I am getting married in April and my future MIL is very generously paying for the whole thing. I know gifts shouldn’t come with strings attached but I do feel like I have to give her a little bit of say. She wants to bring her boyfriend "Mark" and I am fine with that, but my father doesn’t want him there.
My parents went through a nasty divorce two years ago and my father decided he was in love with Mark’s friend/business partner "Cara" Honestly he was being really weird about it. The words "goddess" and "love of my life" were used and to be clear he had never had a conversation with this woman. Mark said no multiple times but my dad wouldn’t stop. I tried as gently as possible to tell him Cara was out of his league, but he didn’t want to hear it.
Finally Mark relented and invited my dad to a company event as Cara’s date. I wasn’t there but apparently my dad walked in with roses and Cara got upset and called Mark and asshole, and walked away. I guess he was showing her pictures of someone else and the whole thing was a "prank" The rest of the night he kept telling Cara to introduce people to her date
Mark is definitely an asshole and someone who enjoys pissing people off. He strikes me as the kind of guy who was a bully in high school and genuinely clueless about it. That being said this is who MIL chose to spend her life with, he makes her really happy, and she is generously funding our entire wedding, so in my books Mark is invited.
My dad thinks I’m being a shallow money hungry asshole.
Everyone in this family sounds exhausting. Sorry you are in the middle of it.