Another holiday season come and gone....
Ahh its nice to be home. Not nice to be back on the job or once again away from all of my friends, but nice. It was, as expected, a drama-filled vacation that so didn't need to be. Once again, my mother and her Oscar-winning performances nearly ruined all my happiness and holiday joy, although Kevin did win the bet: there were no tears shed or huge fights errupting until Friday (he bet Thursday, while I, the pessimist, had bet on Tuesday).
I think I am going to write a book about how to get through wedding planning as a daughter with a neurotic mother. I swear. I even prefaced the entire trip with a Tuesday morning pep talk after Kevin and I slept in (we flew in to PDX at 3:00am, went to bed around 5:30am). I told her "And there won't be any fighting this time!!!". Yeah. Wishful-fucking-thinking.
It started to simmer on Wednesday when our would-be photographer came over and right before my mom was quickly going over the budget and I heard her say "Ok, so we'll plan on $300 for the phographer" and I said "Um actually I budgeted 1200." She about shit her pants. We got away with hiring this person for $990, but my mother was sticker-shocked. If she wasn't stuck in the 80s she'd know that something of this level requires a price range of about $1000. All good photograpehrs in the valley have a sticker prices of $1200. Her attitude was higher than the price of the photographer...and she seemed to be aiming all that negative energy on ME.
But it really didn't start until Thursday but quickly escalated to moumentus levels. We were at Cake Maker Meeting #1, where we met this baker in Corvallis to try the cake we thought we wanted and to get some ideas on pricing. I have a pretty good idea of what I am looking for; I've got a total wedding vision, and not everybody shares it or even really knows what my vision is. Case in point: Mother. Instead of supporting my decision on getting a 3-tier cake which serves all but doesn't leave us the top layer to "save for our 1 year anniversary" she actually tells me "No, you want a 4 tier so you can take the top layer home, and its bigger so it will fill up the room better and this is just better." Ok bossy pants...nevermind that your way will end up costing more, and further, a 1 year old piece of frozen cake is GROSS. Nobody even does that anymore. I was about as frostbitten over her as my cake would be. I explained to her where I was coming from, but with no avail. Anyways, I let it go.
She kept going on and on and asking me about every detail, ones that we are months away from even thinking about, and eventually it totally wears on your nerves. She kept asking what Kev and I wanted Melissa and Garrett to do in the wedding, where our guests would be staying, where we'd stay the night of, what DJ picks we liked, blah blah BLAH!!!! I eventually told her that I didn't want to discuss the wedding (on Friday morning) that I'd come to visit for more reason than just that, I wanted to focus on the holidays and family and stuff. Apparently that was not what she wanted to hear.
The icing on the already frosted and frostbitten cake came on Friday night. Is she getting married or am I??? Friday night she pulled out boxes of ABSOLUTELY HIDEOUS no way they'd ever be acceptable at a hoe-down wedding decorations she bought for 90% off (wonder why they were so cheap.....) I politely told her that I already knew what centerpieces I'd fallen in love with (ones we already discussed!!!)but that I wasn't saying no to any of her ideas yet, and I reminded her of my planning ideas on theknot.com that has pics of everything I wanted to do and make and she just got all huffy and said "Well I'll just look at your website then. I'll just the be the one to write checks, thats all you want me for". I tried to explain to her that we'd already discussed this stuff, even though she swears we hadn't, and that I'd already told her when we first got engaged that I'd keep all my idea on theknot.com so that all my wedding party and her could see what I had in mind. I'd asked her several times to check out various ideas, and she'd always said shed do it later and never got around to it....I remember that, she doesn't. I did not tell her to go out and buy cheezy, cheap, ugly decorations. She actually bought 5 bouquets of fake, glittery, gross flowers for the bridesmaids and a huge sparkly fake, disgusing one for me and thought we'd want to use them. I didn't laugh in her face as most would have, I wasn't rude, but I didn't ask her to do that. She did it on her own. I asked her if everything was ok, and she said it was, but she was so passive agressive and threw everyting in the box and kept using curt statements and all that I knew it wasn't. I asked her several times if we were ok and she said yes. Finally, sick of it all and sick of how immature and 10th grade she was acting, I told her (in the SAME manner as I talk to my mentally ill clients) that I was feeling that she was angry and I was sensing some passive agressive behavior and was there anything she wanted to get out in the open? She started crying (OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.) and said "What am I supposed to say? That it hurts? That you don't want me involved? That I thought I'd be doing so much more and all I do is write checks?! That you live so far away and are doing a lot of this on yoru own" Jesus fucking Christ.
I told her that nobody is doing anything, how can she feel left out? Our wedding isn't for another almost 9 months, it is way too early to start putting things together and further, I have a very stressful and time consuming job, we've been under a lot of stress, and neither of us are feeling ready to start this huge 24/7 all wedding all the time stuff. I told her that she shouln'dt be upset, that shes upset for reasons that aren't even an issue; we're not pushing her away and we're not not involving her. I told her that every convo we have has to do with me living so far away and she's going to either have to get over it or get over me, because I live here and thers nothing she can do about that. If we start each meeting with that hanging over us, we'll never get anything done. I told her further, I dont want to be That Bride that only talks about her wedding; all my wedding party have busy lives too, and its rude to only talk wedding all the time, and also I'm offended when all I am to people is A Bride. I told her, once I get married, what will I be then? I'll be nothing. I want to have a balance of wedding and other stuff in my life and right now we are more concerned with paying our bills and rent than buying candles and ribbon for centerpieces that we don't need for another 9 months. I thought this would clear it up that she doesn't need to be upset, but she continued to be short with me, ignore me, and genrally be rude and grudge-holding right up until the second we left. I'm seriously stuck - if shes this bad now, what will it be like when we go up and actually get ready to HAVE the wedding?!?
She asked me when we'd discuss the guest list, which I think was just another way for her to try to show me that I had all the power and she had nothing, but we'd already discussed, finalized and printed the guest list months ago. I told her and she said all snotty "That was 2 years ago [not possible by the way we've only been together a year and 3 months!].Well, when do I get to tell you which of MY friends I want on there". Oh fuck off!!! Whos wedding is it?? We finalized that months ago.
She is getting upset and holding against me things out of my control. She won't listen to reason or even take into consideration other people's feelings. She has never acted like this or been this awful. I am not doing anything in reality to upset her; I'd understand if Francie and I were getting together every weekend to do a Ladies WHo Lunch Wedding Planning Brunch, but thats not the truth. I've included her on everything that I have done so far, but her acting like this makes me not want to include her anymore and makes me and Kevin not even want to go back there again. She was truely awful, unexplainably awful. I wrote her today and told her that I thought of something she could work on: a wedding coloring book for all the little kids. We'll see how that turns out, but I'm serioulsy at the end of my rope with her. She was like this the last time we went up there and she is not making any case for herself for us moving back there ever.
So that was our trip, I had planned on including the fun-filled Christmas Eve with Grandparents Weygandt that makes me wonder if I am indeed related to these people, but I dont have time as it is now shower time. I hope you all had wonderful holidays!!!
I think I am going to write a book about how to get through wedding planning as a daughter with a neurotic mother. I swear. I even prefaced the entire trip with a Tuesday morning pep talk after Kevin and I slept in (we flew in to PDX at 3:00am, went to bed around 5:30am). I told her "And there won't be any fighting this time!!!". Yeah. Wishful-fucking-thinking.
It started to simmer on Wednesday when our would-be photographer came over and right before my mom was quickly going over the budget and I heard her say "Ok, so we'll plan on $300 for the phographer" and I said "Um actually I budgeted 1200." She about shit her pants. We got away with hiring this person for $990, but my mother was sticker-shocked. If she wasn't stuck in the 80s she'd know that something of this level requires a price range of about $1000. All good photograpehrs in the valley have a sticker prices of $1200. Her attitude was higher than the price of the photographer...and she seemed to be aiming all that negative energy on ME.
But it really didn't start until Thursday but quickly escalated to moumentus levels. We were at Cake Maker Meeting #1, where we met this baker in Corvallis to try the cake we thought we wanted and to get some ideas on pricing. I have a pretty good idea of what I am looking for; I've got a total wedding vision, and not everybody shares it or even really knows what my vision is. Case in point: Mother. Instead of supporting my decision on getting a 3-tier cake which serves all but doesn't leave us the top layer to "save for our 1 year anniversary" she actually tells me "No, you want a 4 tier so you can take the top layer home, and its bigger so it will fill up the room better and this is just better." Ok bossy pants...nevermind that your way will end up costing more, and further, a 1 year old piece of frozen cake is GROSS. Nobody even does that anymore. I was about as frostbitten over her as my cake would be. I explained to her where I was coming from, but with no avail. Anyways, I let it go.
She kept going on and on and asking me about every detail, ones that we are months away from even thinking about, and eventually it totally wears on your nerves. She kept asking what Kev and I wanted Melissa and Garrett to do in the wedding, where our guests would be staying, where we'd stay the night of, what DJ picks we liked, blah blah BLAH!!!! I eventually told her that I didn't want to discuss the wedding (on Friday morning) that I'd come to visit for more reason than just that, I wanted to focus on the holidays and family and stuff. Apparently that was not what she wanted to hear.
The icing on the already frosted and frostbitten cake came on Friday night. Is she getting married or am I??? Friday night she pulled out boxes of ABSOLUTELY HIDEOUS no way they'd ever be acceptable at a hoe-down wedding decorations she bought for 90% off (wonder why they were so cheap.....) I politely told her that I already knew what centerpieces I'd fallen in love with (ones we already discussed!!!)but that I wasn't saying no to any of her ideas yet, and I reminded her of my planning ideas on theknot.com that has pics of everything I wanted to do and make and she just got all huffy and said "Well I'll just look at your website then. I'll just the be the one to write checks, thats all you want me for". I tried to explain to her that we'd already discussed this stuff, even though she swears we hadn't, and that I'd already told her when we first got engaged that I'd keep all my idea on theknot.com so that all my wedding party and her could see what I had in mind. I'd asked her several times to check out various ideas, and she'd always said shed do it later and never got around to it....I remember that, she doesn't. I did not tell her to go out and buy cheezy, cheap, ugly decorations. She actually bought 5 bouquets of fake, glittery, gross flowers for the bridesmaids and a huge sparkly fake, disgusing one for me and thought we'd want to use them. I didn't laugh in her face as most would have, I wasn't rude, but I didn't ask her to do that. She did it on her own. I asked her if everything was ok, and she said it was, but she was so passive agressive and threw everyting in the box and kept using curt statements and all that I knew it wasn't. I asked her several times if we were ok and she said yes. Finally, sick of it all and sick of how immature and 10th grade she was acting, I told her (in the SAME manner as I talk to my mentally ill clients) that I was feeling that she was angry and I was sensing some passive agressive behavior and was there anything she wanted to get out in the open? She started crying (OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.) and said "What am I supposed to say? That it hurts? That you don't want me involved? That I thought I'd be doing so much more and all I do is write checks?! That you live so far away and are doing a lot of this on yoru own" Jesus fucking Christ.
I told her that nobody is doing anything, how can she feel left out? Our wedding isn't for another almost 9 months, it is way too early to start putting things together and further, I have a very stressful and time consuming job, we've been under a lot of stress, and neither of us are feeling ready to start this huge 24/7 all wedding all the time stuff. I told her that she shouln'dt be upset, that shes upset for reasons that aren't even an issue; we're not pushing her away and we're not not involving her. I told her that every convo we have has to do with me living so far away and she's going to either have to get over it or get over me, because I live here and thers nothing she can do about that. If we start each meeting with that hanging over us, we'll never get anything done. I told her further, I dont want to be That Bride that only talks about her wedding; all my wedding party have busy lives too, and its rude to only talk wedding all the time, and also I'm offended when all I am to people is A Bride. I told her, once I get married, what will I be then? I'll be nothing. I want to have a balance of wedding and other stuff in my life and right now we are more concerned with paying our bills and rent than buying candles and ribbon for centerpieces that we don't need for another 9 months. I thought this would clear it up that she doesn't need to be upset, but she continued to be short with me, ignore me, and genrally be rude and grudge-holding right up until the second we left. I'm seriously stuck - if shes this bad now, what will it be like when we go up and actually get ready to HAVE the wedding?!?
She asked me when we'd discuss the guest list, which I think was just another way for her to try to show me that I had all the power and she had nothing, but we'd already discussed, finalized and printed the guest list months ago. I told her and she said all snotty "That was 2 years ago [not possible by the way we've only been together a year and 3 months!].Well, when do I get to tell you which of MY friends I want on there". Oh fuck off!!! Whos wedding is it?? We finalized that months ago.
She is getting upset and holding against me things out of my control. She won't listen to reason or even take into consideration other people's feelings. She has never acted like this or been this awful. I am not doing anything in reality to upset her; I'd understand if Francie and I were getting together every weekend to do a Ladies WHo Lunch Wedding Planning Brunch, but thats not the truth. I've included her on everything that I have done so far, but her acting like this makes me not want to include her anymore and makes me and Kevin not even want to go back there again. She was truely awful, unexplainably awful. I wrote her today and told her that I thought of something she could work on: a wedding coloring book for all the little kids. We'll see how that turns out, but I'm serioulsy at the end of my rope with her. She was like this the last time we went up there and she is not making any case for herself for us moving back there ever.
So that was our trip, I had planned on including the fun-filled Christmas Eve with Grandparents Weygandt that makes me wonder if I am indeed related to these people, but I dont have time as it is now shower time. I hope you all had wonderful holidays!!!