We've all heard horror stories of overbearing mothers- or fathers-in-law who got just a wee bit demanding about their kid's wedding (especially if they're the ones paying). If you've experienced that firsthand, then you know how suddenly it stops being your and your partner's wedding and starts being "ours" — as in theirs. Such was the harsh lesson one future bride on Reddit had to learn after her future mother-in-law asked both her and her fiancé to sign a contract promising they would only have one child. And in exchange? She would foot the bill for their entire wedding.
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Even though the bride claims she never wanted a big wedding, her big day is turning out to be pricey – totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.
As she explained in her Reddit post, which has since been deleted, she was surprised when her fiancé's mom volunteered to foot the bill for the whole thing. "She’s mainly the one who wanted it to be a large affair anyway," she wrote.
But as the wedding date continued to inch closer and closer, her future MIL sprung something on the couple that left them both shook.
"MIL suddenly presented us with a contract stating that I am only allowed to have one child and must immediately get on contraception after his/her birth," the bride wrote. "I have literally never heard of anyone being in a remotely similar situation to this before and am pretty sure it has no legal standing at all."
Um, well … yeah.
Even worse? Her MIL has given her and her fiancé an ultimatum: Either sign the contract or she’ll cut off the wedding funds.
"This wedding has gotten extremely expensive (in the hundred thousands)," the bride continued, "and while we are grateful, the fiancé and I were planning on eloping to begin with since we couldn’t afford it and had no desire to have a large celebration. I’m not even sure I want more than one child but it just seems absolutely INSANE that anyone would have a say in that aside from me and the father."
Redditors were pretty much in agreement on this one: Cancel everything now and elope.
"Cancel it all and walk away," wrote one person. "Elope with your SO and do not let her control anything else in your life."
They also were sure to let her know that her MIL was straight-up NUTS to make a request like that.
"Cancel the wedding, elope and cut the crazy [expletive] off," another commenter added.
But when it came to the eloping suggestion, the bride said that wouldn't be so easy.
"I’ve looked into it and cancelling would still mean we’d have to pay for all the things that have been booked already or pay her back for anything that has had a deposit put down," she explained.
Someone else, however, wasn't so sure things would go down like that.
"Unless it's in your name I wouldn't even make the effort," the person advised. "That's her [expletive] tax. How does your [Future Husband] feel about this dumb [expletive] children ultimatum? Is it possible she doesn't actually have the $$ for the wedding and is hoping you cancel the wedding so she's not on the hook for it anymore?"
In a follow-up response, the bride did take a moment to clarify some things about her 'Mommy Dearest'-esque future MIL.
First, she explained that all of the contracts for her wedding are in her MIL's name only, but she insists it hasn't seemed like a control thing.
"She has been nothing but generous and considerate thus far, so this contract seems extremely out of the ordinary for her behavior," the bride said. "She has never displayed this kind of controlling behavior before and we aren’t sure where it is coming from."
That's especially true because in the past, her MIL seemed excited for grandchildren.
"She occasionally makes comments about how she will spoil our child in ways that we cannot," the bride explained, "and that she has no problem sending our child to schools and programs that are out of our reach."
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But to be fair, there have been some signs that she was capable of something like this.
"She is the type who always has lawyers on retainer if need be," the bride said, adding that now she's afraid if they don't comply with her wishes, she'll try to stick them with the wedding bill. "She has not yet stated that she will use the court of law against us, but with the contract and everything I’m afraid it is a possibility."
As for her fiancé? He seems confident this whole thing will blow over.
"He is as surprised as I am at his mother," the bride wrote. "But he doesn’t think she could possibly try to uphold the contract in the future."
In short, he thinks she's bluffing and that eventually, she'll get over it and "won’t care how many kids we pop out when the time comes."
"He thinks she’ll love them regardless," she adds (and we sure hope so). "But I can tell he is a bit nervous about testing her and worried about why she’s acting this way."
As you might imagine, the whole thing is just, well, uncomfortable.
"We’ve never discussed with her in detail how many children we’ve wanted as the fiancé and I aren’t even sure," the bride continued. "We cannot think of any reasons why she might want us to limit our offspring. The fiancé and I both have siblings that we love very much."
In the end, she insists that the MIL is "a fairly logical and level headed woman otherwise" – but honestly? It sure doesn't sound like it.
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
