It’s said that you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family.
Well, you can’t really pick your in-laws, either. And when it comes time to plan a wedding , you’d better believe there are some mother-in-law horror stories out there.
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Various subreddits are full of these stories, and r/JUSTNOMIL has some of the best of all.
“My MIL wore my wedding ring before I did.”
Redditor u/512916connie shared a wild story where her unsupportive MIL literally opened her husband’s mail containing a beautiful, custom-made wedding ring and tried on the ring beforehand.
Of course, her MIL was full of excuses for how things happened.
“My MIL threw a fit because her and fil’s names weren’t on the invitation.”
In this story, MIL literally paid her friends to spy on the bride-to-be .
“During the father-daughter dance, she corralled the photographer to take pictures of her and her friends so I have no professional, nice pictures of it,” wrote OP.
“My cousin’s MIL threatened to pull payment for her son’s and my cousin’s wedding if my cousin didn’t allow it to be an all military wedding.”
I’ve heard of themed weddings, but this is taking things too far.
While MIL is an air force veteran, the married couple were not military. Despite this, MIL insisted on making it a military wedding. Because she was paying for it, she got her way.
“We said we wanted something small.”
It seems like a simple directive to follow, but MIL couldn’t deal in this story.
“[She] went behind our backs and secretly invited a very large number of people including old school friends of mine that she didn’t even know.”
Talk about controlling.
Here , a wedding photographer asked a prospective client, the groom’s mom, if she’d be coming with the couple.
“Oh, not exactly,” replied his mom. It will just be me … they don’t want anything. My son will do as I please.”
No kissing photos.
It’s typical for the bride and groom to be photographed while sharing a kiss, but this momzilla said no way.
“Don’t take any photos of them kissing like you did at their engagement session, because they’re pure and it’s inappropriate,” she said, presumably with a straight face.
“My mom…is particularly jealous of other women, including me.”
u/algohn shares this wild tale:
“I invited her to go dress shopping out of guilt. I didn’t really want her to go but this is something you’re supposed to do with mom, right? Thankfully I also brought a small posse. It started when the group wanted a picture – my mother jumped out in front of everyone and struck a pose so she could dominate the picture.”
“Then she put her chair in front of the mirror so that I wouldn’t be able to see myself while standing on the platform. One of my friends had to tell her to move.”
“My sister’s future MIL is a teacher.”
No big deal, right? Well, she’s insisting that a September wedding, which works for everyone else, won’t work for her.
“She says it has to be in the winter so she can have time off to plan,” wrote OP.
“My mom was really offended by the thought that my SO and I were going to type the mailing addresses for the invitations, print them off onto stickers, and stick them to envelopes.”
It seems like a ridiculously small thing to get upset about, but MIL really took the cake with this one.
OP wrote, “My mom changed my invitations to something completely different, bought envelopes she liked, and used different stamps, too.”
“She ruined my bridal shower.”
“Hubby got a call while we were out to eat one day and because she didn’t get an invite (we had already cut ties),” wrote OP. “She thought screaming loud enough about it that I could hear her in a decently busy restaurant was the best idea. Not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things but the surprise of time and date were ruined.”
“My MIL decided that we needed hot cups and bought styrofoam disposable cups (????????) two days for the wedding.”
I guess she was really attached to those styrofoam cups, based on this account.
“Right before closing, I rented enough coffee cups to get us through, but at the reception she put out the styrofoam ones anyway, just because she wanted her cups out there,” wrote OP.
They didn’t want a religious wedding.
OP shares yet another story where MIL simply can’t respect the couple’s wishes:
“MIL kept saying we could use their minister, after we had repeatedly told everyone we wanted a non religious wedding. She kept saying he would not make it religious. After our first few choices could not make it she started to bring it up again, but this time it was ‘He will do it non religious… he just asks that you include one bible verse.’ “
When a wedding is so awful it cancels future weddings.
OP told a story that resulted in her and her significant other not having a wedding.
“[My sister’s] MIL picked out the dress, tried picking all the bridesmaids, and threw a fit when my sister chose our oldest sister as matron of honor,” she wrote.
No kids allowed.
“[MIL] declared that since they were paying for the rehearsal dinner, only adults were allowed,” OP wrote . “Never mind the fact that each of my siblings had at least one kid (so they all would have had to get babysitters) and several were directly involved in the rehearsal.”
She added people who weren’t invited.
After the RSVP date had already passed, this momzilla added more people to the table placements.
“It sucks having arranged a beautiful photo, with a frame for people to sign, and you don’t even like the people who wrote on it,” wrote OP. “Some of them were only known for three weeks.”
“This is a wild ride in which I did THE THING that got me banned from any of her family functions.”
Here, a friend of the bride outlined a story from the wedding in which the bride’s mom literally wore a white dress to upstage her daughter’s big day , among other things.
“The dress was clearly a wedding dress; it was even from David’s Bridal (which she would later shout at me),” OP wrote. “Floor length satin with a sweet heart beaded top, a bit of a train and off white lace on the bottom.” Yikes.
Wishing for rain.
In this insane story, the bride’s MIL pulled her aside, telling her she wanted it to pour rain on their outdoor wedding .
Why? Apparently it would force the bride to “learn [her] manners” and “put [her] husband before [herself].”
She added 80 people without approval.
They consisted of MIL’s friends.
“I had no idea who those people were that came to my wedding,” wrote the bride. “I had to find a bigger place to hold the reception because I was too timid to tell her I wasn’t OK with what she’d done.”
The holy spirit disagrees.
Here , the bride-to-be found a dress she loved.
“Her mom, however, was upset with the dress’s hemline – it wasn’t short or unorthodox or anything, it just didn’t ‘fall right.’ Long story short, she flipped out and kept insisting that , ‘The Holy Spirit is telling me that dress isn’t right for you!!!!'”
“Momzillas can be worse than Bridezillas.”
Here, an employee at a shop that sells wedding gowns told a tale of an entourage entering the store.
Things really blew up when the bride and her mom had a difference of opinion over aesthetics.
“I have dreamed about your wedding day since you were born,” said the mom. “In my dreams, you are always in an ivory dress. You need to do what I want you to do.”
