Groom tells MIL; 'I'm not letting you pay for my wedding unless you respect my SPECIFIC wishes.' AITA? UPDATED

When this man is furious with his MIL leading up to his wedding, he asks the internet:

"AITA for telling my MIL I’ll pay for my wedding myself if she can’t respect my few wishes?"

I (25M) will be marrying my fiancé Gina (25F) later on this year. I proposed to her a little bit before Christmas and we’re aiming for a November wedding. Gina has two older brothers, only one of which has gotten married, and for one reason or another, my MIL (68F) was not involved in the planning of the wedding at all.

She was pretty hurt over this as she’s always wanted to help plan her children’s weddings, so when we got engaged, she offered to pay for most of the wedding, and in return we agreed to let her help with the planning. In my mind, as long as I’m marrying Gina I’m happy, so I was okay with her MIL's involvement. Then things got weird.

The only thing I’m really sticking to that I refuse to change is what I’m wearing. My mother died when I was very young, and she was the daughter of first generation Scottish immigrants. My grandparents moved from the north of Scotland in the 60’s and my mother was brought up learning about her parents culture.

Since she died, I’ve had a hard time connecting to that side of my family, and after my grandfather died a few years ago, I decided that I wanted to wear her family’s kilt when I get married. I talked about this with my fiancé before we got engaged, because it is an unorthodox idea, but she thought it was sweet and liked the idea.

A few days ago my MIL came up to me and told me I’d have to wear a traditional tux instead of a kilt. When I asked her why, she said it went against the view she had of Gina’s wedding, and that the colours of my mothers tartan clashed with the colours she had chosen for the wedding.

When I told her that this was pretty much the only thing I’m unwilling to budge on, she brought up how she’s paying for most of the wedding and wearing a tux is the least I could do.

When I brought this up to Gina she echoed the sentiment her mother had made about paying for the wedding. I’m able to pay for it myself, and I told Gina that I thought she understood how important this connection to my mother was to me, especially because she can’t be there, and if she wasn’t able to accept that than I’d pay for the wedding myself.

Gina told me I was being a bit of a d&k for being this stuck to what I want to wear, and once my MIL heard that I would just pay for the wedding myself, she got really upset because it’s always been her dream to plan Gina’s wedding.

I’m feeling like a bit of a d&k right now and was wondering if I should just wear a standard tux. My family’s kilt is really important to me but this is causing more conflict than I thought it would. AITA?

Before we give you OP's updates, let's take a look at some of the top responses:

faith writes:

Yea, NTA but if you marry this woman you are nuts. Her mother is intrusive and disrespectful of something so sentimental and important to you. It’s only going to get worse.

You are getting a glimpse right now of how life will be if you marry this person. You told her one thing was important to you and she could do whatever she wants for everything else, she ostensibly agreed, and now your needs are immaterial and you're a d&k for wanting anything at all your way.

You will be making a HUGE mistake marrying this person, your MIL will stomp all over your boundaries, and more importantly your wife doesn't give a crap how you feel and will happily join her...

mom in stomping on them and then go DARVO on you and make it like she's the victim and you're being an AH to have any wants or needs at all. This is red flag city - walk away or you will regret it, I absolutely guarantee it.

garttt writes:

NTA. My father and stepmother paid for my wedding, and if I had it to do all over again I would have told them to go f themselves and we would have found a way to pay for it ourselves.

They hated my mom, and insisted that she not be part of things AT ALL. She was not to come with me to shop for the dress, she was to have no role in any of the planning, her name was not to be included on the invitations, and the night of the rehearsal my stepmother threw an insane, frothing fit because she found out my mother was to be part of the receiving line after the ceremony.

It was a nightmare. You're better off just doing it yourself, and if your fiancee has an issue with that you're looking at just how much of a role your future MIL is going to have in your marriage. It's up to you if you want to deal with that or not.

fetsibal writes:

NTA.It doesn't matter who is paying, at the end of the day this is a wedding between two people. and ONLY the opinion of those two people matter.

When you add in other people paying, you do have to factor in what they want (inviting people, certain dates, etc), but you don't have to do anything they want you to do.

And in your case, you said fine, you'll pay if this is a problem. So you aren't even reliant on their money.

I think you need to be deeply concerned that for an event celebrating you and your fiancée's love and and commitment to each other for life, your fiancée has made it clear that this wedding is about her and her mother, not you.

You want to celebrate your family, and wearing a kilt isn't that unorthodox in the sense that people outside the culture know what they are and that people wear them as formal attire.

And even if it really was an odd thing, your fiancee is telling you directly that what is important to you doesn't matter to her, or her mother. But what her mother wants is very important.

My belief is that the reason a wedding is a great idea is because wedding planning is a test of all the fundamentals of a relationship- can you agree on a budget, do you handle money they same way, how do you handle conflict...

how do you compromise, how do you deal with family, how do you view family and friends- and how a couple navigates compromise and issue is crucial.

Your fiancee has now demonstrated a few big failures- failure to advocate for you to her mother, not prioritizing your feelings over her mother's, putting an aesthetic over your values, not showing empathy for you. I'd take a giant step back before committing to a life of this.

fake5 writes:
Don’t marry her. For real. This is the shape of things to come; she will always side with her mother over you.

And honestly, f the both of them. They both want you to be a dress-up doll and don’t give a damn about how important that family history connection is to you. They only care about how the bride looks.

Find a woman who loves kilts. One of my friends went full tartan for his wedding, and unbeknownst to him, his wife had her garter made in his tartan colors. He nearly cried. Another friend had every man/boy in the wedding party wearing kilts.

Both are great couples still, years and years later, because they respect and support each other. She’s doing the opposite. Find someone who will wear a plaid garter for you. NTA. PS: If you insist on the wedding, wear a tartan tux.

great54 writes:

NTA. Start by reminding your fiance that you explained before you even got engaged that you wanted to wear the kilt, and she not only agreed but said she liked the idea.

If she is not willing to back you on this by either force her mother to stop and change the flower colors to match the kilt since that is a specific issue or support him paying to remove payment from being held over your head. If she is not willing to stand with you on this, it doesn't bode well for your marriage and future. Your future MIL is also showing by her behavior that she will be a problem.

I suggest you pause the wedding planning so you and your fiancée can get on the same page and discuss boundaries for her mother. Once everything is agreed to, go back to planning the wedding. If your fiancée sticks to backing her mother, you should consider if you want to always take the backseat to her mother.

Remember that actions speak much louder than words and her behavior now is telling you a lot.

And now OP's Update:

So the past 24 hours or so have been eventful. I took most peoples advice and talked to my Fiance about this issue before going forward. Her siding with her mother like this and going against me was really out of character so I felt like I really needed to figure out what was on the go.

The long and the short of it comes down to money. Gina doesn't make as much of a salary as I do (I make almost 2.5x her salary), despite this shes pretty insistent of things being 50/50 between us.

Our finances aren't combined until after marriage because of some weird tax issues and legal things in our home region, but even with me making more she insists we're a team and have to go 50/50 on big things...

(rent, car payments, electrical, wedding, etc...) so even though I'm able to pay for the wedding myself, shes not able to pay for the half she feels like she'd want to pay. Because of this she's really clinging to the idea of her mother paying for our wedding, even though I'd be more than happy to pay for it all myself.

We talked yesterday evening, and she said that since she accepted her mother paying for the wedding, their relationship has become pretty strained, with MIL pretty much taking over the wedding planning.

Apparently MIL was initially pushing for a tropical destination wedding in Jamaica, an idea Gina put down quickly as she knows I hate the idea of destination weddings, and MIL had even tried to get final say on the dress Gina was going to wear...

as well as she wanted final say over who the bridesmaids were (she wanted her friends daughters who Gina is not close with in the party).

I've had a pretty good relationship with MIL so far so I found it kind of odd how she went total momzilla, but I have noticed her and Gina drifting apart a bit, although I never thought it was related.

A few people thought that Gina actually hated the idea of the kilt and had MIL acting as the bad guy to try and change my mind, and you're not completely wrong. She doesn't hate the idea, but really doesn't like that the other male members of the bridal party will be wearing tux's while myself and my cousin would be wearing kilts.

She wanted consistency across the board and had expressed this to her mother. MIL took this as the opportunity to get me to wear a tux instead of getting the groomsmen to wear kilts, and had the wedding colors changed (without Gina's knowledge) to contrast with my family's tartan.

When I talked to Gina yesterday, she said that she had just gotten out of a massive fight with her mother over changing the colours, and really wasn't in the mood to start another argument with her.

She acknowledged she was in the wrong for siding with her mom, and seemed genuinely sorry. She said that in the stress of planning a wedding while having an overbearing mother, she had thought of the kilt as another detail, and had forgotten the significance of it to me, and that she was really sorry.

In the meantime a few changes have been made, my MIL is no longer paying for the wedding, and no longer involved in planning. I'm going to pay half...

Gina never wanted me to pay more than half by myself for something that's for both of us, and my FIL is covering the parts that Gina is going to have some trouble covering (MIL is unaware of this, FIL and MIL are still together however he's not telling her he's helping pay).

We're still getting married in November, Wedding colours have been changed back to match my kilt, and we've decided to rent kilts in our regional tartan for the rest of the groomsmen so that they match the aesthetic. Thankfully no deposits were put down on things like tux rentals, bridesmaid dresses, or decorations so no money lost.

I know a lot of people told me to seriously reconsider marrying Gina, and going into our talk last night I really was, but I'm happy with how things turned out since this really was an anomaly in her behavior, and I really am excited to marry her.

I’m happy this seems to be working out the way you want but you still need to be careful. If fiancée is still hung up on the 50/50 to the point she “forgets” things that are more important than money, how is that going to work for things like purchasing a home or a vehicle or having children or whatever other large purchases that are a normal part of life. Good luck!