MIL wants to give speech at wedding but I don’t want her to

Just booked our wedding venue and we are so excited. I had my Mom and future MIL come with us to check it out. I originally did not want a wedding and really just wanted an intimate family ceremony as I am not big on large displays of emotion in front of people, but my fiancé wanted something more “party like.” So I compromised and said we can do a wedding, as long as we keep it on the smaller side.

I was actually super impressed with the venue and how accommodating they are to traditional and non-traditional weddings, so I was excited about this. I already thought to myself that I really just wanted a first dance and for everyone to have a good night. I wanted to skip speeches, father/daughter and mother/son dances and garter toss because I feel like those things will make me anxious, but I never exclusively told anyone that yet as we are in the very beginning stages of planning.

After my mom left that day, my future MIL says that she will be giving a speech and she’s already been preparing it. This frustrated me. She knows I’m very anti PDA, so I think this speech is all about her. My fiancé is a childhood cancer survivor, so I have a feeling the speech will largely be about that which I can understand, but he also has gone to several cancer events over the years where she has been able to talk and I don’t feel like the past 15 years of our relationship should be defined by his childhood cancer.

My parents are also exclusively paying for this wedding as she cannot financially contribute. I don’t expect her to and my parents are happily covering this wedding, but I don’t really think she should get a say in how our day should go if that’s the case. AITAH?

Posted Sep 13, 2025, 10:57 PM UTC

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