I (27F) am cancelling my wedding to elope with my fiance (27M). My mother's controlling behaviour was a factor, how do I tell her without causing a huge fight?

When my fiance and I decided to get married we wanted to keep things very laid back and fuss-free. I've never been the sort of person to dream of a perfect big white wedding (not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just not me). The important thing to us is the marriage, not the wedding.

It seemed like everyone understood and supported that, but as we've progressed with the planning somehow things have snowballed to the extent we were organising a wedding twice the size we wanted with all sorts of things we originally said we didn't want to do like speeches and a first dance. A really big issue was the entertainment. We wanted a DJ, nothing fancy just someone to play some songs everyone would know with a bit of cheese to have a laugh and let our hair down at the end of the night.

My mother was dead set against this and wanted a live band. This was the first decision where we wanted something that she didn't. She could not accept it. She tried getting other family members to talk to me out of it while pretending she was okay with it, saying that it was unfair to our guests who wouldn't like it, asking if we would consider a live/DJ combo after we had already found someone we liked.

When we declined all this it got nastier. She out of the blue phoned me and said when we visited we would have to stay in a hotel because she couldn't trust that my fiance wouldn't bring weed into her house (he does smoke it but only at home, he hasn't and would never bring it to my parents' and the only reasons she knows is because I'd previously mentioned it). She said that she needed to know the wedding day would go smoothly but she had concerns about my fiance's family falling out during the day because of "what I'd confided to her about his difficult childhood" (her words). She said that it was very unusual for a wedding to go ahead when a decision had been made that was against what the family of the bride wanted (she is the only one with the issue over the music) and so we had to be very clear with the venue that this was a "split wedding" and have a separate space downstairs with separate entertainment for people who didn't like DJ music. At the moment she isn't speaking to me at all and it's been like this for weeks.

This whole issue has caused us to take a step back and think again about what we want. We decided that all this stress, negativity and pressure was just not what we wanted for the start of our marriage and that an intimate, meaningful elopement is the right way to go. Although the issue with my mother was the catalyst to us making this decision, ultimately we have chosen it for us and not because of her. We have told a few people, including my Dad, sisters and close friends, and they couldn't have been more supportive and loving in their reactions. I'm not anticipating the same from her. I think she will take the decision as a specific way of insulting and hurting her and may hold onto it as a grudge against us. How can I tell her without making it seem that she is the main reason for us cancelling our original plans?

TLDR: Mother's actions have been a factor in my fiance and I cancelling our big wedding to elope. I'm unsure how to tell her without making it seem like the decision is all about her.

Submitted June 02, 2021 at 01:17AM by Diffindo_ https://ift.tt/2S2JiFj