Dress shopping drama

I did not bring my FMIL dress shopping with me, but if you have a close relationship with your fiance's mom, you can totally bring her dress shopping with you if you wanted to! It could still be a great mother-daughter moment, even if other people are there. Another idea is to initially go dress shopping with just you and your mom, and once you narrow it down to a few dresses that you like, go back with your mom, FMIL, and two bridesmaids for a second dress appointment that you can officially say yes to the dress at! That way, your mom feels like she still has a special moment with you, and everyone can be there when you officially say yes to the dress.

When my daughter went dress shopping I encouraged her to also invite FMIL. I've always felt MOGs in general get short changed on wedding events and thought it would be a nice gesture to include her. In the end she wasn't able to make it, but appreciated the invite.

I did invite her she has 4 boys and really wanted to come. My mom didn't have an issue with it because she was invited to go with my SIL when my brother got married. Maybe you can go with just your mom first to get an idea for styles and then bring everyone the next go around and have a nice lunch afterwards.

My invited my mother-in-law, but she already had plans so she couldn't make which was honestly fine with me because her and I have completely different taste.

Yep! I had my mom, MIL, MOH, and 1 bridesmaid dress shopping with me. I have a close relationship with my MIL.


For that "mother-daughter" bonding, I went once with just my mom to try on different silhouettes and get a feel for what I liked/didn't like.

I brought my mom and FMIL. We are close and I love her, her and my mom had only met 1 previous time [when we got engaged] and the three of us had a boozy brunch and it was amazing! I'm sorry your mom feels hurt, maybe a little conversation with her about how FMIL is not your mother and would never overstep your mother, but she cares about you and wants to be included etc.

I did my first round of shopping with just my mom to kind of get a feel for what I actually liked/wanted and just do recon. Then I went for real with my mom, MIL and three bridesmaids! Best of all worlds for me!

I wanted to invite my mom, FMIL, and a few others, but when my mom and I went to a shop "just to look" I ended up finding my dress right then and there. I felt bad that nobody else was included. My mom got mad at me for that because she had "dreamed about this day" since I was born and nobody else should have gotten to be there for "our" moment. Meanwhile everyone else was upset they didn't get to come. Can't win 🤷‍♀️

I'll just say, the wedding itself and all the decisions that go into it are about you and your fiancé, but the dress is 100% about you. If you want to invite your FMIL and others then do it. Your mom got to decide who to bring with her when she bought her dress, this is your turn.

My mom would have been livid and it would have made the day super uncomfortable. I didn't really want MIL's (or anyones really, lol) opinion so it was a non-issue. Highly suggest shopping alone the first time to get a feel for what you like and don't like - maybe even narrowing down to 5-6 options that YOU love before you show stuff to anyone. EVEYRONE has strong and differing opinions.

If my FMIL lived clise enough she totally would have been invited to go dress shopping. We did take pictures of every single dress and send them to her!!