Thursday, June 21, 2012

Sober-Crazy MIL

This is from my brother's wedding. Fortunately planning mine has mostly been smooth sailing.

I somehow became my brother's MIL's best friend during his wedding, probably because I work around obnoxious drunk people all day (bartender) so sober-crazy doesn't faze me. I first met her at the "bridesmaid's luncheon" the day before the wedding when she spent the time before her daughter, the bride, showed up going on and on about how irresponsible and immature her daughter was, and how "she thinks she knows what she's doing but she clearly doesn't!" This was in regard to the bride not including some "key shots" in her list for the photographer, and how she was going to regret not having those shots "for the rest of her life." After my future sister-in-law got there, they got into a yelling match over whether the flower girl's flowers were peach or ivory, and the fact that SIL "didn't care one way or the other" was yet another sign of her immaturity. 

That night was the rehearsal. I helped unload the car and ended up carrying a shadow box display case. "What's this for?" I asked MIL once we were inside. "Well," she replied, "it's for the ring bearer's pillow topper in case he proves he can't handle the responsibility. We'll display it by the guest book for everyone to see."

For you see, she had spent 1300 (?? her estimate) hours making this thing (imagine a doily that is supposed to lay on top of the ring pillow), and it was just "too precious" to trust to the ring bearer if he demonstrated a lack of care for it. To see if he was up for the task, she made a "practice pillow" out of some old dish rags for the rehearsal.

The ring bearer, our adorable 3-year old nephew (who gifted us with the tearful outcry upon learning his title, "...bear?...I'm not a bear! I'm Damian!!") was, you know, 3 years old, and probably not up to the great responsibility of a pillow doily. He was given the practice pillow with five minutes of stern instruction from MIL, followed by a prayer from MIL that the Holy Spirit guide him in this task. I'm not kidding.

Rehearsal began, Damian did a surprisingly dignified strut down the aisle to his father (our brother/best man), where he dutifully stood for about 30 seconds. MIL was looking pleased as punch, and then the color drained from her face as Damian then shouted "THIS IS BORING!", sprinted back up the aisle, and threw his pillow into his mom's face as hard as he could.

MIL burst into tears and ran out of the sanctuary. 

Various other drama aside (including MIL deciding the pillow topper didn't get enough viewing by the guest book and positioned the shadow box next to the cake at the reception), she then decided it was appropriate to spend half an hour telling me about how unsuitable she found my brother and how it was going to take 20 years of a happy marriage for her to believe this was a good decision.

17 comments:

  1. Oh God she sounds just like my future MIL. She told my tearfully proud mother she had 'forgotten we were even engaged'. After various horrible/weird/manipulative incidents I now refer to her as 'The Mental Sh*t'. Wait a few months and I'm sure I'll have a #weddinghorrorstory of my own to add.

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  2. This just made my day, I needed some perspective...
    I'm planning a wedding, it's six weeks away. I wanted 150 people, my dad cried, I invited everyone he wanted. We invited 320. Everyone is worried it will be hot, and they've voiced their concerns. I tell them not to come. I've spent way more money then I ever imagined I'd have in a bank account. I've been asked 'what should I wear' more times than I could bear. And last weekend my parents announced they are getting a divorce. Really? Some how hearing that other people's wedding experiences aren't all peaches and cream with perfectly placed glitter on top, makes me feel better! thanks :-)

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    1. Oh, my god, the "what do I wear" drives me crazy*. You are a grown-ass adult. You've been dressing yourself for over 30 years, you'll manage. We even had to create a Pinterest board to send to people for guidance (we had a camp wedding and people started thinking this meant we didn't want them to look nice - like, no dude, you can't wear shorts).

      * This actually drives me crazy in regular life, too - when girlfriends text to ask what I'm wearing to a given event. Like, I shouldn't have to dress BOTH OF US.

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    2. Ha! with you on this. I thought it was a great idea to do mismatched bridesmaids because each lady has her own sense of style, body type and all that. Besides, one less thing for me to stress about, right? Nope. Never ending "What do you want me to wear" hell.

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    3. omg i am doing the same thing. it was (oh wait the pain is still going on) horrible. all of a sudden no one is capable of picking out ONE dress! literally one of my girls has bought 8 dresses. EIGHT. and I'm still getting updates on how she's found another one...my wedding is in july. this one issue may have burst a brain vessel.

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    4. I had the same problem- one friend texted me about 5 times in the months leading up to my wedding asking if most people were wearing a long or short gown...I finally responsed "I am wearing a long white gown, not sure about everyone else" and she STILL didn't get it! She asked me again the week of my wedding, which I ignored. She was also asking all of our mutual friends what she should wear. The best was her text saying "Good luck on Saturday, I wanted to say that now because I am going to be busy and rushing down to your wedding from NYC and I may forget" because she wouldn't remember to tell me AT my wedding that she was attending??? And people think brides are the crazy ones- sometimes it's the guests!

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    5. Anonymous 4 or 5 or somethingJune 22, 2012 at 8:01 AM

      Oh god, yes, exactly. I did the mismatched bridesmaid dress thing, too, and that is EXACTLY what happened to me, too. Suddenly ladies don't know how to dress themselves and seem to be scared that I have opinions I'm not voicing.

      Nevermind the future mil who all I said was "the bridesmaids are wearing whatever blue they want, please just don't wear blue" and she flipped out for weeks about how she can't find anything blue, so was navy ok? Oy.

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  3. I love this week of wedding stories. It's like crazy pants Christmas.

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  4. This week is basically going to be "My EVERYBODY Is A Cunt," right?

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  5. So weird! That's literally EXACTLY what I was going to say. Are you a mind reader?

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  6. Flying Spaghetti MonsterJune 21, 2012 at 10:19 PM

    This is so excellent! Thankyou so much for everyone sharing their own torturous wonderment that is 'wedding'. Sometimes it's just all a bit much. Like, dude, it's just a wedding. Leave me alone and let me just enjoy this big party I'm organising for us to enjoy.

    Ps Damian??? Maybe the MIL had seen The Omen trilogy ;-)

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  7. This actually makes me feel slightly better about my own MIL. The doily by the cake story is so bad it's funny. Thanks!

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  8. This sounds like my mother! Some of the things this crazy lady said are verbatim quotes from my mom on my wedding day. She was obsessed with the wedding photographs and kept telling me I would regret my decisions "for the rest of my life." She was self-centered and needed attention. She expressed doubt about my husband. If there wasn't this detail about the doily thing, I would have suspected that I knew who wrote this. Haha!

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