I always knew my fiancé Richard’s family didn’t take me seriously. They were loud, close-knit, and I… well, I grew up without parents, always on my own.
Around them, I was the outsider — tolerated, but never respected. Despite being about to marry their son, I was not one of them.
Their family gatherings were full of inside jokes and shared memories that stretched back decades.
My future mother-in-law, Margaret, would hold court at the head of the dining table, regaling everyone with stories of Richard’s childhood while my future sister-in-law Sophie chimed in with her own dramatic commentary.
They were dismissive of anything I tried to say.
The only comfort I had was Richard himself. He saw how they treated me and always stood by my side.
But even he was often pulled into the middle when his mom and sister pushed their opinions on us.
“They’ll come around,” Richard would whisper to me after each dinner when he saw my expression. “They just need time to get to know you.”
I wanted to believe him, but after two years of dating and six months of being engaged, I was starting to think some people were determined to keep their circles closed.
So, I decided to focus on my wedding. I had been saving every paycheck for years so that Richard and I could have full control.
We started planning as soon as we picked a date and settled on a venue. We chose the catering company and menu.
Our cake was going to be dark chocolate with raspberry filling, which was our favorite combination from the bakery downtown. Our band had a great selection of oldies with newer music.
Everything was coming together perfectly.
But somehow, Margaret and Sophie heard we had already started planning. They practically ambushed us during Richard’s father’s birthday party, wanting to take over everything.
“We obviously know better than you. Our family’s huge! We’ve been to 1,000 weddings. We already know what your wedding must be like! You should be thanking us,” my future mother-in-law told me, as she pulled out a sample book of table linens.
“We planned my whole wedding,” Sophie chimed in, “and it was the talk of the town for years!”
That wasn’t really true. No one talks about a wedding for long. But I had to make my feelings clear as nicely as possible.
“While I appreciate the gesture, I’ve been dreaming of my own thing for years,” I said carefully. “I’ve been saving for a long time to have full control of all the choices, and we’re almost done with everything anyway. So thank you. But no, thank you.”
They did not look happy. Luckily, other people arrived for the party, and they couldn’t keep bothering me.
I did not hear another word about the wedding again, and I thought they had lost interest in me again, which was just fine.
We moved forward with our planning. I picked out my wedding dress. Richard got his tux, and our invitations were sent.
Then… my best friend, Lila, called.
“Got your wedding invite today,” she said cheerfully, and I grinned, eager to hear her thoughts.
“Oh great! What do you think?” I asked, settling into my favorite chair by the window.
She hesitated before adding, “It’s… nice. But did you change your mind? It’s not what you showed me weeks ago with the daisies and stuff.”
“Wait. What do you mean?” I asked, but I already had a sinking feeling.
“Hold on, let me send you a picture.”
My hands shook as I stared at my phone screen while the image loaded. The design, the colors, and even the location were completely different from the ones Richard and I had chosen.
Instead of our cream and green, nature-style invitations, these were stark white with silver lettering.
Instead of the amazing cabin we’d picked as a venue, the address listed was the country club, where I knew Sophie got married.
“Thank you, Lila. I’ll have to call you back,” I said, ending the call with trembling fingers as I pulled up the printer’s number.
I asked to speak with the same lady who had handled everything before.
“Oh yes,” she told me, “your order was canceled by Margaret. She said she was Richard’s mother and had your approval. A new one was placed. It was much more expensive because of the last-minute change…”
“No,” I whispered while ending the call. I didn’t want to hear anything else from her.
Panicking, I tried everything else. I checked the bakery, the dress boutique, and the catering — all our choices were cancelled and replaced with new ones.
They didn’t even let me keep my chosen dress! I was livid. They had crossed every possible line. But when I tried to call Margaret, she refused to answer. Sophie did the same.
I drove to my future in-laws’ house, and I saw when they turned off the lights. I knocked for a while before giving up.
A few days later, Richard finally managed to get his mother on the phone.
“Mom! You had no right to do this,” he said, putting her on speaker.
“Sweetheart, you’re young. You couldn’t possibly understand what a real wedding should look like. We had to step in before it was too late. I mean, a cabin? A nature wedding? What would people say?”
“It’s our wedding that we are paying for,” Richard countered.
“No, now we’re paying for it, and Sophie is handling the rest,” Margaret insisted. “Just show up and enjoy it!”
“Margaret,” I began, but she hung up.
I could feel my throat ache as tears threatened to spill, and they finally did when Richard wrapped his arms around me.
“I’m so sorry, babe.”
Before I could fully break down on his shoulder, the doorbell rang.
Lila was right outside with a bottle of wine and my favorite ice cream.
Hours later, we were laughing on my back porch. I wasn’t happy, but the release was much needed.
“So, what are you going to do now?” she asked me after a lull in our conversation.
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t let them win this one,” Lila said. “It sets a bad precedent.”
I hadn’t thought of that. I thought it was over. “What can I do?”
“Plan a new wedding,” she shrugged. “Plan your wedding again, and just… don’t tell them. At least until the very last minute.”
She was right. What could stop us from doing our own thing still?
I smiled a devilish grin at my friend, and a second later, we were back inside, looking over everything Richard and I had planned before.
It was too late to call anyone then, but Lila came over the following day to start booking vendors again. We had lost all our deposits, but I had more money saved.
Luckily, the cabin and its grounds were still available. The rest of the vendors were also willing to help for a larger fee, but that was okay.
Unfortunately, it was too late for mailed invitations, so Richard volunteered to make nice electronic invitations. His parents and his sister were not going to be invited. We agreed on that.
“They deserve to be excluded. I feel bad for Dad, but he can’t keep secrets from my mom. So, we’re going to let them host their country club wedding and simply not show up,” he said. “I’ll make sure my extended family doesn’t say a word.”
When the wedding day finally came, I stepped out of Lila’s car in my gown, the one I’d chosen, and looked out at the cabin and the decorated grounds that made it look like the wedding in “Breaking Dawn.”
Everything was perfect.
Our guests watched me walk down the aisle alone with big smiles. As I held Richard’s hand and heard his vows, I looked toward the noticeably empty seats and didn’t feel an ounce of guilt.
During the reception, our phones buzzed constantly, so we put them in airplane mode.
Richard’s uncle, Harry, came over and whispered something about Margaret going crazy.
But my now husband told him to ignore her.
Hours later, everyone was partied out, and Richard and I went into the suite inside the cabin and spent our first night as husband and wife.
We spent a full week wrapped up in each other, shutting out the world as if nothing else existed. But our peace was shattered by someone pounding on our door after we returned home.
Margaret and Sophie demanded to be let in.
I wanted to ignore them, just like they did with me. But no. It was time to confront them.
Richard opened the door, and they burst in with red faces, demanding answers. Only Richard’s father remained withdrawn and almost chagrined to be there.
“How dare you embarrass us like that?” Margaret yelled.
“We stood there like idiots at the country club while you two and EVERYONE else in the family were off in the woods or whatever!” Sophie snapped.
“What were you thinking?” Margaret asked.
“I was thinking that my wife and I deserved to have control of our wedding, just like we told you before,” Richard started.
“No, no, no! My brother wouldn’t have allowed this!” Sophie shook her finger and faced me. “This was you!”
“It was both of us,” I replied, crossing my arms. “I would’ve never excluded you. We wanted you there at OUR wedding, not at yours.”
“But you don’t understand!” Margaret wailed. “Weddings aren’t just parties. They’re —”
“Mom! Enough!” Richard said with finality.
“Richard, don’t yell at me!”
“Everyone listen,” I stepped in before my husband could get angrier. “I know how you two feel about me. I know you don’t think I belong to your family or your circle because of the way I grew up. But I had the right to plan my wedding. I had the right to feel included. I would’ve felt out of place at the country club.”
“That wouldn’t have happened,” Sophie shook her head.
“Yes, it would’ve,” I insisted. “I could’ve told you that if you had talked to me about everything instead of taking over secretly and ignoring me for days. So, we had our cabin wedding. We weren’t exactly happy to exclude you, but you made it necessary.”
Margaret was about to protest again, but Richard spoke again slowly, now that I’d given him time to calm down. “You brought this on yourself. In fact, everyone in the family thinks we did the right thing. So now, leave and think about your actions.”
“You can’t kick us out,” Sophie said quietly, looking between us.
“We can do more than kick you out,” my husband nodded. “We can exclude you from the rest of our lives until you learn to respect our choices and understand that Olive is now my wife, my family. What’s it going to be?”
“We don’t want that, son,” Richard’s father finally spoke.
“I don’t want that either, Dad, but it might get to that.”
“No, it won’t. We’re sorry,” Sophie admitted.
Margaret’s face contorted weirdly before she finally uttered, “Yes, we’re sorry.”
“Okay, I’ll call you all tomorrow,” Richard sighed. “Today, I want to spend some more time with my wife.”
I would like to say that everything was great after they left. But that’s not how life works.
At least Sophie tried to include me in conversations and take an interest in what I said at the next family gatherings. Richard’s father always smiled at me warmly.
Margaret was a bit more difficult.
But I didn’t care much because Richard had proven through and through that I was part of his family, even if that family was just him and me.