FI and I have been planning a small destination wedding for a while now and I recently found out that FMIL sent invitations to over 100 people for a surprise party to celebrate our impending nuptials before our wedding. We really wanted to keep everything small, but FI's family has always had big weddings and FMIL was disappointed she didn't get to host a big one.
One of FI's cousins just broke the news to us when she got her invitation to this surprise party in the mail. We're both very upset but we have no idea what to do. We don't want to embarrass FMIL, but this just seems like an awful idea. FI's mortified and wants to tell everyone not to bring gifts. I just really want to cancel it.
I'm also very annoyed that she went ahead and worked around our dream intimate destination wedding that we are paying for ourselves specifically so we could limit the guest list. Now it feels like this large party might overshadow our little thing in Mexico.
How do we navigate forward?
