How to quell impending blog doom from Aunt Lisa

• How do I ask my aunt not to write about me in her blog (specifically wondering about wording), and how do I politely stick to my guns if she pushes back? Snowflakes after the fold. Background: My aunt Lisa* has many great qualities. She knows how to interact with very different personalities tactfully. She is a jack of all trades: she's very intelligent, an excellent cook, a seamstress, a fashionista. She is a wonderful storyteller and speaks eagerly about her passions. Lisa lives with my grandmother and grandfather, cooks dinner for them most evenings, and takes care of Grandma when Grandpa is working. She is generous with the people she likes; she even offered to make my wedding dress! I gladly accepted. The price of materials is vastly less expensive, and I'd always wanted a homemade, tailored wedding gown. My partner and I really got lucky here! Unfortunately: • Lisa is the family drama queen. • Lisa is an intolerable gossip. She is unemployed, and spends her free time watching TV and talking smack about people. The only people I haven't heard her speak ill of are my partner, my father, and my grandfather. • Lisa drinks alcohol all day long. And to excess when my side of the family is around her. She presumably does this when we are not around (according to a few details in stories she's told us, corroborated by my grandparents). • Lisa often talks about people behind their backs. Especially my younger cousin Jenny. Lisa called her a 'lesbian' because Jenny was holding her female friend's hand at her relative's funeral. Lisa also berates Jenny on her dancing ability (behind her back), though we've seen Jenny dance and she is lovely! Lisa also talks very poorly about her best friends to us. I don't understand why anyone would continually speak ill of the people to whom they are closest. • Lisa makes up outrageous lies. She made some accusations of abuse by my aunt Cindy which we later learned to be untrue. Lisa's personal vendetta against Aunt Cindy still rages on (a whole other story). She also claims on job applications that she holds a bachelor's degree, though her highest education is a GED and has only attempted one semester of community college before dropping out. • Lisa is rather manipulative. She seems to have convinced Grandma that my cousin Ted stole some alcohol bottles from them 1.5 years ago, which has elicited some strange behaviors from Grandma (another extensive story). All in all, this hasn't affected me much. We visit about 4 times a year. When I listen to her rant about our other family members, I imagine the amount of trash-talking she does about my family behind our backs when we leave. I try to ignore it or stay away from her. My relatives have called me a people-pleaser which I can see (though I tend to see myself as flexible and tactful instead). This makes things like discussing wedding dress plans for our upcoming fall wedding with Lisa quite fun so far! However, my aunt Lisa has recently started writing an entertainment blog for her local community website. Most of the humor has been fairly self-deprecating in nature, but again she slammed some of her friends in her articles and a few family members on the other side of her family. She emailed my parents to invite them to read her article, and she expressly told them not to mention her blog to the other side of the family because she doesn't want them to see that she called my uncle Greg an 'idiot' in her Public Blog On The Internet. When my uncle Greg (her brother) confronted her about it, she accused him of not having a sense of humor, and then started attacking my parents because they must have shown Uncle Greg her Public Blog On The Internet. She's made it clear that she'll say whatever she wants about whomever she wants in the name of 'humor.' I would rather her not be the subject of any of her blogs, and I am planning on spending her an email expressing this. In the course of wedding talk, I expressed my desire to stay level-headed throughout the wedding planning process, and Lisa just laughed and said, "Oh honey, all brides turn into bridezillas. It's inevitable." She already expects me to go bonkers at some point, and is probably constructing her blog(s) about it already. Frankly, I don't want her to publicly revel in any of our wedding mishaps, whether real, exaggerated, or completely fabricated. If it were someone I trusted writing a blog about it, I would even encourage humor about any bloopers, but Lisa's track record on lying and blogging mean things about family members leaves me with 0% confidence. My questions: 1. Can I ask a blogger not to blog about a private event (wedding will be held on my parent's private property)? Or is all information public information? 2. Is this even something I should ask, or should I just suck it up and deal with the fallout? 3. How can I best word this request to be familiar yet serious? 4. I'm expecting some sort of push back about this. If Lisa tries to appeal to my better nature, is there a more useful response than "I'm afraid that won't be possible" via Miss Manners? 5. If Lisa gets angry, is there a better way to say, "Sorry, I don't care, deal with it"? 6. How can I respond if Lisa says something along the lines of "I'm going to do it anyway, you can't stop me"? * All names is this thread have been changed for confidentiality.

• Answer:

  Sounds like you are stressed about this but from an outside perspective I can't quite grasp how this potential problem amounts to "impending blog doom." You don't live in the same town/community as Aunt Lisa. Would anyone you actually know (besides your relatives) actually ever read or even be aware of this strange-sounding online gossip column on a "local community website"? Maybe you are worried about relatives reading untrue things about you and then having to disabuse them of whatever nonsense was written over and over when you see them. But it sounds like even your relatives don't really believe the things she's saying. My advice in a nutshell is try to not freak out about something you can't control. This "drama" will only effect your day-to-day life if you bother to read the blog or worry about it constantly. Even if she writes something, who cares? Laugh it off and ignore. If relatives bring it up, just laugh and say "Oh, that story wasn't very close to the truth. You know Lisa, she likes to exaggerate." Asking her preemptively to not write about you is just gifting her with the opportunity to tease you for "not having a sense of humor" and probably ensuring she'll write you up as a "bridezilla". Keep the dress planning communications polite but brief. If she starts to gossip or mine you for wedding planning drama, listen without giving her too much feedback and at the soonest opportunity change the subject back to the dress or claim you are busy and need to get off the phone.