Who should get to decide wedding details? It seems like the answer should be the bride and the groom, but many times, relatives often seem to think that they should have final say instead.

In today’s story, the bride’s mother is the one who wants to change all of the plans about her daughter’s big day, and her daughter isn’t sure if she should give in to her mother or not.

Let’s read all the details.

AITA if I don’t want to invite my family to my elopement?

Hey all-my mother (61f) and I (29f) I have been barely maintaining a relationship since I was in middle school.

She’s not a bad person exactly, but I think a lot of her personal traumas and life experiences have made her someone who takes out her feelings on others.

She always has to be the center of attention, and gets very upset when she is not.

I try to encourage her to seek therapy but she refuses.

We’ve had many periods of no contact due to her behavior over the years, but-perhaps foolishly-I’m currently trying again to talk with her semi-regularly.

She’s going to get married.

Eventually, I am getting married to my long-time partner.

We have a ring but we’ve never set a date because the whole process is really stressing both of us out, as we are not particularly close to either of our families.

He only has one parent, who is currently on low contact due to an addiction and history of abuse.

She had a suggestion about how to manage the marriage celebration.

A couple months ago, I floated the idea of just inviting our two best friends out (as we do not live in the country anymore) so we can elope and then spend a few days celebrating with people who loved/supported us for years.

The plan would be that we rent a nice hotel for the four of us, without making a big deal of any traditions.

This way, we could later have dinner with both of our families separately (our families do not talk to each other) and nobody feels like they were singled out.

My mother hated the idea.

Her mom had a completely different idea.

Today, she called (one of many times) and asked us again to fly back to her town for the event but I said no.

My partner and I had talked about it already and neither of us think it would be fair to have a wedding that we don’t want and where only one half of the family can attend.

She blew up.

She screams at me about how I don’t love her or respect her.

Her mother made some wild suggestions.

I explain to her again that I’m not trying to make his family feel like they were purposely left out.

And she says “how will they know? We don’t talk”.

But we all know they will eventually find out, obviously.

She then went on to say that it’s her right as my mother to be there and it’s unnatural for someone not to want their mother at their wedding, and I clearly don’t really love my partner to rob him of a wedding (which he wants less than me).

“You’re probably subconsciously unhappy and you’re marrying for the wrong reasons”.

It was both bizarre and complete nonsense.

She’s not sure what to do about the elopement plans.

I told her we could plan a nice dinner after the elopement and do whatever she wanted then.

We just want something different.

I really don’t want to create problems, and I thought it was the best choice…but now I’m worried I could be wrong.

My partner and I moved far away to try and give us space to be ourselves, build a life, and recover from a lot of things in our childhood.

I want to try and repair things with my mother, but it always ends up in arguments and guilt trips.

We aren’t even engaged and I feel like my blood pressure is through the roof every time I think about this silly wedding.

AITA for wanting to elope without family in order to keep peace?

When I think of an elopement, I don’t picture a wedding with a lot of family.

I picture one or two witnesses and spontaneous plans.

Maybe the mistake was telling her mother about the idea at all.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

I agree; she never should’ve told her mother.

Here’s the dictionary definition for “elope.”

She shouldn’t let her mother’s opinion change her plans.

This is becoming a wedding and not an elopement.

She doesn’t seem to understand the point of an elopement.

This elopement is becoming a wedding.

And the bride isn’t happy.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.