Hi, I am writing this under my mother’s username. I am the bride and I have a problem. My wedding is 6/10/06, which is approaching rapidly and the conflict is between, my fiancés Aunt, MOG, MOB and me. My fiancé and I were engaged in September 2005 and the night we were engaged we both called our parents, mine were happy and I was off of the phone in 5 minutes, while his mother on the other hand, kept him on the phone while she yelled and screamed for 2 hours, did I mention that we had just stepped off the beautiful savannah riverboat where he proposed, and wanted to enjoy the rest of our time on river street. But all of that is beside, the point, about a month or two after that my fiancé and I had picked out his tuxes and I had already picked the bridesmaids attire and I thought I was going shopping with his mother at sams, well she asks me to take her and show her what we picked out, so I took her to the tux shop, and the dress shop next door. (Let me add, that at this point in time, my own mother and I had not been shopping for a MOB dress yet) So after leaving the dress shop where I showed her what we had chosen, she ask me if I knew where this other dress shop was that my fiancés aunt had told her about, and she wanted to go there, so we went and she tried on a lot of dresses, and she thought that she found one that she liked, I told her that she could wait until tomorrow to bring his aunt so that they could make the final decision, well she said she liked it and bought the dark blue dress, knowing that the store has a strict no return policy only exchange with in 7 days. Well that night I felt so guilty that I had not stopped her so my own mother could pick out her dress first, but my mother said it was ok and that she would just find a dress in gold, which is the other color of my wedding. So the next day, my mother and I are at the same dress shop in the dressing room where my fiancés mother bought her dress, when we here this woman raising cain at the register about how dare they sell this dress to her and how awful this dress is and that it doesn’t fit. So my mother and I come out of the dressing room to find that it is the MOG and grooms aunt, and it is his aunt who is yelling and screaming and when she sees us she stops. His mother asked my mother how she thinks it looks, and my mother says she thought it looked good and so the MOG said she wanted to put it on so she did. When she came out we were complementing her on her dress, his aunt starts pulling on the dress and going on and on about how could I have let her buy this, with the waist of the skirt that was hidden under the jacket under her boobs, the dress was a three quarter length sleeve jacket with matching skirt that was slenderizing and made her look younger. Well after his aunt put on her show the sales lady agreed she could just swap it for anything and I was about to cry, but knew we had to tastefully excuse our selves, so my mother was carrying a light gold/yellow dress that she handed the sales lady and said that she would think about it, that is when we all decided that the MOG would where a dress in the Blue family and the MOB will find a Gold dress, and holding back tears, I told them as long as they don’t where orange I did not care. So we think problem solved, MOG has new purple dress and my mom and I are free to find her a gold dress. Well we find my mother a gold dress, everything all good, until the beginning of April when his aunt hosts a bridal shower and a couple days after the shower, his mother asks me if I thought that it would be ok if his aunt wore a gold pant suit, since that is what she is planning to wear. I asked her if she remember that my mother was wearing a gold dress and she said that is why she was asking, so I told her no, I don’t think so, since she will be sitting on the row behind the MOG, (which later in this story I find out that she (grooms aunt) thinks that she is sitting on the Front Row, his father is past). So his mother starts talking about how she doesn’t think it is the same color, she has not seen my mother’s dress, so how would she know, so I thought she was going to ask her to change the color of the dress that is how it was left. So two weeks later at another shower hosted my friend, his aunt starts bragging to my mom about her gold pant suit and how she doesn’t like to where dresses. My mother decided to just change the subject. So after the shower I complain to my fiancé and tell him what his aunt is doing, so after a couple of days he convinces his mother to inquire about his aunt’s selection and what she had said. So she does this Thursday, which causes a huge fight between my fiancé, the MOG and GA. The MOG said to my fiancé that she was not coming to the wedding, the luncheon the next day or anything. The grooms aunt called my grandmother and declined the invitation to the thank you luncheon with ‘something came up’ and I was not even sure if the MOG was going to come to the luncheon, but she did and acted like nothing was wrong, so I acted the same way, the luncheon was wonderful she seemed to have a good time this was Saturday, on Sunday she left 4 messages wanting my fiancé to call his uncle which is the wife of the aunt and the best man about a bachelor party, no mention of the dress incident. So the way it is left now is that his aunt says she is wearing some old green dress and that she doesn’t want to sit in the reserved area or have any flowers. Here is the question, his mother still wants her to sit with her or in the reserved area and wants her to where the pantsuit, what can anyone do to ease this situation, between everyone?

Thanks,

Caught in the middle[unsure]

Rebecca Black, Etiquette By Rebecca

Dear Caught,

There isn’t anything you or anyone else can do that I can see. From an outsider’s view, the aunt has a problem that has nothing to do with anyone, but herself. She has to make up her own mind. Perhaps if everyone stops trying to please her, she will decide on her own to behave as an adult.

Best wishes,