My Future Mother-In-Law is Being Over-Controlling — Counseling Corner

Every Thursday we highlight a problem from a listener. We give our advice and ask other listeners to offer advice. Welcome to the Counseling Corner.

Dear Brain & Courtlin,

I'm in a really tough situation right now that is causing a lot of unneccassary stress.
I've been engaged to my fiance for about 5 months now and we are in the middle of wedding planning. I'm not very close with his mom, but she is obviously very important to him, so when he said she was interested in helping plan the wedding, I agreed. I didn't really realize what I was getting myself into. I have a pretty solid idea of what I want for my wedding in regards to location, dress, dinner, music, etc. The problem is, so does my future mother-in-law. Now, we've always gotten along just fine, but she has become WAY over-controlling. Without getting into too much detail, she has just kind of taken over. She's been planning things without asking me first and forcing her ideas on me. When I try to kindly tell her that I don't really like one of her ideas, she gets noticeably irritated and doesn't really listen to me. The worst part is that when I asked my finace if he could say something to her, he flat out refused. He doesn't want to hurt her feelings. I don't want to hurt her feelings either, but this is my wedding and I want things a certain way. Wedding planning is stressful enough, I don't really need this extra pressure. What do I do?

Melanie