Weddingbee boards

I love my mother dearly, and I would say that 90% of the time, we have a good, close relationship. Unfortunately, the 10% of the time when we disagree and don't see eye to eye seems to be all that is on the table when it comes to my upcoming wedding.

My mother is...not a happy person. From day one, she didn't want me to have a "traditional" wedding. She pushed FI and I to not have it at our family church. She pushed for a destination wedding. She pushed for a very, very small wedding. In the end, she got her way on a lot of it - we have kept the list small (looking at 60-75 people), we aren't getting married in the church. We didn't do a destination wedding, because it just wouldn't have worked for his family. I get what is going on here - she doesn't have a good relationship with either her, or my father's extended families, and it makes her uncomfortable to be around them. In the end, we didn't even invite any of her relatives, because she didn't want them there. She doesn't really even like to leave the house, and I think the idea of being "on display" is just causing her to act out, towards me.

This weekend, we had an awful, screaming/crying fight. I've been asking her to go buy a dress for the wedding for months. She has been putting me off. The wedding is 7 weeks away! I said something again about the lack of dress situation on Saturday, and how I would be more than willing to go shopping with her anytime she wanted to go, and she lost it on me - screaming at me that I am trying to control her, that I only want to be there to pick out the dress so I can make sure she is wearing something appropriate, so that she doesn't embarass me. I tried to tell her that that wasn't my goal at all, that it was a bonding moment, much like her going with me to buy my wedding dress, and she told me that she didn't care at all about helping me pick out that dress, and that I only wanted her there because she was paying for it. That was certainly not the case, and I was so hurt and upset that she turned what (I had thought) was a nice moment into something ugly.

Now, she tells me that she has purchased a dress online, but that I don't get to see it, or have any input on it, or anything that she wears. I'm not trying to be controlling, I just thought this is what mothers and daughters did - picked these things together, shared the experience. I'm just so upset, and so stressed out by her behavior. Does anyone else out there have a difficult mother, and what have you done to make this whole wedding process work better for her?

Thanks for the responses, ladies - glad to know I'm not alone! I'm just feeling so down, and so depressed about it all - I thought my Mom would be my rock, and a big help with all this wedding planning, and instead, she has been nothing but a pain. I'm just going to try and shut her out for the next 7 weeks, not get mad at anything she says or does, and try and enjoy planning my wedding.

This is almost exactly my FATHER. Everything went fine on the big day, though. thank goodness. He even said he had a good time, and I think he meant it. He did change out of his tux into blue jeans about half way through the reception...

Seeing him face-to-face and being able to talk through things beforehand was extremely helpful. I did almost all the planning without him, and whenever he would interject his two disapproving cents I would just say sorry, that decision was made 6 months ago (when he was too annoyed to help with anything). He was even criticizing things on my wedding day, but by that point, let me tell you, you won't care one bit.