Is my only option to smile and shut up? I’m afraid that if I say anything, I’ll cry and maybe alienate them both.
Strange woman out: These are two different issues, which I will address separately — and I urge you to do the same. Until I get to the end and bring them both back to the only reasonable option: smile and shut up. But hopefully it won’t sound so bad by then.
First, there’s the “being involved in wedding planning” thing. I think it’s safer and happier for everyone if you assume they were sincere in encouraging your ideas – because that may be true even if they all shoot them down. Use your money.
Inviting someone to help with the planning does not guarantee liking their ideas. It’s not even necessarily personal. It may simply be a different view of the event.
You wouldn’t want them to adopt suggestions they don’t like just to please you, certainly.
If feeling needed or included is really important to you, then my advice is to pay close attention to the choices they make, imagine how marriage is shaping up in their minds, not yours, and see if you have something to add (you believe) makes the most of their vision. Or, simpler, just say, “Put me to work!” There is no need to plan. I will also do errands and busy work. Perhaps it was their idea to “participate” from the beginning.
But you know what? You can read everything I just wrote and say “No”. Because asking me what I think is not the same as promising you’ll take my advice – and I’m still “involved”, pecking at my ideas, just less helpfully than I would have hoped.
The second thing is to exclude his sister. That he ignored your plea for a different date has a far greater consequence than rejecting your advice on flowers or anything else. I am sorry.
I also balk, however, at your insistence they have “no good reason” for the date they ultimately chose. their step giving you one is different from their step having a. Only they have the full story, which includes the right not to share it.
Therefore, the attitude that gives you the best chance of getting out of this situation by still loving your son’s bride and not alienating them both is to trust them to have great reasons for their choice, too. sad as its consequences may be.
So here we are, as promised, at the smile-and-be-quiet buffet: it’s their wedding, and you’re here to love and celebrate them. Period. As long as you don’t stray from these fundamental truths, whatever you choose will be fine.
