Weddingbee boards

So my wedding isn't for another 2 years but I'm trying to be really organized and regardless, I've had my ideas for a dream wedding in my mind forever and am just really excited to start planning.

So yesterday we finally head over to FMIL's house (which we try to avoid as much as possible) and I actually was kind of excited to share all my plans with her. So I start showing her pics for the venue, colours, cake, dresses etc. What does she do? Tell me she doesn't like any of them!! Everything I showed her she made this disapproving face and just nodded and said oh. Then she would say "why don't you do this instead, it'll look nicer" to almost every thing I had planned! We are having a beach themed wedding so I found this perfect hotel that has palm trees and waterfalls inside in an atrium for the ceremony and she just hated it. She said we should have it at this old historic building, and I pointed out that the beach theme didn't really work there with all the antiques everywhere and she said "well is a beach theme really necessary?" with such a rude tone. Ugh, yes it's necessary because thats my dream wedding and we got engaged on a beach so it's meaningful to us! We wanted a steel drum band to play at the cocktail hour and she said that was weird and a piano would be classier. She said she hoped those weren't the bridesmaid dresses we were actually picking when I showed them to her. She also started listing off all these people that we weren't allowed to sit next to her! I'm going to have to give her her own table at this point!

I think the thing that annoyed me the most though was that when I told her about the photographer I liked she started talking about how she was going to make sure he got enough good shots of her because at her other sons wedding there weren't enough pictures of her! I understand wanting to have photos with your sons, but the way she was saying it was like she already had a plan to boss around the photographer and tell him what to do! Which she does on a regular basis so I wouldn't be surprised! I'm going mad because she doesn't understand that this is OUR day NOT hers and the photographer is there to take our picture, with our friends and family, not her picture with them!

I really really DO NOT want her to come dress shopping with me because I'm terrified I will find my dream dress and have her say its ugly or something :( But she doesn't have any daughters of her own so I think she would get really angry if I didn't invite her :P

I know that no matter what it's impossible to please everyone but honestly I'm just really hurt right now because I was so excited about everything I had planned, it was coming together perfectly, and then to just hear her rip apart everything sayings its tacky or not classy enough really really hurt.

Thanks to anyone who actually read all of that, I just needed to vent for a bit :(

Thanks so much everyone! I was having a really rough day and started second guessing everything and was about to start over from scratch, but you guys are right. It's not her day, its ours, so I need to just stay focused on that and make sure I stick to what I would like for my wedding. Thanks for cheering me up :)

I agree with all.  The one thing you can control is how you react to all her negativity.  Brush off her comments and go forward with your plans.  Remember that she is probably not going to like anything you do, even if you changed it all to suit her, she'd not be happy, some people just are negative about everything.  Practice saying "I'm sorry you don't like that or agree with us.." and smile and say, "It will be such a wonderful day."  And then have your wonderful day.

Thanks for all the great advice!

The funny thing was that when we were telling her, it was never open for discussion or her input. We were simply telling her this is what we picked and just showed her a picture so she would know. lol Lesson learned though! She's always been super critical but I guess we were silly in hoping she might tone it down when it related to our wedding. Oh well, everyone's right, she doesn't need to know everything so I guess she just won't lol. And thanks for the great advice for how to deal with dress shopping, I'm definitely less stressed about it now!

I'm just going to continue planning everything without her bercause all the BM's and my parents love the idea and that is good enough for me :) Just had a bad day after hearing the negative feedback from her but you've all done a great job of reminding me that that doesn't matter! :)

Thanks Bees! You're all awesome! :)