by Sandy Malone, BRIDES
Owner of Weddings in Vieques, a destination-wedding planning company off the coast of Puerto Rico, Sandy Malone has helped countless couples plan their big day since 2007. Here, she dishes on the craziest mother-in-law stories.
It's hard to be the mother of the groom. Rarely do you get the credit for planning anything other than the rehearsal dinner and you definitely have to be prepared to play a backseat role to the mother of the bride. And if you're not terribly close to your future daughter in law, you might not have had much input on the wedding plans in general.
Here's the thing: It's great if the groom's mother can play an active role in the wedding planning if the bride wants her help. But if the bride has politely declined assistance, or you're just not that close to each other, sometimes it's better to look pretty, keep your opinions to yourself, and just be a well-behaved VIP at the wedding and reception. Even if you feel left out, don't take it out on the bride.
I've met some horrible, awful, really bad mothers of the groom at weddings over the years. Here are three of my favorite examples:
The MOG Who Taunted the Bride
At one wedding, we had a rain delay. So we had to execute a "Plan B" and move things under cover. While we were moving everything, the groom's mother was running in and out of the bridal suite playing "Chicken Little" and telling the bride the sky was falling and everything was a mess. She just wanted to upset the bride. Everything was fine. The bridesmaids eventually tossed her out.
The MOG Who Wouldn't Take No for an Answer
Sometimes the bride and groom do not want to follow the cultural traditions of their families, and so they opt to leave them out of their wedding plans. I recently had a mother of the groom who was determined to include the traditional capias (little lacy doilies the bride and groom pin on each guest in Puerto Rico) even though the wedding couple didn't want to do them. The bride acquiesced and agreed to have them displayed in a basket with a note at the reception, but the minute the couple was away taking formal pictures, the mother of the groom and her sisters ran around and pinned doilies on every guests. Not exactly what the bride and groom wanted to see in their wedding photos.
The MOG Who Was Completely Insensitive
The bride's family wasn't in attendance at the wedding -- I mean not one single family member. It was lovely to see how her fiancé's family truly embraced her. Except for the hurtful, sneaky little stunts the mother of the groom kept trying to pull. The worst was when she requested the song "We Are Family" from the DJ. He played it, not knowing any better. Til we told him what was going on and took all family-related music off the table for future requests.
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