I want to renovate our flat, but my mother-in-law insists on throwing a wedding loud enough for the whole neighbourhood to hear. Who’s going to cave first?
If she’d told me a year ago that I’d be arguing with my husband over a wedding, I’d have laughed. Isn’t love supposed to be the main thing? James and I have been together nearly five years. We live in my flat in Bristol, which I used to rent out for years before giving it up and doing the bare minimum to make it liveable. Now, though, it desperately needs a proper overhaul—plumbing, walls, wiring, floors. This isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity.
I suggested a compromise: a quiet registry office wedding, no fuss, no flashy reception. Just a nice dinner at home with our parents. The money we’d save could go into making our home better—into our *actual* life. But then one woman, tired reality check, barged into this perfectly sensible plan: James’s mother, Margaret.
“James is my only son!” she wailed. “How can you not have a proper wedding? We’ve been to all the relatives’ celebrations—are we just going to embarrass ourselves now? Everyone’s expecting it! The whole family already knows!”
“We never asked you to invite them,” I reminded her calmly.
“That’s not the point! I won’t have my son declawing himself at some council office like he’s picking up a loaf of bread!”
The thing is, I’ve never even *met* most of these so-called relatives. Who they are, where they’ve come from, how many they number—I’ve no idea. But Margaret’s already rung them all, pencilled in dates, and promised them a spectacle.
“You and James have savings, I’ve put a bit aside, and your parents might chip in—we’ll throw a proper wedding!” she declared cheerfully, steamrolling over any objections.
My parents, mind you, are on my side. They agree it’s better to invest in the house than blow tens of thousands on a one-day dress and a marquee full of distant cousins. Still, they said they’d help if we decided to do it—no pressure, no guilt trips.
But Margaret won’t have it. To her, this wedding isn’t about *us*—it’s about *her*. About how she’ll look to her family. And to turn the screws, she’s resorted to emotional blackmail.
“If you don’t give James a proper wedding, I won’t have a son anymore. I don’t want to know you. You’re a disgrace!”
I looked at James. He stayed quiet. And then… he started leaning her way. Not because he agreed, but because he felt sorry for her. Because she was crying, carrying on about being humiliated and abandoned.
So I laid it out plainly:
“If your mother wants a wedding, she can pay for every last bit of it. We’re not pitching in—not me, not my parents. Not a single penny.”
Cue the grand finale:
“I don’t have that kind of money!” Margaret shrieked. “But it’s not like *you’re* living in a cardboard box!”
And there we are. Stalemate. James is caught in the middle. I’m baffled. The flat feels like a pressure cooker about to blow. He doesn’t *demand* a wedding, but he can’t undo the mess either—now it’d be “awkward” to back out because the invites have basically been unofficially issued. And I just don’t get it—since when do random relatives matter more than our future?
I’m not *against* a wedding if it were actually *our* choice, not Margaret’s one-woman West End production. But I want a home where the air doesn’t smell like damp, where the taps don’t rattle like a ghost, where the kitchen doesn’t predate the internet. I want comfort, not forced merriment for the sake of photos we’ll forget in a year.
And if standing my ground means a showdown with Margaret, so be it. My home, my rules. And if James is still my partner—not just his mother’s son—he’ll understand.
