My mom is overly concerned with “how things look.”

A little background - my mom comes from a family where she is the youngest of nine. I think she feels a lot of pressure to “show out” for her family, and I am her oldest daughter and the first to get married. I’ve tried keeping a cool head with all of this, but I’m really starting to feel frustrated.


My parents are paying almost exclusively for the wedding, which I am hugely HUGELY grateful for. As a result, I’ve tried to involve my parents, especially my mom, as much as I can. However, I’m starting to feel like my mom is viewing my wedding as a conduit to “prove something” to her siblings - let me explain.
The first thing that happened was right after I got engaged, I had the perfect venue in mind - my fiancé and I had been eyeing it for months. We visited soon after our engagement and fell in love. It is beautiful and exactly our style. My mom expressed right away that she just didn’t think it was classy enough - she wanted something more “magazine-ready” (my parents are both interior decorators). What ensued was the biggest fight I’ve ever had with my parents - they eventually agreed to book it, but only if the venue would allow my parents to put up custom draperies and paint the walls themselves. I was so embarrassed. This venue is beautiful, well decorated, the staff were so kind - yet it didn’t seem good enough. My mom has even said she doesn’t like that we signed the contract but is “at peace with it.”
During both of my wedding dress shops, I tried on dresses while my mom was going around the shop picking out dresses she liked better - I would come out of the dressing room excited for my “big moment,” then would see her across the shop, not looking at me. I felt so humiliated when it was the shop attendants telling me I looked pretty instead of my mom. It really hurt.
We also really wanted to have a dry wedding - my fiancé is sober and I’m so proud of his progress, and I totally understood (and agreed with) his desire to go alcohol-free. While my mom agreed to this at first, she called me last week and pressured me to serve alcohol because it “just wouldn’t look good” to not serve it to guests who traveled from out of town. I understand her point, but it hurt me to know that my comfort and my fiancé’s comfort weren’t as important as the way it would look. We also wanted to include a cash fund as part of our registry, as we are trying to buy a house and are funding a honeymoon ourselves. My mom pressured me to get rid of it and have only a gift registry because it “didn’t look classy to ask for cash.”
Most recently, I bought a beautiful dress for my bridal shower, and she told me that it just didn’t seem right, and that since the shower is “garden party” themed, it wouldn’t look good for me to wear something that wasn’t floral. That just really hurt my feelings - I’ve been struggling with body image lately and it felt really personal for her to tell me I didn’t look right. It seems like what’s important here is that I — the bride — feel good in what I’m wearing and providing for my guests. I know that my parents have a financial stake, but it’s hard to feel good about this when my ideas don’t seem good enough. I’ve been dreaming about my wedding since I was really young and I just want to feel beautiful and loved on my wedding day - I just wish that it didn’t seem like so much of my wedding hinges on the approval of other people.
I don’t know what I’m asking for here - I could use some encouragement, or maybe someone else has been through the same thing? I would love to know how to handle this situation with grace, because I really don’t want to come across as ungrateful, and I also don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.