fun with my family at the tasting. I brought my FH, mom, dad and little brother. It was a nice thing to do as a family. I do think that FMIL felt left out (we did invite her), but she lives too far to travel for that, so we're trying to schedule the cake tasting with her. I think it's nice that she wants to be part of the activity, just make sure your parents don't feel left out? Lots of people bring their parents. Just make sure she doesn't try to impose her menu on your wedding. Maybe invite a 4th person as a buffer? MOH, your mom/dad, siblings? I do think it's a little weird that she just assumed she was invited. If you or your parents are paying for bulk of meal, it's not her right to go. Maybe she thought as a professional, she'd be helpful?

If she treats you well and with respect I don't see why not. Also helps to have someone with experience in the wedding world.

I think it would be nice to include her, but if you really don't want her there then tell her you want it to be just the two of you. You can also try letting her know that you have picked the food and are not open to changing it to try to circumvent some of the critiques.

Both my parents and my FIL's came to the tasting. It was a group thing tho, the venue basically had a buffet of all the food for the couples getting married in the next 6 months. So it was a nice night out for all of us.

My parents came to a tasting with us. His parents were invited. We also did one tasting alone. I wish I would've taken people to both even the same people to get opinions. When I did my cake tasting it was around easter and my MOH graciously brought cupcakes from the bakery we were looking at to Easter dinner so we could get opinions. I think its good to have others opinions on food. We were going to do pulled pork and lasagna but we decided it didnt go together. So we are doing a burger/sandwich bar. You're lucky she plans weddings! She will be a great resource!

It's completely up to you. We invited all of our parents to joint us for the tasting. I love my mother in law and she and I have a great relationship, but she can be overbearing sometimes. FH also has a tendency to agree to whatever she says without really thinking it through. He and I sat down ahead of time and decided what we would involve everyone in.

ETA: He and I are paying for the wedding ourselves.

We went cake tasting with his parents and food tasting with mine. It was a very fair/balanced way to do it. We valued all of the input.

It sounds like you are a little insecure and don't know her very well. Who's really paying and making the decisions?

Every family is different and every wedding is different. No time like the present to get to know her better, keep an open dialogue with your FH and decide what you want.

This is highly dependent on your relationship with FMIL. We have brought my mom and FILs to most tastings. In our situation, FILs are making a major financial contribution and are also incredibly kind and not pushy. FH is also the only living child they have, so I would not feel right excluding them from wedding planning given how they have had appropriate boundaries and allowed us to make our own decisions in our relationship. MOB is far less appropriate, but I have many years of experience of telling her no when she goes overboard.

Do you want her there?

I really enjoyed the alone time me and my husband had during the tasting. I would recommend alone.

If you don't want her there, tell her no. But you can't really use the "it's supposed to be just for the couple" excuse because its not true, it's for whoever you want it to be for and I'm sure she knows that.

Also my parents and FH's parents live in different states, so there was never going to be "fairness" in which parents got invited to what. I love both of our families and would have been happy to invite everyone to everything, but realistically no one was going to travel that much, so each has been involved in things the other wasn't. That's okay. You don't have to have equal representation from both sides at everything.

I think bringing people to the tastings can be very helpful. Keep in mind that your guests will be eating everything you serve so getting ideas of what others would like apart from you and your FH may help.

If FMIL takes the attitude that well, I am a planner, I know better, that would get old pretty quick to me. Either FH takes her aside and tells her that her opinion is not the law or leave her home.

And I disagree, OP is not being insecure. It is tough when some people think their opinion is the law.

Really the question is do you want her there and do you want her opinions? If you decide you don't want her there, just tell her it's something that ye would like to do ask a couple and ask her advice if there is anything in particular you should ask them. that would show her that you do value her opinion but just want to go yourselves. I have to say our tasting was just the two of us and we had a really lovely evening out. I'm really glad we go to go just the two of us.

FH and I don't have any friends or family that live close by so we haven't had anyone join us in the planning process. If my parents of FIL's were close, I still don't think I would ask them to come. I think of the planning process as a special time for FH and I, and I wouldn't want extra opinions clouding my thoughts.