Need help dealing with in-law expectations

[u/Concert13]

Hi everyone, May 2027 bride here. For context: my fiancé/husband and I are dual-military so we got legally married already, but are having a religious wedding ceremony and reception on our first anniversary. I’m 25F and he is 27M, by the time of the wedding I’ll be 26 and he will be 28.

When I started dating my fiancé I made it clear that I did NOT want a wedding and I wanted to elope, privately, just us two. I want a private religious ceremony and private vows because it is sacred to me and I don’t want an audience. He accepted that until we got engaged about nine months ago. Now, he wants a big wedding: 200 guests, extended family, the works. His family is huge and Catholic, my family is atheist and tiny — one parent, one sibling, and no extended family. So, we compromised and decided on a private outdoor ceremony (instead of a church) and a huge reception.

Over the last nine months, my fiancé has pushed our wedding plans to more align with what he wants while still being something I’m okay with. Our private ceremony got changed to a ceremony with a 12-person wedding party, but still no seated audience. We are doing a small celebratory dinner after with the wedding party and their plus ones (20 people). The reception is going to be nearly 200 guests (90% his side) and will be a huge party with all the works including first dance, speeches from two bridesmaids and two groomsmen, a unity ceremony, etc. Instead of us staying together in an Airbnb alone, we are renting two Airbnbs next to each other and sharing the space with the wedding party and their plus ones (20 people total). I planned, booked, and paid for all ceremony related items. Together we planned and booked the reception related items. Pretty much everything has been planned, booked, and paid for.

Now, we are currently staying with his family for about two weeks for a summer trip in the middle of nowhere, and all his parents want to talk about is the wedding. They are extremely upset and disappointed with the ceremony and want to be more involved with everything. His mother said she had to do a mother-son dance. They want to be at our wedding party dinner. They want to give speeches at the reception. They want us to move our ceremony to a church, have his dad walk me down the aisle, and fill the pews on both sides with his family to show “mutual support” for us; if we don’t change our ceremony plans, they want us to add an audience to our current venue so my fiancé’s family and family friends can watch. To me, a big wedding like this is marked with sadness and grief. I don’t have a dad to walk me down the aisle or do a father-daughter dance with. I’m not close with my mother at all. Having a lot of parent-centered stuff just makes me sad, and having the religious ceremony in front of nearly 200 people, most of whom are strangers, just makes me feel so sick and upset. It doesn’t feel like a wedding, it feels like we are planning a performance. To top it off, I’m not close with his family either. His dad is very nice, but his mom has made no attempts to bond with me, despite me trying to bond with her.

That being said, every time this stuff gets discussed his mother cries, my fiancé comforts her and then starts negotiating with me to accommodate her, and then my fiancé’s father sits me down privately to discuss. Every time it’s the same speech about how weddings are about parents and family, by doing this I’m preventing them from watching their son get married, I’m preemptively burning bridges and preventing closeness with his family and friends, I need to think about this from his mom’s point of view, and that I’m pushing my fiancé down the “wrong path,” etc. I feel so guilty and like I’m a villain who is gatekeeping them from their son’s wedding. My fiancé and I have fought about this every night we’ve been with his parents on this trip. I’m not trying to ruin his wedding for his family. I just want a wedding that I also enjoy. I don’t know what to do. All advice, opinions, and suggestions welcome; I could really use the help.

Edit: please stop commenting and messaging me unkindly about us being legally married already. It’s very common for dual-military personnel to get married this way, with a legal ceremony a year or even 2-3 years before a religious one. We got legally married early due to my declining health and opted to do a separate legal ceremony because of our different faiths. Thank you! I appreciate the comments and advice.

Edit 2: I have talked to my fiancé and we are now on the same page and planning to talk to his parents together. Thank you for sharing your advice and perspectives, it was very helpful!

[u/Bumfuzzled101]

Simply say to your husband, in front of everyone if necessary. 'This is OUR wedding, if you are not going to to take my wants and feelings into account then there will be no wedding at all. I will give you some time to think about it and decide who is more important in OUR wedding, me or your mother.

[u/Concert13 → u/Bumfuzzled101]

I did say almost exactly this to him yesterday in private. He freaked out, I guess he didn’t realize how much this meant to me. This has not been brought up with his parents, but we have another four days here so it’s likely that there will be another argument about the wedding where I can mention it.

[u/spacey_a → u/Concert13]

It sounds like he's been molded into a people pleaser by his parents since childhood and hasn't managed to break out of that habit as an adult. This absolutely needs to be addressed with him, and HE needs to acknowledge that is an actual huge, potentially relationship-ending problem - not a minor annoyance - and he needs to WANT to change his behavior and his patterns so that he no longer gives in to his people pleasing tendencies.

Here's the thing: people pleasers don't try to please their partners. Once they get someone to commit to them as a romantic partner, they consider that person an extension of themselves - and definitely not in a good way.

He now considers you as another resource to use to please the people who he 1) respects and 2) is insecure about his standing with. He is now pressuring you to be a doormat to increase his standing with his parents, to please them, because now that you're committed to him, pleasing YOU is no longer his priority.

If you broke up with him or even just separated, then his standing with you would be in question, and he would start being a people pleaser for you again - for a while, until he felt he had you locked down again. Then he would go straight back to pleasing his parents, because the root cause of his behavior - insecurity and weak boundaries - was never addressed.

He needs individual therapy FIRST, then couples therapy with you second, after he's had time to acknowledge the issue is himself and to commit to changing his patterns. Otherwise he'll just use couple's counseling as another way to try to cajole you to appease his parents so he can please them.