Are they giving you the money or are they paying for stuff as it comes up?

I only ask because my husband's parents "gave" us money for the wedding, yet we never saw any of it. His parents are divorced and his dad gave his mom the money and she used it to pay for the DJ, hall, food, and some other stuff I'm not entirely sure of. She paid too much for the DJ, considering we didn't want one. I didn't even find out until after the wedding how much it was. The food she picked because she knew someone who could do it and I didn't even like it, so I barely ate at my wedding. We could have used that money to pay for the photographer, who we had to make installment payments to a couple of months after the wedding.

I know people always say be grateful for what you're given, but you really need to make sure what you're getting into before you agree to it. I've been married almost three years and I still get irritated thinking about how everything happened.