The drama-minimizing guide to not inviting family members to your wedding

Comments on The drama-minimizing guide to not inviting family members to your wedding

1. This, times a millionty. I am currently in a situation that may lend itself to a hard decision in the future. It would be extremely helpful to hear how others handled this, so I can see and know to expect a realistic amount of backlash (what type, how hard, etc). Although every situation is unique, it is helpful to know that these decisions have been made in the past, and that (for better or worse) others have survived.

2. I didn’t invite my mother to my wedding. Luckily our relationship had deteriorated years before I was working on invites and everyone in the know knew what to expect. I did worry that she would just show up anyways–I had to take extra precautions in communications with my sister and on social media–but everything otherwise was drama free. I agree with the article in that it is important to take responsibility and not blame the actions of the other party. That act in itself is freeing and helps to ensure that YOU are moving forward.

   • “That act in itself is freeing and helps to ensure that YOU are moving forward. ” Great insight.

   • I had the same issue with not inviting my mother. Although I wasn’t in communication with her I was worried old mutual friends on Facebook would let it slip, and I wasn’t prepared to have her show up at the wedding. Instead I decided to keep all talk of it on social networks to an absolute minimum until the last minute, although I still expected her to show up.

     Totally agree with this whole post – if you don’t want someone, don’t invite them. It’s your wedding! I had to stand my ground with the in-laws coming up with a crazy long guest list and just told them straight, this isn’t ‘informal’ or ‘small’ as we wanted and that was that.

     • I needed to read this today and see that others have been there. Thanks!
       We are 1.5 weeks out and I am having to police facebook daily just to make sure that no one mentions the wedding date. My greatest fear is that my mother will show up and ruin our day. I can’t really talk about this to acquaintances or friends who don’t know her because they just don’t understand how I could have a wedding and not want my mother there.

       • Gosh I do Riah. My mother is an absolute horror. Neither she, my father or one of my three sisters were invited to my wedding. Now my other two sisters have started to really cause grief and I have put my foot down and said I don’t want them there. It’s hard because it means that except for my daughter from my first marriage I may have no family there at all. But I would rather decide now that they aren’t coming and deal with it than be waiting for someone to kick off. I agree with you though. Most people just don’t understand how a woman wouldn’t want her mother at her wedding but they are basing this on their relationship with their mother or daughter and it doesn’t compare. Good luck with your wedding and remember the police are only a quick call away.

   • How did you say this? I am not inviting my brother or sister to my wedding but am my dad and step mum. They’ve already made noises about not getter an invite (prob should have dealt with it earlier so I haven’t helped). Thing is it’s all about them and my sister loves a drama. Not seen my sister for 18 months and my brother the same, even then it was a fleeting encounter. Would really appreciate the advice.

3. I am in the situation where I have people not attending because I invited one person that they don’t think should be there. There has been so much manipulation already that it is exhausting, I’ve debated about eloping multiple time because if it. The suggestions for this post is actually almost word for word what I have said, so thank you!

   • I dealt with that to a certain extent. I invited my half-sister, things are weird with her and my mom. I didn’t know she existed until I was 12, but as adults, she’s invited me to her baby shower and some other events, so my husband and I invited her to our wedding. I’d like a relationship with her and my nephew. My mom threatened to faint or throw up, and then lost a ton of weight (like, unhealthy low weight) just before our wedding. She guilted me about it a lot, but I wasnt willing to offend my sister simply because my mom doesn’t like her. nothing happened at our wedding, my mom and dad went over and said hi. I’m glad we invited my sister. you and your partner have to make the decisions about who to invite together.

4. I needed this article SO bad today, along with the one for accountability for your decisions.

   Just a few days ago, I decided that our wedding was NOT the place for my whole family to meet my brother’s new girlfriend. I’m trying to get rid of any possibility for drama to occur.

   Now, I’m the bad guy, to my brother and my parents. How did that happen? No idea.

   I’ve just got to learn to stick to my decisions, and stand my ground.

   • Couldn’t your brother take responsibility for that encounter and organise it himself BEFORE your wedding?

     • You would think so, right?
       Nope, it’s not that important to him, for some reason. His girlfriend is important to him, but the concept of her meeting his family isn’t important enough to make the time to do it at a different time.
       Priorities, huh?

   • This is just my opinion, but I’d be really hurt if you excluded my significant other just because they hadn’t had a chance to meet the family yet. I agree with the poster who said that your brother should take responsibility and invite his girlfriend over for dinner or something- I mean really, how hard is it to get together at a restaurant if it’s that important to him? But in the end, your wedding day is a celebration of love between two people. If you exclude your brother’s girlfriend, you are basically expecting him to come celebrate your love while ignoring his. This woman could feasibly be your SIL some day- I think you’d want to start off on the right foot with her. I understand not wanting strangers at your wedding, but couples are a part of a social unit and should NEVER be split up unless the significant other has physically threatened you, stole from you, tried to break you up, etc. Not knowing them isn’t a good reason. I just think this is a really weird hill for you to want to die on.

     As a personal example, my boyfriend’s mother got married a couple years ago. We had been dating I think a little over a year at this point, so I had definitely been around a while and had met most of the inner family, but I had never had a chance to meet their close-knit but out-of-town extended relatives. As she chose to keep invites to mostly family and close friends, I’m sure she wanted the day to be very intimate, and she could have used that as a reason to exclude me. But she wouldn’t hear of me not attending and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to meet some of my boyfriend’s relatives I wouldn’t typically have a chance to see. I don’t think it took any of the focus away from his beautiful mother or her wedding day. If you decide to push this issue, I think you are unnecessarily making your wedding day a point of contention between yourself, your brother and girlfriend, and other family members.

     • Normally, I would agree with you. But my brother has vocally said that he doesn’t feel that it’s necessary to introduce us to her before the wedding. It’s not about not having the chance, it’s about not feeling the need to.
       And to that, I completely disagree. If I’m important enough in his life to have her come to the wedding, I’m important enough to get introduced before hand, so that the wedding day is NOT made all about meeting her.

       • Eh, I can see both sides of it, but I do agree with you. He sounds like he’s being really ridiculous for no good reason!

         I think I’d still invite her for the sake of keeping the peace, but I’d be pissed about it too. And I feel really bad for his girlfriend- I’m sure she feels weird about him refusing to introduce you, and if she came to the wedding, she would have the added stress of meeting a bunch of family on an already emotionally-charged day! I hope your wedding goes well and you don’t have to deal with any more silly drama 🙂

         • Yeah, the decision’s been made. I’ve told him how I feel, and told him that if he wants to come to the wedding to share in the joy of the day with us, then he’s more than welcome to.
           If he feels like he HAS to come just cause he’s family, I honestly don’t want him there.
           Anything that will make the day easier for me and Mike will be for the best.

         • I’ve received invitations from friends that includes “and guest” without expectation of any kind whether or who might accompany me–boyfriend, sibling, or coworker.

           I’ve also been “not” invited by a sibling to my sibling’s 2nd and 3rd weddings, as well as that of my sib’s child. My question is how or whether to acknowledge these “family” weddings.

     • I totally agree that your wedding is just that – YOUR WEDDING – and you should not have to invite anyone you don’t want to – plain and simple. This is especially true if the person paying for the wedding (in my case, not me) is determining that certain people will not be given a “plus one” and others will…that is the person’s decision who is paying! I’m blaming it on that person! For example, my fiance’s sister’s boyfriend is not invited, but none of my fiance’s siblings were given a “plus one” by the person paying…so I refuse to feel “bad” about it.

       • My niece had a very small wedding and no Aunts or uncles were invited. 3 days before the wedding she had a cancellation an I got an invitation. I told her I wouldn’t feel right going without my sister being included. Turns out she had already been invited along with her daughter (over 30 years old). My sister hid that fact from me and I was devastated. I declined to go as the invitation did not include my handicapped husband. The longer it goes, the more angry and hurt I get. Am I wrong to feel this way?

         • The premise of the decision not to invite a good family member is that the person who made the decision had a legitimate reason for not inviting that person. Here, the niece’s “legitimate reason” for not inviting you and your disabled husband appears to be that she wanted to keep the wedding small, perhaps because she and her fiance did not want to incur the expense of additional guests. Assuming that there is no other more legitimate reason for not including you (and your husband), then I would conclude that the niece’s decision reflects that she feels closer to your sister than she does to you (and your husband). But that’s just a guess. There may be other reasons at play. Do you care what those reasons are? Do you want to know, for example, that your husband’s handicap makes your niece uncomfortable? If you want to know the reasons, I’d ask her. You may not get a straight answer, but you can assess whether the answer appears to be truthful or not. If, however, she just feels closer to your sister than to you, and even less close to your husband, and she just needs to draw the line somewhere to avoid incurring another $100 for the reception dinner, are you okay with that? I’m sure that will hurt at first. On the other hand, in time you also might need to admit that there are some relatives you like better than others. Were I to receive an invitation from a niece to her wedding that excluded my wife, I hope that my answer would be to decline by saying, “I’m not comfortable attending your wedding without my wife. It just wouldn’t be very much fun. Enjoy your wedding.” When my daughter gets married and I’m paying for it, I know where to draw the line to avoid expenses I’d rather not incur.

     • You say “significant other”. I saw “girlfriend.” There is a WORLD of difference between those two terms. Yes, I did lose a friend because I refused to invite “boy/girlfriends” to a wedding. We only invited *fiances* because we agreed that this was a wedding, not a casual party, & we refused to have a wedding album full of people we either did not know, &/or who would have disappeared within a month of the wedding. And our instincts were correct: the “friend” I lost was only trying to bring this guy because she didn’t want to have to “show up alone” to our wedding. When she tried forcing the issue by insisting on how much he LIKED me (after our 7 minute meeting at a casual party), I told her to come with other friends who were invited, but she just simply decided not to show up. After telling me she would. And the “serious boyfriend”? She stopped dating him within weeks of being told she couldn’t bring him. The Voice of Experience is telling all you couples out there: stick to your guns, it is *your right*!

5. I did not invite about half of my mom’s side of the family to my wedding. Two of my aunts were becoming toxic with their anger with the side of her family I get along better with. Long story short, I chose to invite the people I got along with better, and not invite others who I was concerned could cause drama, or had caused drama in the past.

   It was TOUGH. It meant not inviting younger cousins that I wished I could have invited, but their parents were not welcome. It meant not having my biological grandmother there, and it meant saying no.

   I didn’t get a lot of guilt trip about it, my mom agreed whole-heartedly with my decisions, which is great. But not sending that invite to someone who helped raise you, who’s children you helped raise… that’s tough. I’m still sad that their issues and my feelings about them made all this happen.

   • This is the same situation I’m getting ready to be in. Once I get ready to send invitations, most of my mom’s side of the family won’t be invited. They are almost all back-stabbing and conniving, and I’d rather not have them there. They all live several states away, so we hardly see them anyways, but I’m nervous about how they’ll handle it. I think the only people from that side that will be invited are my grandparents and I don’t know how my mom’s 9 brothers and sisters will handle it. Any advice?

   • I’m in this situation now where my fiancé and I have decided to exclude family members from my moms side of the family. Yes they will be hurt and I accept that but not at the price for having to babysit the drama on my wedding day. I cannot have people there who are fake or live through the past. I’m looking for small and intimate with people I want. If you can’t keep my mouth shut and you stir the family drama pot don’t be waiting by the mailbox. I will be using these tips if I have to talk to the excluded and especially with a cousin who feels it’s her duty to give input on everything. Glad I’m not alone and others have similar situations.

6. I haven’t even sent out invites, just mocked up a guest list and have already encountered trouble. I only want a small ceremony with friends and immediate family, and when I told my mum where we were thinking of going for the ceremony she got upset because my grandparents live not far from the venue. That was just a suggestion for where we could go, and already there was tension and tears and arguing. I kept getting the line “But I’ll have to explain why you don’t want them there, I’ll have to do that” to which I said “Tell them to call me, I’ll explain.” But that wasn’t good enough apparently. I’ve changed all my plans, which I think has sort of turned out for the best, because of that conversation. This has really helped. If we have any other troubles, I will definitely be referring to the wording here.

   • This is everything we are now going through. I struggle in large social situations and my fiancé isn’t close at all to any of his extended family so we want to keep it small. I had the exact same response from mum as you had, but she was very hurtful. However my friends have been really supportive as they have been through the toxic family wedding situation – one couple so bad they eloped – so I am lucky there’s!

7. I didn’t invite certain family members to my wedding and I’m soo thankful for that. The day was drama free and full of happiness.

   • My niece is getting married and inviting no one from our family. Her mother is a drama queen who falls out with everyone every six months or so, and her daughter is taking a cue from her. I don’t care that I’m not invited, but it is a very nasty thing to do to my 85-year-old widowed mother; this is her first grandchild to be married, and the little darling exploited my mother’s generosity for years. She hit my mother up for tuition money by telling her a sob story, and my mother is not rich. She and her fiance are putting on airs, they think they are society folk now. It may be “her day” but it’s also rather pathetic.

   • I also was not invited to my niece’s wedding, and that was fine with me. I detest weddings, and my sister is also a drama queen, so I avoid her as much as possible. I don’t hold it against my niece.

     When I got married 35 years ago, it never crossed my mind to invite certain people, including my sister. That was just not what I wanted my wedding and my marriage to be about. She was probably hurt, but drama queens are hurt by every little thing.

     Reading these comments, I feel the need to point out this article is supposed to be showing you the DRAMA-FREE way to exclude family/relatives.

     Just do it.

     • Curious. After 35 years, what led you to this site. Serious question. Was it the recent niece wedding that raised the issue. When you first learned of the engagement, did you immediately reply with something like, “That’s lovely. I won’t be attending.” Or, did you have to wait to see if you would be invited, and then turn down the invitation, and how did you do it.

8. I’m not having toxic relationship drama at all, but more of a meh-i-don’t-care-for-them drama. My father’s sister is nice, we have gone to their place for many family christmasses and she has always sent me birthday gifts. However I have never really spoken to her husband, and my two cousins are, frankly, quite odd. I don’t want to be saying my special vows in front of them, but how could I just invite my aunt without the drama of not inviting the rest of her family?

   • You can’t. You can invite your aunt and her husband but not cousins if you’re not inviting other cousins. But, baring some major reason, if you invite someone, you need to invite their spouse. Feeling “meh” about them is not a reason to invite one but not the other.

     • Agreed. Short-term boyfriend or girlfriends are a gray area, but spouses are a package deal to weddings, unless there is a big issue with one.

       • Anyone who considers themselves a couple, in a relationship, needs to be invited with their significant other. This means that your friends who have been dating for thirty years and your cousin’s girlfriend of one month. Who are you (not you personally, you in general) to judge how valid someone else’s relationship is? My parents dated for 8 years before they got married, while my aunt and uncle got engaged after 3 months of dating. Based on some people’s stupid “no ring no bring” policies (or the “well if they’ve been together X amount of days/weeks/months/years, then it’s fine” mentality), my aunt and uncle would have been split up at their 2 month dating mark, while my parents wouldn’t have, even though my aunt and uncle were clearly much more serious about each other at that point.

         • I partially disagree with you on this. Our wedding is being kept very small, and me and my fiance decided early on that if you aren’t in a relationship at the time we create the guest list, then we aren’t making room for a plus one that we don’t have room for, especially if it’s one that we’ve never met. It’s not that we are judging whether someone’s relationship is or isn’t valid, but that we are drawing the line on who we feel comfortable inviting to our wedding. There are several different reasons why a spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend may not be invited and a simple black and white rule that ALL must be invited is a tad unrealistic. Of course, if you’re not inviting someone’s significant other, then there should be some kind of valid reason, I would agree with that, and not just because they haven’t been dating very long or aren’t married (that is unrealistic as well, given the day and age we live in).

           For example, my mother’s boyfriend is not invited to the wedding. I know him, but I also know that he isn’t exactly someone I would want to have at my wedding, because of several things that I won’t get into here but also because of the above rule that we set. I’ve taken ownership of this and have flat out said he’s not invited (similar to the wording above), and am dealing with the potential that she won’t come to the wedding either. I am standing my ground, however, because he is not someone I want there.

         • Again, I must disagree with you; no one was a *right* to be invited to anything. And if a couple sets rules with which they are comfortable, then it’s easier for all concerned. Anyone who takes a non-invitation based on certain rules as being a personal rejection is the one with issues, not the bride & groom. What you call “stupid” other people call wise, especially since it is a common sense idea. Just because you know people for whom it did not apply doesn’t mean most people’s relationships don’t work pretty much that way.

         • I don’t agree. I am having a small and intimate wedding. Only 30 people all together. I don’t want everyone’s boyfriends or girlfriends there if i am not sure that they will still be in the picture 5 years from now. I dont want to look back at my wedding albums 20 years from now and go: ‘who the hell is that dude?’. I had to tell my mother now that her new boyfriend isn’t invited. First off. She’s still married (even though her current husband hasnt been here for 10 years, she’s still married) and dating other people. 2ndly, I am only inviting very intimate family, and very intimate friends. The new boyfriend isn’t in that circle. I dont have a clue who he is, I don’t know him @ all. 3rdly, i cannot garentee they will be together for another year (like i said, you dont want to look back on your photos and wonder who this guy is). 4thly, my mother has a place @ the main table, he cannot sit there! Where will he sit? He knows no-one else @ the wedding. 5thly, my fiance and I are paying for the wedding ourselves, my mother isn’t paying. So sorry, but if she doesn’t want to come because it is *her right* to bring a plus one and i should grow up, then it really is her own problem. Getting married is a decision of spending a life together, *till death do us part*. I firmly believe in that. Even if nobody still does that today, i still walk the line God wanted everyone to walk. Nobody can force me to invite girlfriends or boyfriends just because of the ‘morale’ standards (which i see as very low standards) of modern days. It is my wedding, and I have *the right* to decide who i want there and who i dont want there.

         • I agree. My boyfriend’s niece is having a huge wedding only two days from now. He and I have been dating exclusively for over two years. I have always been included in his family’s birthday and holiday parties and have felt nothing but love and acceptance from all of them. Until now. I did not receive an invitation. My boyfriend’s invitation didn’t include my name or even “and guest”. But worst of all, my boyfriend’s ex-wife IS invited! They were divorced more than 8 years ago, long before I ever met him, and several members of his family absolutely despise her. Especially the father of the bride, who when confronted by his brother (my boyfriend) said that I am “only” his girlfriend. In my opinion, a long-term very serious girlfriend is certainly much more invitable than an ex, regardless of the fact that their 17 year old daughter will be a bridesmaid. She and I are polite to each other and used to seeing each other at their daughter’s events. There has never been a cross word between us so I see no reason that I should be intentionally excluded. The whole thing has been very hurtful and feels like such a slap in the face to both of us. Also, the bride’s family apparently kept it a secret from the rest of the family that I was not invited. I know this because several of them have spoken to me about the wedding, asked what I am going to wear to the wedding, and I even helped the grandmother shop for wedding clothes! Ouch! Out of loyalty to me, the boyfriend has decided not to attend the wedding. I doubt that our relationship with his brother, niece, and sister-in-law will ever be the same.

   • It all depends on how you word your invitation. Are the cousins older, like over the age of 18? If that is the case you can just exclude them from the invitation. Please keep in mind that excluding her spouse would be extremely rude, especially if other people show up with their spouses and her invitation was just for her.

     What my husband and I did was on our RSVP we printed the recipient’s name and how many guests they were allotted.

     “Mr & Mrs. John Doe
     ___ of 2 attending”

     We only had one person call to say, “hey, I need to bring my grandson…” and then they canceled at the last minute.

   • I see some comments saying you can’t do certain things certain ways, regarding who not to invite.
     I think there are some decisions that may not be nice according to a lot of us, and some decisions that many would think do not have a good enough reason behind them. In the end though, you can still decide to do whatever it is that YOU want.

     It might be seen as mean, it might make a lot of people mad. It might be seen as selfish or cold.

     OR maybe those not invited will be “meh” as well.

     Whatever the case, as the post mentions – you’ll be accountable. So think very hard on it, and make those decisions wisely.
     Do it your way, but own the outcome.

9. We have been going through this decision making process with my deceased fathers family. The relationships have been tense, to say the least, for about a year now. We had been waffling, him not wanting the there but me not being ready to nail the coffin shut. This all culminated with a grandparent medical issue over the weekend which led to a 30 minute phone call where I was just slammed from top to bottom. It truly is a grieving process. I needed this post so much today. 🙂

10. Thank you for this. We’re likely going to be going through this with my fiance’s family (specifically his mom) – my Fiance cut off contact with her earlier this year but I expect there to be some form of drama when it comes time to have the invitations come out.

    So bookmarking this.

11. I love almost all of this advice, but I’d like to include a word of caution about some of the wording, namely the inclusion of “I’m sorry” in the boundary-setting statements. The words “I’m sorry” are very powerful, and carry a lot of connotations depending on the situation in which they’re used. In my years of work on myself, I’ve learned that they’re sometimes overused and for the wrong reasons.

    Depending on the audience, saying “I’m sorry” can imply that you don’t really mean what you’re saying. And, really when you think about it, if you’ve decided the toxic influences in your life are to be excluded *for a reason*, there’s no need to apologize for the decision, but there will be *plenty* of reasons to mean what you’re saying.

    I think in the west, women at least are taught to not be ‘mean’ by apologizing (preemptively?) for causing upset. But ultimately, we’re not responsible for someone else’s feelings. If you’re making the decisions that are best for you and your Significant Other, there’s no need to apologize for that, except maybe in cases of accidental injury (i.e. “I’m sorry we accidentally landed on you in our Sky Dive to the Wedding Site! Get well soon!”).

    Perhaps instead of “I’m sorry, but the decision is final,” some folks would be better served by “The decision is final, and I hope you can respect our wishes even if you disagree,” or “I don’t intend to discuss this any more, and I hope you can be sensitive to my reasons even though I won’t go into detail about it.” It sets a clear boundary and rather than undermining the speaker’s determination, reinforces that the decision was a personal and sensitive one that probably took a lot of thought.

12. We had some trouble of this sort at our own wedding. But, in our case, we had a to tell my father in law that he couldn’t invite whoever he wanted without asking us. None of our parents invited their cousins, and he decided to ask some of his cousins that he hadn’t seen in many, many years. Having the conversation explaining that our wedding wasn’t a family reunion was hard, but it needed to be done. It was especially important seeing as the invitations had been out for months, and the guest list was full.

    I also had a friend who made it very clear that she wasn’t joining us because someone she had a conflict with at our work was in my bridal party. If I chose to not include her in the wedding, she would be happy to come. I had to tell her, calmly, that her personal feelings had nothing to do with our day, and what she decided to do was her business. Because I refused to omit one of my closest friends from my bridal party, I lost a friend who refused to act like a grown up.

    • I believe weddings should be family reunions. The wedding creates a reason to get the family together. I think the “my day” thing is just terribly selfish, and very short-sighted. When you marry someone, you marry their family – a wedding should celebrate the formation of the whole new family, not just the couple. It has to be limited by finances, of course; but picking and choosing one relative here and one there is incredibly rude. You cannot sanitize the rest of your life. It will be remembered by the whole family, not just the uninvited. You may be burning more bridges than you know. Many people may see you as the problem in the relationship. If you are mature enough to get married, you should be mature enough to stand a little “drama” for the sake of future family relationships.

      • It isn’t as though everything will somehow turn around and everyone will become as part of a Norman Rockwell portrait of the happy family. People have suffered for generations because they did not cut ties that not only bound, but damaged. I think the bigger drama involved in weddings is the issue that they remain such an issue in the 21st century, and more than ever before, it seems, a show of wealth.

        Comments are made regarding communication. I realize most use it, but why? Talk about creating drama. If everyone knows every thought, every plan, then what can one expect but difficulty.

        With living together without marriage, reproducing without marriage, being, allegedly, accepted in U.S. culture at least, and with both men and women having their own interests, and own businesses, careers, etc., why, I ask, other than to keep the big business of weddings going, which only serves to fill their coffers, is there still such an emphasis on “marriage.”

        You don’t need a wedding to bless a union. All you need are basically legal contracts for protection and agreement. I don’t get this at all.

      • I agree. The whole premise of this article is that you just exclude people for one day and everything is just fine. What drama are you talking about that will happen on the day of? You’re creating way more drama and hard feelings by not inviting someone. Seriously? This ‘its my day stuff” is just diva behaviour. And you also don’t have to explain why? That just makes things worse.

13. Thank you so much for this. I’m not inviting my brother to my wedding. My parents would very much like to make up some elaborate excuse as to “why he can’t come even though he was totally invited.” I’m sticking to my guns about being honest about it. I’d really rather tell the 40 or so members of my family that attend some variation on “he wasn’t invited” than have them ask me questions about his life that I frankly can’t answer because I don’t care to know.

    This just gave me some extra and needed support.

    • Laura M, I agree with you. There is no reason to lie about why he’s not there.

      We were in the opposite situation – we wanted my husband’s brother and his family to be at our wedding but we do not have a good relationship with his wife (she is toxic and everyone in the family knows it). She told us that we only invited her to our wedding because she was married to his brother (well that is true since we wouldn’t know her otherwise). That said we did want her and their kids at our wedding as they are family and family is very important to us. We worked for months to mend bridges with them. Each time they found another reason to be mad at us (I think that the longest truce was two weeks before they brought up something else that happened months earlier to be mad at us about again).

      A few weeks before our wedding things blew up. We didn’t even know what was wrong because they flat out refused to talk to us – my FIL had to tell us. My husband talked to his brother and SIL on the phone (we live an hour away) numerous times in the weeks leading up to the wedding and they kept refusing to come to our wedding unless we worked things out with them (his brother was our Best Man). We tried to set up meetings with them in person and things never worked out (they usually made excuses as to why a certain day or time wouldn’t work and then we scheduled a meeting and they “forgot” about it and were double booked so they couldn’t make it). Three days before our wedding we were told that they were just going to stay out of our way for the weekend so we could enjoy ourselves. Their parents were pretty upset about the situation (in the month leading up to our wedding my husband was ordered to apologize for something he didn’t do many times by his parents just to get things patched up, he had already tried apologizing and they refused to accept his apology). My MIL is very much about appearances and was wondering what people would say at the wedding and wondered what she should say if people asked her wear her other son was. (His parents agreed on saying that something came up – I thought that this line was BS since for a sibling to miss a wedding the “thing” that came up would have to be very serious – family emergency, a death in the family, serious illness). In the end, his brother showed up (alone) for the ceremony and he didn’t go to the reception. He’s in some pictures so my MIL is happy. No one asked about where he was because everyone knows how his wife is.

14. this whole topic is a big contributing factor to why i want to have a private ceremony with just my love and i and our officiant when i get married.

15. I agonised over family issues. I had anxiety attacks over people being mad at me. I had people come to my wedding ‘in secret’ (fun fact – every body knows). And what was remarkable was the total lack of fallout. Maybe people were a bit butthurt because I invited some cousins and not others. If they were, I didn’t hear about it, nor have they expressed it to me by being pissy at family events that have happened since. I think *gasp* they maturely accepted that I have stronger friendships with some cousins than others, owing to having more in common with some than others. Were there some people I invited that I could have happily left off the list? Yes. I think the biggest lesson I learned was choosing your battles. If you know you family like I do, you know who will cause the biggest drama and you minimise that. At least that’s what I did. It was bad enough I didn’t have certain members in my wedding party, so I made sure they at least got an invite to the reception. One of my great aunts made a big deal of not wanting to go the reception around my other great aunts, so none of them were upset when they didn’t get invited.

    Of course the irony of the whole situation is that the person I thought would be most judgey about my wedding died a week before. Which, you know, sad and all. But ultimately saved a whole lot of anxiety really.

    • Personally, I refuse to die just to ease things on the bride.

16. Great advice! Both my sister and I are planning small weddings and having a hard time with our mother not understanding why we wouldn’t want to invite all of our extended family members. We get along with everyone and know people will be disappointed, but firm in our decisions. This posts and comments is really helping with not only what to say to extended family (who have all assumed they are coming), but also what to start saying to our mom about it too.

    • Seriously. This article is unhelpful if it doesn’t address WHY certain people aren’t invited. Clearly there are reasons that would not be problematic at all, especially if it’s about the cost of extra guests. But there are so many common sense ways to sort things out that are not mentioned. The biggest issue ignored is “did the uninvited guest have a reasonable expectation of being invited.?” If so, what is a good reason for not inviting them? Explain your good reason to them and they should understand. Owning what you’re doing is not just doing it and refusing to talk about it.

17. I dealt with this partly by not inviting any family except for our parents. I didn’t want people complaining that I’d played favorites by inviting this relative and not that one, so no one got an invite. One person confronted me, but everyone else just talked about me behind my back.
    But the truth is, the people you want at your wedding are the ones who are going to say, “You don’t want me there? Okay, that sucks since I’d like to be there, but I support whatever choice you make and that includes excluding me. I’ll get to see pictures, though, right?”

    • Wrong. Seriously, you think family are just there to pay you on the back? See what happens when they don’t invite you.

18. Thank you so much for this! My issues concern old friends who I don’t feel a connection to anymore for various reasons, but who may expect invitations. I dread the idea of explaining, but will use this if the need arises!

19. YES. Yes! Yes!
    I am currently holding my breath, hoping my mother will not notice the absence of some of her nephews and nieces from the guest list; one of them is an asshole, the others I have not seen since my grandfather’s funeral (which was TWELVE YEARS AGO, just sayin’), and I could walk by them on the street and have no clue who they were. All the same, I have a sneaking suspicion she is going to be angry, since we’re inviting all my FH’s many cousins (his family is super tight-knit and wonderful) and nearly all my dad’s sisters’ kids (also my folks are divorced and not really cool with each other). SO I know I’m playing with fire here, but this accountability business is great advice.
    With that said, I am inviting my stepdad, who doesn’t like us and vice versa. My ardent hope is that he will be graceful and find somewhere else to be on the day, though I by no means expect that from him. I just really hope that not wanting to be anywhere near him isn’t going to affect the way my mother and I are together on my wedding day. But like someone else said, yes, spouses are a package deal, and if it does, well, that’s all I can do.

20. We had to disinvite a family member from our wedding. They had sent an email, mistaken to another member of the family, asking inappropriate questions and stating that the situation made them want to “upchuck a little”. For context, we’re a same-gender couple.

    I left it up to my now-husband’s discretion, as that is how we handled the guest list. He made the decision to not pursue the situation further and inform said relative they had made their opinion clear and that they would not be receiving an invitation. I supported him 100% in this decision (after talking it through and forthrightly telling him about my own lack of shock for reasons outside of context here).

    We informed his parents of our decision, and were supported. His sister was less supportive, as “family is family” in her words, but he stuck to his guns. He told her, point-blank “they’re not supportive of us and so we’ve decided not to invite her. I’m not fighting with you about this. It is not your decision.” Word spread quickly on that side through no effort of our own and, we found a lot of support for the decision we made.

    Estrangement looks like how everything is going right now, as there’s been no movement towards an apology and we have no interest in soliciting one.

    It was incredibly painful to watch it all happen, but I can say it brought us closer together and made us a better team. Even if it was a shit situation.

    • Next time someone wants to guilt you into taking ABUSE (& that’s what it was!) from a family member because “family is family”, tell that person to “Tell it to [the abusive family member]!” How horrible that your sister-in-law didn’t quite grasp that.

    • What you did is miss an opportunity to change that person’s mind. Few would not be moved by witnessing a lovely, love-filled ceremony. And the truth is that some who support you intellectually may still feel some emotional qualm because of cultural background. He may just be more honest, if poorly spoken. Be generous – your actions will be judged by more than the uninvited.

21. The Mister and I have decided my brother isn’t welcome, in short, he scares me. I would feel uncomfortable and unhappy having him there. This is going to be difficult, as this puts unnecessary stress on my mother. She still believes someday everything will be alright. I’d feel like a huge prick making family cry but if he’s there, -I- might cry. Thank you for writing this, I’m going to save it and stick to my guns.

22. Oh gosh my situation I want to elope my partners family bag me and run me in to the ground. Meet them once and hes been told im not good enough. I have advoided them at every cost since.

23. I didn’t invite half of my mother’s side of the family to our wedding. It was a little easier for us, as we only had 18 guests, so it was pretty easy to say, “Look, I’d love to invite you guys, but I really need to keep it small.” There was a little fuss up, but as a pre-emptive strike, I called a younger family member on that side (who I also wasn’t inviting) and explained things to him. I think younger people are more accepting of the idea that wedding conventions are changing, and so don’t have as many established ideas of who should be invited. I just explained that I couldn’t afford and didn’t want a big wedding, that we had decided to do this quickly, and weren’t interested in finding a big venue. I said I hope his feelings weren’t hurt, and that I’d had trouble deciding where to draw the line between family members, spouses, etc, and just decided to have a firm cutoff. He was really helpful and communicated this to some of the rest of the family better than I could.

    To help smooth things over a bit, we threw a HUGE, casual get-together at our new place, and invited basically everyone. It wasn’t expensive, because it was an outdoor potluck, nobody had to get dressed up or bring a present, and everyone had a terrific time. Most of the immediate family members who had been at the wedding didn’t come to the party, some specifically to avoid the people who couldn’t have been at the wedding in the first place (lots of family issues …), but that was ok, because they had been at the wedding.

    It worked well for us. Actually, axing a LOT of people is probably easier than axing a few … but I think the after-party was really helpful, too.

    • This is what we’re planning to do as well. Small ceremony and reception. Only our closest friends and family and then a big ol backyard BBQ next summer for everyone else

    • Well done. You should have been the one writing this article.

24. Thank you for this article. My FH’s family is wonderful, and although not perfect (who’s is ?) their respect and love shines through to anyone in contact with them. I am blessed to become a part of their family. My family on the other hand thrives on drama, addictions, secrets, bullying and borderline emotional abuse to keep the family together. I have worked hard to try and find peace within my family. When I was younger I tried to fix them, but like the article says you can’t control others behaviours only your reaction to it. Then I tried to ‘fit in’ and found myself emotionally drained (to say the least). Then I tried to communicate with them about my feelings, they wouldn’t have a bar of that. Then I tried to set reasonable boundaries, I was slammed and bullied for that. I have said that if they can’t respect my boundaries not to contact me, my nan sister and mother haven’t contacted me since. So now I am engaged it looks like we are only inviting my father and brother to our wedding. Thanks for giving me some words to go about navigating all of this!

25. I chose to invite almost none of my father’s family to my wedding. He died when I was a teenager and most of his brothers and sisters either stopped communicating with us or went out of their way to be as rude as possible. His mother informed everyone present at my uncle’s wedding that I’m not welcome to be part of her family, since I’m more like my mum than I am like her.
    My fiance also has a large but disconnected family, many of whom are not invited simply because he hasn’t seen them since he was a child. A couple of whom are not invited because they asked if they could only be invited to the reception, so they could have the free food without having to “waste time” attending the ceremony.
    We chose to have a small guest list with only the people important to us (and their significant others) invited, and told everyone that we had decided to celebrate with “those who supported us during our engagement.”

    • I feel you. The only person I’m inviting from my dad’s family is my dad. His mother may act all sugary sweet but she and my aunt have never been very welcoming to me- in part because I, like you, are more like my mother than I am like them. They’ve lived 20 minutes away from me my entire life and have never made the effort for me or my brother, but drove almost 2 hours nearly every day to see my uncle’s son.

26. I’m not inviting anyone from my family except for my mother, brother and father. Everyone else has been out of my life, and would cause major drama for my fiancé and I. So, they’re not welcome. If they have a problem with it, and ask about it later on, I’ll tell them that I didn’t need the unnecessary drama that I know will already be at my wedding thanks to fiancé’s brother’s wife.

27. I’m not inviting my Grandmother to my wedding. She is incapable of behaving in a socially appropriate way at family events and functions in which she is not the center of attention. I’ve witnessed her behavior at my Mom’s wedding, at my own birthday party or dinner when I was younger and any other family oriented celebrations and it’s extremely embarassing and hurtful to the people who host the events. I want to protect myself, my finace and my guests from her.

    I’m having a hard time with my Mother on this. She supports my decision but she won’t let me write a letter to my Grandmother explaining what’s going on. She decided that I couldn’t and that she herself wouldn’t expressly tell my Grandmother that I had gotten engaged and we have begun planning. I’m living 1,500 miles away from my family and this is all extremely taxing.

    I’m glad to see that I’m not the only person on the planet who has crappy family dynamics that make important life events difficult to navigate.

    • Why does mom get to allow or disallow your letter?

28. I like the direct approach. I ended up inviting all of my family even though I REALLY didn’t want to. Ultimately I decided I could spend the day with the people I wanted while my cousins pretended they didn’t know me, which would make my mom, with whom I am extremely close, happy (so, I invited these people because I knew it would really hurt my mom if I didn’t).

    A few days before the wedding – maybe a week – my mom’s younger sister sent me this nasty text about how she was so insulted that her daughter’s boyfriend was not invited to my wedding. I really, REALLY wanted to respond in kind. My mom’s family expects big hoopla weddings with froofy white dresses, DJs and sit-down five-course dinners, so I sort of understood where she was coming from. On the other hand, I greatly dislike this particular aunt and I can’t stand her daughter, let alone her gross boyfriend who I barely even know. My husband and I had been VERY explicit about our feelings on plus ones, basically saying we worked hard to keep the gathering as small and intimate as possible and that we only wanted very close friends and family at the wedding. I mean we really were saying that right from jump street! I don’t think we could have been any more clear.

    Anyhow, on to the directness bit, I ended up texting back: “I’m so sorry you feel that way, but we really wanted to keep it to close friends and family only. None of the cousins were allowed a plus one unless they were married, so please don’t think we’ve singled you out. Similarly, it wouldn’t be fair to the others if we allowed Mike to come. I hope you understand!” She never responded, via text or in person (which means that this is discussed endlessly behind closed doors), but it also totally diffused any drama that might have ensued otherwise.

29. AHHH thank you for putting this up! My wedding is going to be smack-bang in the middle of a whole pile of family dramas – both a court case against my grandfather and my parents’ recent separation. We will not be inviting my maternal grandparents, my fiance’s parents (although he has never met his dad so that won’t be an issue), and now he has told me he doesn’t want my father to be invited.
    I would seriously consider just eloping if I wasn’t required to do six months or so of marriage prep with my priest… I know it will be okay in the end and we will be married and can start a new baby family and leave all the crap behind but GAH so much stress and hurt and confusion!!

    • Rest assured, the crap will follow.

30. Thank you for this post! I am in this situation right now!
    My sister, who was my bridesmaid, is refusing to come to the wedding because my mother (who I’ve been estranged from for over four years) isn’t invited. She keeps giving me the “she’s your only mother” line and lacks the maturity to respect my decision or keep our relationship separate from her and my mothers or mine and my mothers.
    We are both pretty stubborn but I am adament that I won’t be changing my mind. I’ve gone four years with no contact, my wedding is not an appropriate place for a reconciliation, even if I wanted one!
    I love the advice in the post about what to say, except I won’t be apologising. I will respect her choices when it’s her wedding and all I expect is the same courtesy in return.
    This does out my dad in a awkward position but I doubt he’ll want her there either!
    Right, off to get a replacement bridesmaid – great timing sis, there’s only 3 months to go..!

31. I have a question pertaining to a tangent to this. My fiance and I are having a really really small wedding, just parents, siblings, and each of us our best friend who is closer than most of our families are to each of us respectively. I am really struggling with ways to tell my grandparents that we want to keep it really small and are having a reception afterwards for extended family (including them). I love them but we want the wedding to stay small for a lot of reasons and since inviting one set of grandparents means inviting all of them (another nearly 10 people) and that turns our party of 15 to a party of almost 25 (I told you it was small). We are a fairly quiet couple, we are each very private shy-before-crowds/dislike public speaking people. We are already bearing our souls to eachother in front of 13 other people, which is going to be hard for us, even if they are our closest, nearest, and dearest, it will be hard for us, and while we love our grandparents, it is overwhelming to think about bearing my soul in front of even more people. There are other reasons, such as the location requiring a small party and that the wedding is themed and we were providing all the costumes so no one else would have to, to name a couple, but the reading our very emotional and personal self-written vows to eachother in front of nearly double the amount of people (no matter how much we love them) is probably the biggest. What should I tell them? How do I handle this? Please, any advice at all would help. Has anyone else been here or somewhere similar?

32. We chose not to have my 3 aunts at our wedding. They were all set to come, but right before invites went out they started legal proceedings against my mother. My father emailed them to tell them they wouldn’t be invited. My parents never married and my dad lives out of state, so he was more than willing to deliver the message. He got the brunt of the reactions, but since it was all through email, he just ignored it. My now-husband spoke to one of my uncles and asked that they leave us alone. It mostly worked, I only received two nasty phone calls which I ignored. It was still upsetting, my family had not been getting along for while and everyone was thinking my wedding was going to help mend some of that.

33. I chose not to invite extended family – specifically on my mother’s side of the family – mostly due in part that they are crazy and full of family drama. Especially since my grandmother is getting her affairs in order due to her declining health – and we could not invite her due to location. She would not be able to attend by flying out in her condition.

    I didn’t really have to deal with any inquiry into this. I sent them engagement announcements and not save the dates. That way if they wanted to have any contact they could. Only one of my aunts did contact me. Which was okay. My mom did get inquiries and she fielded them for me really – she just told them that it was a small wedding and that we’d only really be inviting close friends and immediate family. I don’t think anyone really had issue with it, and if they did – I never got wind of it, nor would I really care if they did.

34. My family is really small and my mocked up guest list is only 55 people. My fiancé came up with 55 people that were JUST family. I started going down his list, asking him “when was the last time you saw this person? When was the last time you talked to this person?” When he realized that he hadn’t seen or heard from 2/3 of his guest list since he was a child, he marked them off on his own lol

    • I totally relate to this!

      I have a large family (that is spread across the country) that I am very close to so there was no question that we were going to invite them. A has a smaller family and they aren’t as close (even though they all live within an hour of each other). While A was making his list I realized how little he knew about his extended family. He didn’t know some of his cousins’ spouses’ names or their children’s names (or even how many children they have). His mother reviewed the list and kept adding names to it. I kept asking how they were related to A, and then I asked when was the last time he saw them (usually the answer was when he was a kid). Due to a number of factors and family dynamics most of the people his mother added were invited (we set the limit at great-aunts and –uncles, but none of their children, etc.). These factors included that we were inviting even more people from my side (how can I say no when I already have 20 more people on my guest list), my father’s philosophy about wedding invitations (he calls it your “Christmas family” – anyone who you would invite to Christmas if you were hosting it and there were no restrictions – that said, these probably aren’t people we would invite for Christmas since I didn’t even know that they existed), the fact my in-laws were hosting wedding related events (and it was clearly important to my MIL that these people be invited), and the drama that resulted when my BIL got married the year before and didn’t invite some people due to financial constraints.

      In the end we invited 155 people (that includes a large number of children) which is more than I would have liked but it wasn’t worth the drama to make the number smaller. In the end, just over 70 people actually came to our wedding which was a good number.

35. I was never going to invite a nasty aunt of mine. Unfortunately, my father (her brother) said that if I didn’t invite her he wouldn’t come. So I decided not to invite any family members other than my parents and my siblings. My FH wasn’t keen on having his extended family invited either so he’s happy to do the same.

    I’m not particularly close to my extended family anyway and I figure I’d rather have our friends there- people we have chosen to have in our life.

36. I’ve been stressing myself silly about this very thing for the last couple of months and I still am struggling so much with it. My FH and I are working on finalizing our guest list so that I can start hunting down addresses to mail save the date cards in the next 3 weeks or so and I really don’t think that I want to invite my father and his wife. He was cheating on my mom while she was delivering me and they divorced a few months later and while he did end up with visitation in the divorce.. that’s really about as good as our relationship has ever been. He’s a very manipulative person and he doesn’t seem to care about anyone unless he wants something from them, typically money, which is why I’m finally trying to find my adult voice and put my foot down. His wife has problems too numerous to even get into, but alcohol pretty well sums it up.

    He knows I’m getting married this year, so just not telling him about the wedding isn’t really an option since he already knows it’s a thing. I would feel better not inviting him, and here and now saying this is a relationship that can’t be fixed and then moving on with my life.. my FH is a little more like “let’s just invite him to save you the stress of telling him he isn’t invited” .. if we’ve never been close, is he really owed an explanation?

37. My relations with my brother and his wife (and one sister and her husband) are a bit strained. I am the youngest of 4 and they have always had sarcastic, judgmental opinions of everything I’ve ever done. Ever since I got divorced (from a guy that I am still friends with), my brother has barely spoken to me because “Every time someone they know gets divorced, he has to explain to his girls that it won’t happen to them.” Forget the hypocrisy when I tell you that my brother was cheating on his wife regularly for years, and everyone knows about it.

    I am getting engaged this year and am dreading wedding planning. All of my family are in Philly, I am in Boston. My mom can not travel, neither can my second sister who has young kids, so I’d love to have it near them. But I’m also not sure I want to have it in Philly, since I’m in Boston.

    To complicate matters further, most of my friends are in Los Angeles. (I just moved to Boston a few years ago.) So, between my family and my friends, I’m not sure who would make it out to Boston. My family already begrudgingly traveled to Los Angeles for my first wedding, so I can just hear the complaining if they had to travel anywhere for a second one. I feel so stressed out and I haven’t even gotten engaged! Do I just have it in Philly? They would probably be relieved if I didn’t invite them, but that wouldn’t keep them from complaining about how hurt they are for not being invited. I feel damned either way. Any suggestions?

    For the record, most of my fiance’s family and friends are in Boston & New Jersey.

    • I would say just have it where you and FH want it. Feel free to send out invites, so that family cannot complain about not being invited. If they don’t want to travel they don’t have to accept your invitation. Maybe you could look into live streaming your wedding, or recording it home video style and offer to send it to family that wants to witness the event but not find a way out there and make note of it on the RSVPs?
      You know, something like:
      “We know that having the wedding at X place may make it difficult to attend, so we ask that if you would rather watch our special day from afar please let us know so that we may send out the footage from our wedding for your viewing pleasure right in the comfort of your own home!”

    • I just want to do a follow up here of what happened in the end. We had our wedding in a public park. Just me, him and his 2 daughters, and Justice of the Peace and a photographer. The weather even warmed up to 60 degrees so we were comfortable standing outside for it! We said vows to each other, then individually to the girls. I wanted them to know that I am not just marrying their dad, but they are part of my commitment too. After, we went to a restaurant where 20 friends were waiting. They didn’t know about the marriage, just thought that it was an engagement celebration. The host announced, “Please welcome the new Mr and Mrs T!” and everyone congratulated us. We had an amazing dinner. Such a great day. The following week, I called my 82 yo mom and told her all about it. She was so understanding and gracious, I wasn’t sure she was my actual mother. She is too frail to travel and understood. After that, I emailed my siblings, who were also very congratulatory. So, this story at least had a happy ending and I’m so grateful we did it the way we wanted. I hope this helps give faith to anyone doubting their convictions about their choices!! Good luck!

    • Rest assured, the crap will follow.

38. I’m struggling at the moment with a cousin of my other half. She’s just not a very nice person, we only see her at family events and even then it’s a nod hello. Neither of us like her, and her drama queen of a partner is one of the most irritating people I’ve met in my life – I’m sure she was off her face on drugs the first time we met. She didnt come to our engagement party (or decline the invite!) or give us a card or even a verbal congratulations. The problem is, he only has a few cousins and all the rest of them will be invited. We don’t see any of the rest of the cousins on a regular basis but at least when we do they talk to us and are friendly. Either way, we need to invite this cousin coz she’ll be the only one left out. I get annoyed every time I think about it but I guess I just have to suck it up.

39. My fiance and I just got engaged and I really don’t want to invite his brother’s fiancee to the wedding. She has had me banned from his brother’s house. Let’s just say we moved across the country to get away from her and her drama. I want to invite his brother but I do not want to invite her. My FH says he doesn’t want to invite her too but he wants his brother to come.

40. I have this very problem with inviting my father to my up coming wedding. He and my mum separated when I was very young. He was in the US and I was in the UK. I rarely heard from him and he never remembered my birthday, where as he always remembered my older sisters birthday etc. We eventually reconciled when I was 21(after I had my daughter) and we were on good terms for a few years and we visited him every year. Then due to a very nasty email over some very small things and some dredging up of the past, we fell out.

    Now whilst we talk again, my relationship with him is not good, he sent me a Christmas card and my FH name was wrong in it (we are Friends on facebook so its not like he doesn’t know or couldn’t check).

    So due to all this and more, I don’t want to invite him, it would be uncomfortable and wouldn’t really mean anything to have him there (my mum said she won’t come if he does).

    So I am now I am trying to find the words to tell him he is not invited – it’s hard and I feel some guilt because he is my father…but I know I have to do it

    • Omg this is nearly exactly my situation. Plus my dad’s wife is racist as all get-out (refuses to eat Vegemite because it’s Halal….umm hello we are aussies). We get on well and he helps me financially which I really appreciate but gaaahhh it’s going to be so awkward explaining that he can’t come, even though we only plan to have 10 people there. He’ll be hurt but if he came he’d just get drunk and say crazy shit, and besides my mum will refuse to attend 🙁

41. I know this thread is older, but since people are still replying, I feel the need to reply too. I have a lot of family drama, both with my husbands immediate family and my family. The expectation in my culture is to have a large wedding and reception. However, the drama on both sides has only gotten worse over the years. I am an event planner by profession, and after many arguments and drama among ourselves as we tried to figure things out and run through scenarios of what would or would not work, we said enough was enough. We realized we were spending too much time trying to please everyone else and minimize drama on what was to be OUR day. Yes, the parents, close friends and family want to share in the joy, but ultimately, it was OUR day. (also of note, we were paying for it ourselves, 1 because we wanted to, and 2 because we didnt want anyone controlling aspects of it by saying they were paying for it – even if that meant cutting things from the budget). We wanted a church wedding. So we did that, but pretty much ‘eloped’ as much as you can in our religion. I still planned it all, the church, a dress, hair/make up, flowers, dinner, a small cake, decorating our car, photographer, videographer, – all the basic elements of a wedding, but for us. We had our maid of honor and best man there, but in my religion they play a role in the ceremony and have to be there. They brought their six year old son because they had no one to watch him (they were from overseas) which was a lame excuse and i don’t think exactly true, but it all worked out. The biggest drama of the day was the hotel didn’t steam my dress correctly and I was ironing it myself the morning of my wedding! Then we went with our maid/bestman on a cruise for 7 days in the Caribbean as a sort of fun trip/semi-honeymoon (we hope in a year or two to save and take another trip just the two of us). One the one hand it was odd having no one there, on the other hand, it was the best decision ever. no drama. No worry of my mother (who would not have been invited) crashing the wedding. No worries. Instead, we enjoyed OUR day. We are so happy and it shows in our pictures and the video. We have started telling people. Some are hurt, but overall happy for us. Others are responding with great joy. The reactions are varied. I thought I always wanted the grand event with flowers and bands and Djs and dancing. I realized that that is NOT what I wanted. That is what society tells me to want. When it came down to it, what i wanted was to get married to the man I love. Yes, celebrate. But to stand at the altar and become one with my now husband – that beats ANY reception. Brides – do what you feel is right in your heart and in your gut. Do not stress yourselves over this life event. It is not worth it. ironically, the more people I tell, the more I hear, “Gosh, i wish i had the courage to do that! It would have been so much better! I could have done without all the hoopla.” Do what you want on your day, invite who you want, and tell people to shut the F up if they start drama. Surround yourselves only with those who love you and care for you and have your best interest in mind. My favorite quote is by Aristotle, “A true friend is the man that in wishing me well, wishes it for my sake.” Best of luck to all of you!

42. I think I already posted a comment, weighing in that I’m not inviting my dad or my oldest brother.

    The reason I’m posting again is that lately when I’ve been figuring out the finer details of this whole wedding shebang, I’ve hit a bit of a snag. My dad, sister, and three brothers live in the same house. I want to invite my sister and the two younger brothers, but not dad and the older brother. I don’t know how I’m going to do invites for that household…. Would I just verbally invite the sister and two brothers? Maybe do individual, specific invites for them? There is the other (less pleasant) possibility where I just invite the whole household and hope dad and my brother don’t show. They probably wouldn’t anyway, but I really feel like the time to extend my hand in friendship is over, and I need to be definite in my dealing with them (mostly for my and future hubby’s sanity).

    Gah, I don’t know what to do! Any people with ideas please feel free to give me your two cents 🙂

    • Bernadette, I am going through a similar situation with my brother (see my post below). He still lives in the house with my adoptive family, but he is my only blood relative. I was extremely close with him growing up and would hate to look back and regret not having him at my wedding, but the chances of him not dropping the dime are super slim. I have been contemplating the idea of calling him the day before the wedding and asking him to meet me somewhere for “coffee or dinner” (depending on how formal we decide to go), and in reality giving him the address of the venue. No time to reach out to anyone else. That might work for you, however you would have to know there would be fall out after the day if they mentioned it to the other family. That would really let them know you are no longer extending the hand in friendship, but might also make the siblings you are inviting feel like they were bamboozled into hurting your dad and brother. Only you know what your relationship can take. I wouldn’t want you to alienate the family you do have a relationship with if you think thats how this would go down, but its a suggestion. Hope it helps get you thinking at least!

    • Why not mail it to each of them individually, but inside of another envelope? I know from experience that many toxic families can’t expect (much) privacy in things addressed to them, but it IS still a felony to open someone else’s mail.

    • Invite all or none. Everyone already knows who you like or dislike, but making it formal with selective invitations is a bad strategic move in the long run.

      • Agree completely. All you do by uninviting is cause more trouble.

43. It’s been almost six months since our wedding and over the weekend we found out that my BIL was told by his wife that he wasn’t allowed to go to our wedding (due to a family feud she refused to put any effort into resolving). My MIL dragged him to our wedding (he is my husband’s only sibling and he was supposed to be our best man). After our wedding his wife went to a neighbour’s house and said she was mad at my BIL for going to our wedding against her wishes (she couldn’t stop him at the time because she was at work). Someone I know was at the neighbour’s house when this happened. (Side note: He told us if his partner told him he couldn’t go to his brother’s wedding that he would go and she would be going too lol going as in gone.) My SIL being mad is more of a reflection of problems in her relationship with my BIL than anything to do with us so it doesn’t make me any more upset about how things went down. Though it does explain why my BIL asked that his family be uninvited from our wedding and that he be fired as best man (I am glad we recognized this as him trying to make us look like the bad guys). That said, she previously said that she would not being going to family events on our husbands’ side but that he was free to go and he could take their kids, which this situation shows is not true.

44. I keep coming back and reading these posts for strength to know I am making the right decision. My brother and I were adopted. Let me first say, I have always been thankful for the roof over my head and the many blessings I received by not having to grow up in orphanges and foster homes like where I spent the first few years of my life. I have been unwaiveringly respectful to the people that raised us, but to me they have never been family. I did not have a happy childhood with them and while “most” of the scars I have suffered are not physical, I was most deffinately abused. While I continue to stay in contact with my adoptive family even into adulthood (I am almost 30) I live out of state and only share with them over the phone what I am comfortable sharing.
    My FH and his family are aware of my troubled past and have always been the family to me I now know I deserve. We have been together over ten years now and we have finally saved enough money to start planning our wedding. It has always been the plan between my FH to celebrate our day without family on my side. Suprisingly enough when I shared this plan with my FMIL she was upset. His parents both tried to debate me about why I was wrong. They made me feel extremely guilty for slighting the people who raised me, even knowing the horrors that I escaped. My FH tried a little to back me up, but has never been firm with his parents on anything, or really ever had to. We were both so surprised that this agitated them so much. They even made threats (albeit jokingly) about if they were not invited, something that would have never have happened.
    I will not change my decision, the day should be a happy one that I share with those who truely care about me and my FH and have contributed to our success as a couple. Not those who try to make me feel I am undeserved of such happiness. It just bothers me that I should even have to fight others opinions on the matter. That I should be judged when no one truely understands anyone elses family dynamic. I know I will face this judgement from many others on the wedding day when others realize I have no family there. Some generations will probably judge harder than others, most untraditional things typically are. I don’t want whispers of what a monster I am for not inviting them. I know I shouldn’t care, but those I invite are those who I care most about if that makes sense. So I am here to gain strength and good wishes from those of you who know what I am going through. Thank you for your stories and suggestions.

    • First off you are not a monster. Second you are not doing anything wrong at all whatsoever.

      It sounds harsh but your inlaws need to understand that your wedding is your wedding. As someone who comes from a broken drama filled family that has to dance the broken family tango every year (at least two thanksgivings and christmases if not more depending on how everyone is feeling that year and that was before I started dating my SO) I can say with utter certainty you are making the right decision. If these people open up mental wounds, who take back years of hard work at putting yourself together into you, or if they just make you feel pain and unsafe then do not let them near you wedding with a ten foot pole. Older generations would often suffer through such issues or they would just ignore that they were there at all. It is somewhat expected by them to keep up some appearance of normalcy.

      Also I’ve found that people who haven’t gone first hand through abuse can’t understand the depth of damage that it causes to a person nor do they understand why for sanity’s sake you can’t let them be a part of your life (‘but she’s your mom’ ‘….have you not listened to a word i’ve told you for the last several years about my family????’ ‘but you have-‘ ‘NO’). That family ties can’t ‘fix’ everything and if there’s a problem where on the outside they look all nice and shiny and good you need to be firm in the ‘they hurt me so NO’.

      So all that rambling is to say it is your day, you are justified in doing what you feel is necessary, your in laws need to jump on your boat, and you need to keep being the fabulous person you are.

      • “If these people open up mental wounds, who take back years of hard work at putting yourself together into you, or if they just make you feel pain and unsafe”
        Ellie you have said what has been in my heart since I left that life. I still keep in touch with my *parents* out of respect for what they did provide me with. However it is amazing how much of my strength, energy and maturity it takes to build up to a 15 minute conversation once a month or so. Not to mention the recovery time to remind myself that those people can’t hurt me anymore unless I let them. Its unbelievable how quickly someone who claims to care so much about you can tare you down in a matter of minutes. I am strengthened by knowing that I am not genetically related to them and knowing that the cycle will end with me. My FH and his family showed me what true love and respect are and I am a changed person as a result.
        “That family ties can’t ‘fix’ everything and if there’s a problem where on the outside they look all nice and shiny and good you need to be firm in the ‘they hurt me so NO’.”
        You absolutely nailed it. It is so easy to look at people who adopt multiple children and think they must love kids and have such patience and good hearts. My parents were great at playing martyr and using my brother and I and our situation to hide what was really going on inside that home. They were obsessed with appearances and they ground that into us. It is something we are still trying to shed. I think that is why I am so worried that my FH’s family will think that I am being unreasonable or cruel by not inviting those that raised me.
        My FH thinks that his mother is just worried that years from now I will regret not having my parents there. Oddly enough that is not even a remote thought for me, I am so sure of this decision. I am more concerned about entering into a family relationship with people who don’t understand the reasons why I wouldn’t want to invite my parents and the judgement that I am any less of a good person for that decision. But you are very right, you can tell people of the horrors you survived a thousand times, if they have not been through it they can not ever really understand the visceral and raw feeling you have from simply being around those who have caused you such pain.
        Your comments made me cry Ellie, in the best possible way because you sound like a happy functioning adult and it is so nice to know there are others out there who have survived to live amazingly different lives than where they came from. You also make me feel much more normal about my family life than I ever do with non *damaged* people! Thank you so much for taking the time to write back and thank you for calling me fabulous, clearly neither of us came from a place where we were told how great we are. You are a good person and that comes across in spades. Good luck to you and your happy functioning adult life!

    • Better to invite than not. Your future in-laws already think less of you for your lack of generosity – how many do you want to add to the list? And just perhaps, you don’t really understand your caregivers situation, just as you say other people don’t understand yours.

    • Absolutely do NOT invite your adoptive parents. Who cares what other people think?? If it takes you that much to get on the phone with them for 15 minutes, imagine how it will ruin what should be one of the best days of your life? My family absolutely sucks. They made my first wedding all about them. When I got married the second time, I didn’t even tell them about the wedding until afterward. I live in a different state (by choice specifically to avoid them). Your in-laws are wrong to pressure you. Maybe if you told them some of the effed up things your adoptive parents did or said to you, they might understand. Or just start bawling in front of them and explain how stressed it would make you. I don’t know. Some people will never understand you not wanting to talk to your parents, biological or otherwise. Maybe screen the movie, Mommie Dearest, for them and explain that’s what your mom was like? Stay strong. Get your FH on your side and have him stick up for you because (I hate to say it) but this is just the first of many times where you will have to tell your MIL to mind her own business. If he can’t stand by you now, just imagine the conversations you’re going to have with him about you MIL pressuring to have a kid, to have a second kid, etc. I don’t mean to stress you out, but that the real issue here.

45. It’s less than 2 months until my wedding, and I find out that my sister’s scumbag ex-husband is moving back in with her 3 weeks before my wedding. She already RSVPed for 1. After calling her, I find out that her intentions are to bring him. I acted just as the article suggested (before even reading it) and told her that I would rather him not be at my wedding since he would make me uncomfortable. She then tells me she is no longer allowing my nephew to be the ring bearer. I don’t want to argue. I want my nephews and my sister (matron of honor) to be a part of my special day. I physically loathe her ex-husband. I’m also down to crunch time – programs need to be printed, I’ve already purchased a ring pillow, ring bearer gift, etc. How do I explain this to her without drama?

    • In the long run are programs, ring bearer pillow and ring bearer gift that important? Our best man (my BIL) did not act as best man at our wedding (he sat with his parents) and his wife and children did not attend. We didn’t have programs. We kept his name as best man on our website. We gave him his best man gift as we already bought it. And we gave his children the activity books that all the other kids got. They also didn’t RSVP so we assumed they were coming and paid for their food. We did have to have a plan B (eg who was going to sign as witness, who was going to walk my step-mum down the aisle, what the head table would look like). Everyone involved knew both plans and we decided which one was going to be in place right before the ceremony.

      In the weeks before our wedding we to work things out with my BIL and his wife but it just didn’t work. Dealing with all the drama caused me a lot of stress since it was dropped on me in the month before our wedding and my MIL is about appearances. (My BIL was more or less dragged to our wedding.) For us it was easier to assume they were coming and to try to work things out than worry about what people would think if he didn’t show up and how we wasted money on a gift and food.

46. @Eh – My fiance and I are not independently wealthy, and we’re paying for our entire wedding ourselves. So yes, program cost, ring bearer pillow, etc. are important when we have plenty of other things to foot the bill for.

    We don’t have the luxury of a Plan B, as my family is small. I simply would’ve thought my own sister could have the decency to respect my wish for one day without pulling out an ultimatum and involving little ones who are very, very dear to me.

    I don’t care what others think. I care about the impact this will have on my relationship with my sister before and after the wedding, as well as how to juggle this unwanted drama, potential added expense, and my sanity before our big day.

    • You seem to have made a ton of assumptions about me and my husband. We aren’t independently wealthy either. He does not have a large family – my BIL is his only sibling. Having been there it is very unpleasant and very difficult and causes a lot of stress. My husband and I (and my in-laws) really hoped that my BIL and his wife would also have had the decency to not cause tons of drama for us but crap happens (joys of family).

      I was actually suggesting that you save money by not having programs at all. And if you want to have a ring bearer then the cost of the pillow and the gift would be already accounted for in your budget (i.e., it’s not an added expense). Make sure that the items are returnable in case you don’t have one and you don’t want to give them to him. We paid for four extra meals because my BIL’s family didn’t show up, plus activity books and crayons for the kids, and a tie, pocket square and cufflinks for my BIL. I don’t see those as extra expenses since we would have needed those things if they had shown up (i.e., they needed to be accounted for in our budget). And by no means am I suggesting that you invite her ex (as that would be an extra expense).

      I’m also not sure what family size has to do with having a Plan B. For us the Plan B consisted of having someone to walk my step-mum down the aisle (she wanted with my sister’s fiancé walk her), having my sister as MOH sit in the front row instead of stand up with me (so it wasn’t obvious that we didn’t have a best man – we only had a BM and MOH no groomsmen or bridesmaids), having someone else sign as witness (my husband picked his cousin), and having a sweetheart table at the reception instead of having the best man and MOH sit with us (MOH sat with her fiancé – MOH had the venue move the place setting). The Plan Bs were all set before our wedding and discussed with the people who were impacted. On the day of our wedding when we found out that my BIL was coming to the ceremony but not acting as best man (less than 30 minutes before the ceremony started) everyone knew what to do.

      When the issue between my husband and my BIL first started my husband tried to resolve it but it kept getting bigger and bigger because my BIL and his wife were unwilling to resolve it and kept bringing up stuff that we either thought was already resolved or stuff that happened months earlier that we didn’t know was an issue. They felt that it was my husband’s responsibility to put in all of the effort to resolve the issues but they wouldn’t show up to (in-person) meetings that he had set up for the four of us to discuss things (and they demanded that he drive an hour to their house when he doesn’t have a car instead of talking on the phone). When my in-laws heard about the issue they were also pressuring my husband to resolve it (at any cost) but when they found out that my BIL and his wife didn’t bother to show up at meetings and they kept bringing up stuff that we thought was resolved then they had little sympathy for my BIL and his wife’s position. My in-laws requested that my husband pick a new best man because they were worried about the optics of us not having a best man. (They had never heard of a wedding without a best man.) We didn’t care about the optics and my husband only wanted his brother to be best man so my husband did not pick a new best man. A few weeks before the wedding my BIL requested that we fire him as best man and uninvited his family from our wedding (this was really upsetting for us). He wanted us to be the bad guys since his wife had told him that he was not allowed to go to our wedding (his mother dragged him to our ceremony on the day of our wedding and his wife couldn’t stop him from going because she was at work).

      When we considered what we were going to do and our Plan Bs we made sure that it was considering my husband’s relationship with his brother (and also his parents and his cousin). My husband didn’t fire him as BM or replace him because we felt that would hurt their relationship. We invited them to all of the wedding related events so they knew that we wanted them to be part of our wedding and our life. Emotions were way too high around our wedding and two weeks before our wedding (the day of last meeting they didn’t show up for) we decided that there was no more we could do and doing anything more would cause too much stress on us (i.e., we didn’t have time to set up another meeting with them since we both had work and wedding stuff and we lived an hour away without a car). We decided for our mental health that we would have to put resolving things on hold until after our wedding. (My in-laws were hoping that my BIL and his wife would put the grudges aside for our wedding.)

      It turns out that there was nothing we could have done to resolve the issue since they were unwilling to resolve it before our wedding (my MIL’s wife was deliberately causing the drama because she was mad at my husband over something that happened at her wedding). My BIL’s wife hadn’t even booked the day off work – so she had no intention of coming to our wedding. A few weeks after our wedding we sat down with them. Emotions were not as high and we managed to work out a large chunk of the issues.

    • Be generous! Invite him! Tell your sister that if he doesn’t behave, you will but her kids drums.

      • You and I seem to be the only ones here who think that inviting is worse and causes more drama.

        • I meant uninviting.

47. This is a great article and one I wish I had read before organising my wedding. Luckily pretty much everything I did was along the same lines as suggested. We just wanted a very small wedding, pretty much just actual family or people that knew us for a really long time from when my partner and I got together. One fact was that it involved excluding my sisters partner, but we had made a rule pretty much from the outset which was, apart from our two core witnesses, no partners at all for the wedding or reception due to space constraints, essentially, very small ceremony, big party in the evening. My sister complained heavily that I shouldn’t say that her partner could only attend the party, but I explained that we had our criteria and because of constraints it was the best way to get as many people involved in the places that we could and stuck to that line. Ultimately, without budging on our behalf, my sister now doesn’t talk to me and excluded herself from the whole wedding and party and I haven’t heard from her since, except for her saying not to involve myself at her birthday. It is really painful when you have to come up with a list of people, but when you have constraints and good reasons for what you’re doing, as every single other person attending (even one flying from China!), the wedding is about the people getting married and their happiness together, you’ll always make someone unhappy by including or excluding so have a reason for who attends and stick to it, if you start to flex it makes a mockery for everyone else and you’ll not please everyone, it’s a shame that the hurt came from someone so close, but as others have said on here, if mature and supportive they should understand your reasons and support you. The guest list is, I think, the hardest part to a wedding, it was for mine anyway! Good luck to future wedding people. Great article and commenters on here btw!

    • Seriously? You had so many other options besides this.

48. I NEED HELP! I just got engaged not even 2 months ago. I asked my 2 sisters to be bridesmaids and they both said yes. My one sister has been engaged to my finance’s cousin, whom we both don’t like because of the way he treats my sister and my finance, for about 7yrs and they have 2 kids together. We just told her this past weekend that he is not allowed to come to our wedding because he does not care about us getting married and he’s not going to be there to support us just to cause problems and make us miserable.

    My sister has now decided that she wants nothing to do with my wedding because of this. So now I’m loosing out on my sister and my 2 nephews, one being my Godson, coming to my wedding and it’s really killing me. However I can’t stand him and I don’t want anything to do with him on my day!! Now my father’s getting involved saying he’s not going to come either. (My Mom passed away over 5 yrs ago so I don’t have her either). Granted it’s a year and half away and I really hope my Dad isn’t that heartless to do that to me but we are not giving in. We find no need to pay for someone to come to our wedding just to mock us.

    Please help me! I feel like we’re doing the right thing and all my other bridesmaid’s and my in-laws agree with me but for some reason my family isn’t getting it. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

    • You are handling this the worst way possible. Suck it up and invite him. For the 7 hours you have to put up with him, all the other drama and problems aren’t worth it.

49. I’ve personally seen a lot of drama at weddings and receptions and even pre-wedding parties, because people say they want the wedding kept quiet about but tell all thier friends, and then it ends up on 4 different social media pages, make it a firm thing with friends and family and guests that NOTHING about YOUR day is to be posted, not the date time place or whatever, and although it will be hard to due, include yourself and spouse in the same firmness.
    Less stress and dramafrom friends and family. especially for those who (like myself) are unsure about inviting certain family members, for whatever reason.
    hope this helps.

    • Have to agree with you on this one, my choice for not telling my family when I was getting married stirred up a lot of drama and dredged up a lot of emotions in the past that I did not want to discuss. It didn’t help by the fact that I worked with two of them and compounded with toxic colleagues that are gossip spreaders. So I basically just let everyone know im getting married and ended the conversation at that. The wedding day was perfect. Mum, Sister and my Wife’s Mum were the only relatives there with us on the big day. Everyone else was very close friend who I’ve known personally all my life and spend more time with than my family.
      My choice for not inviting my family stems from the fact that drama just follows them everywhere and they are narcissistic at heart.

      I failed to inform my friends to not include me posted on social media and what followed was a major backlash from my family. Their view is that family and blood is everything and that I owed them respect. But I stand firm on my decision that I wasn’t comfortable with them there, but the whole issue has gotten way out of hand to the point where whole family isn’t even talking anymore. This is the sad truth about a dysfunctional family and its best not to give them any excuse to blame you.

      • No. You should have invited everyone.

        • You’re an idiot, you ridiculous, ridiculous, creature. I’d never in a thousand universes pay for a bunch of people I cannot stand to be at an important milestone in my life. It’s not your call to make moronic snap judgements for others without context or years of heartbreak and abuse to teach you that blood means absolutely nothing without love and commitment. It’s been a year since you posted, and I thought it was ridiculous reading you give ‘advice’ to people probably long married, and now I’m doing the same, but reading though these comments, your ludicrous input was driving me crazy.

          Brides reading through the comment section in the future- refer to the original article. You must absolutely be SURE. This commenter seems to think that keeping the peace amongst a family is worth ‘enduring’ someone’s company for hours at your wedding, worth paying hundreds to thousands of your own money to avoid hurt feelings. I don’t. But think about the future consequences, sit down and explain to family with hurt feelings, but ultimately ask them why you should be financially and emotionally responsible for feelings of dozens of people that don’t even treat you well enough to make you want to be around them. If it’s a financial or space constraint, just straight up ask them to be mature about that decision.

          Remember the old saying, blood is thicker than water? It’s a misremembered quote, my friends. The original quote says ‘the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb’. It’s a biblical quote, referencing that the bonds of promise and commitment are much stronger than any incidental relationship with a rando blood relative. Don’t endure random 5 minute boyfriends, horrible relations that will spend the whole wedding asking if you couldn’t lose a bit of weight for the wedding, or parents absolutely trying to start a fight for attention during your wedding dance. Just don’t.

          All I can say is, twenty five years on from completely cancelling my own wedding because of ridiculous family demands and being suddenly responsible for upholding an entire two families delicate feelings JUST because we wanted to legalise how we felt- I have no regrets. I’m still happily living in the most mundane of sin with three amazing kids. The bitter, horrible relatives might still be bitter and horrible, but I wouldn’t know, as once I wasn’t getting married, I ceased to matter to them again, and I was quite pleased to feel the same. I only kept the relationships I cared to, and I have a family I care to know. Some of them don’t share a lick of blood with me.

          You’re starting a new stage of your life. Who do you want to be part of it?

          (And don’t forget, a wedding might cost hundreds to thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars- but a holiday to Morocco, Hawaii, the South of France, or Tasmania, to elope on your own probably costs less, and saves whole bucket loads of stress, and makes for better photos- you can even still have the dress. Or living it out in sin for twenty five years, your call. What do I know? I’m just some rando on the internet, and randos on the internet aren’t really worth listening to. I say. Pointedly. To Elisabeth Staton.)

50. Please advise ! It ismy daughters wedding, & she says she will go along with watever i decide , but I cannot bring myself to invite any of my family as they stress me out so much! They r quite posh & not at all alternative, and my daughters family & I lead an alternative lifestyle in many ways, and I feel that they will judge us in a bad way. We have contact with them, but mainly through emails, so to suddenly b at a large party style wedding will b quite an eye opener for them! Part of me wants to be honest & proud of who we are, but then I feel so stressed at the whole idea of them being there, that I don think its worth it.. Do u think I should summoned up courage & invite them or not? (They know she is getting married but we have just said its with close friends.)

51. There’s some really great advice going on here and I could use a dose. In a very long convoluted story, I’m being told to invite my ex-husband to my wedding. One of the multitude of reasons I’m being given is so that he can be supportive of our children, ages 23 & 17, who are crazy happy about my fiancée and will be my attendants. Another reason is that the ex and I are still part of the same Wiccan circle and not inviting him will be harmful to our community. I think it’s not fair to my fiancée and totally inappropriate for the ex to be invited, much less actually attend. But it feels like the only people who are agreeing with my viewpoint are my fiancée and kids.

    Suggestions?

    • I can understand where the hesitation and wish to put your FH firmly in the spotlight comes from and it is a choice that the two of you need to make together – no matter the opinions of others.

      To play the Devil’s advocate, have you discussed the situation and your feelings with your ex directly?

      If you two can share a Wiccan group/circle and remain on speaking and working terms, then I would imagine that you can have this conversation with him about it.

      If you opt to not have him attend the ceremony, would giving him the opportunity to attend the reception be an alternate option – to pacify your busy-bodies and let the kids get a nice picture with him.

      I found that biting the bullet on the close association non-invite was much more effective than trying to ignore the elephant in the room. My good friend (who is also my FH’s ex of 4 years) always assumed that she would be one of my maids, but I didn’t want to deal with the drama and potential hurt of someone else thinking that I was attempting to hurt her or worse his family being extra hateful to her.

      You have to do what feels right to you, but you may find out that he’s dreading being invited – just as much as you don’t want to invite him.

52. My wedding day is nowhere near, nor am I even engaged. But I struggle with the thought regularly that in order to have a stress free wedding where I can truly be happy I will have to give up having my dad walk me down the isle as my step monster has always come before my sister and I.

53. Im looking to exclude my step mom. My entire life we did nothing but fight. Oil and water and I know that it would really upset my mom and probably all 5 of her brothers to see this woman there and I would do nothing but worry about it all day. I think it would cause me stress to know that my mother has to face the woman who was sleeping with my dad. It also brings to the fact that I want my parents to sit up front in the ceremony together leaving my step mom sitting alone and she likes to cause drama and would probably try to convince my dad not to sit with my mom. I haven’t spoken to this woman In 5 years. She doesn’t know me. She doesnt know my fiance. So to me she’s a stranger who happened to marry my father. I know this will hurt my dad but the good of the many. I don’t want to hurt my mom and i don’t want to deal with drama or worry about potential drama. However i know not inviting her will be a whole other set of drama but im just gonna have to take that one phone call at a time and stand my ground.

54. This was a great article to read. We are in a similar situation of wanting to exclude certain family members. It’s a little bit strange, but I have known a large portion of my fiancée’s family for many years, before I even knew he existed. His father, stepmother and their three kids accepted me into their family and they were always “Uncle John and Auntie Brannuen”. Their oldest daughter was a bridesmaid at my first wedding, and their second daughter was a groomsmaid. Anyway, fast forward several years, and I am divorced from my first husband, and run into the oldest daughter at a party. She introduces me to her older half-brother. The man with whom I ended up falling in love, moving in with, and am now planning to marry.

    Here’s the problem. Very early in our relationship, said older daughter decided that she didn’t approve of our relationship (yes, in spite of the fact that she pretty much set us up), and really didn’t like the fact that the two of us had become very well liked and popular in a social circle she considered to be “hers”. And she tried to dictate the rules of our relationship and how we interacted with “her” friends. When that didn’t work, she launched a very public and slanderous campaign against us both, though it was mostly targeted at me, calling us both liars and me a lot of choice other things when we explained the truth to this circle of friends. The situation snowballed, and some things were said and done that were very hurtful on both sides, and basically no one on that side of my fiancée’s family is speaking to me. I still have tenuous contact with the stepmother and second daughter (father passed away about 5 years ago).

    Now that we are engaged and planning a wedding, this is a very difficult situation for me. I want very much to invite my “Aunt” and her two younger children. As does my fiancée. I do not want to include the oldest half-sister or her husband (he makes me very uncomfortable, to the point where I fear for my personal safety when I am around him). I’m pretty sure that none of that side of the family will go unless they are all invited.

    What makes things even worse is something that my future stepmother-in-law said to my fiancée recently at a memorial/burial service for his dad; she said to my fiancée in no uncertain terms “You will make peace in this family so that we can all come and celebrate your wedding.” I have no intention of apologizing for a wrong I did not do, nor will I just pretend like nothing ever happened and that everything is all okay, just so there can be “peace in the family”. I also really don’t want the oldest half-sister to start drama and behave in a rude, sullen, and hostile manner (which she will, as she has at every other social occasion where we have had to share space) on what is supposed to be a day filled with love and joy. I just have to accept the strong possibility of having no one from that family attending our wedding, and be able to console my fiancée whom I know is crushed by all this.

55. I chose to not invite one particular relative to my wedding, and I did speak with my parents first, who fully supported me in my decision. Nothing more was said or asked about it. Sometimes, people choose to no longer be in someone’s life. I accepted that he chose not to be in mine, so I chose to not be in his.

56. I am having huge problems with this situation right now. I had sent out the Save the Dates, and on them said “please no children at the wedding.” My brother got so irate about such a simple thing (even though the venue has a babysitting service, and he isn’t the only guest we’ve invited who has kids) so now instead of having the constant worry about them still bringing my niece I’m thinking about just not inviting any of them.
    I understand the ways to break it to them (though I don’t plan on telling them…I’ll just wait for them to bring it up). But my brother is relentless, I have such a bad feeling that even if I say “it breaks my heart, but this is the decision that me and my FH have reached” it won’t be good enough for him. There’s no way that he won’t make me feel like a complete pile of crap, and he’s good about doing that too. It’s just his wife and daughter cause so much drama…and I really don’t need that on my wedding day. My niece doesn’t understand how to behave and they don’t reinforce discipline.
    I’m just in a huge “lose-lose situation” with this…but I have the feeling I will just have to be the bad-guy bouncer bride and tell him that it’s the decision we made and he’ll just have to get over it.
    He’s so upset about the “no kid rule”…yet we weren’t even invited to his own wedding…and when we showed up for their 10 year anniversary vow renewal we weren’t even thanked or felt welcome…this is a nice example of “pot calling kettle black” I think….

    • If he didn’t invite you to his wedding, why are you inviting him to yours? As a oreviously uninvited you have every right to revenge.

    • Please tell me how you are going with this? I’m having similar dramas with my sister . 🙂 thanks

57. I am watching, and hearing the struggling that my daughter is going through right now making out that dreaded list. It makes my heart ache. So many on it that will most likely bring unneeded drama. I pray she learns something from this article. That it is important to keep the drama away. If that means keeping the venue, and time of the celebration secret so that others don’t know. Or even NOT inviting that grandmother, uncle, drunken father, and cousins that don’t know how to act. This is YOUR day. Your wedding day. Drama does not need to be there at all. The only feelings should be of celebration and love for the joining of those 2 people. If you are having to warn people to stay away from each other. Or having to struggle with who can sit with whom at a table….you are making a stressful event even more stressful than it needs to be. Just don’t invite them. If they love you, and care, they will respect your wishes and stay at home. They won’t just threaten to show up whether you like it or not. That isn’t loving, that is demanding, and selfish. I love my daughter. I would do anything for her. Help her with her dress, decorating, even cater. Anything to help her with this wedding. If she asked me to step aside. Yeah, it would hurt like crazy, but out of love for her. I would do so. Why? Because it is HER day. Not mine.

58. One way that we are handling this issue is to only invite people who are playing an actual part in our day. For example: My crazy hippie aunt? She’s doing our flowers. My best friend’s/matron’s of honor mom & dad? He’s officiating, she’s in charge of our brunch reception. This kept our guest list to the smaller size (around 50) that we prefer, AND it provides a simple answer for those who aren’t invited. Only immediate family is invited (brother, parents, grandparents) unless they play a specific part in our day – that alone adds up to almost half of our list once you include spouses and families, so that is why we came to this decision. There are a few aunts, uncles, & their kids who aren’t invited, but they would be unhappy either way.

59. Don’t forget sometimes the ‘Uninvited for No reason’ family members. If the wedding is small, fine, say it. Budget? Ok. But have the guts to say something! I was NOT invited to a family members wedding, when the rest of my (immediate) family was. After Months of anguish from Mom (especially since my brother had just gotten married and had a second reception back home for the people who couldn’t attend) the months long silence made the whole thing worse and worse by the day, until now, I am pretty angry at my family for staying quiet and not asking questions when I asked them too, and the to-be-married family member is grumpy with me for NOT asking why I hadn’t been invited, when my family said to ‘not rock the boat’!

    Honesty and Open Communication matters!!

60. Thank you for this story. I have had a massive falling out with my grandmother to the point where I, and my fiancé , told her to stay out of my life and that she’s not welcome at our wedding.

    • Someday you will long to see that photo of you and her at the wedding. Think long term.

      • No, not necessarily. In my case, I’d be more shocked to see a wedding photo with my grandmother in it, since she was willingly there for so little of my life despite the fact that we lived in the same town.

61. I am so glad that I found this. I am going back and forth on whether or not to invite my SIL and my fiancee’s brother to our wedding. We all never got along. We have been a part of a six year long feud . Part if it started because my husband and his brothers grandparents. There seems to be a competition as to whose kids get more time with them. When my hubby and I are with his grandparents, my SIL will call multiple times with a crisis. “One of the kids are sick” “I am so sad that my Army reserves husband is leaving me for weekend duty with four kids” Whatever it is the grandparents neglect my family to rescue hers. I want my day to be all about me. I am conflicted because she is passive aggressive and the expert victim. Therefore, she has half the family convinced that I bullied on her when in fact I am actually acting out about her attention seeking behavior. I just got on good terms with the entire family again over this. I have promised them that I will not war with her anymore. If I don’t invite her I am afraid I will look petty and that she will use this to start it all over again. I am afraid that if I do invite her then she will have another crisis to take the attention from my day.

    • You will look petty, and be blamed restarting the war. Invite her. Find a babysitter to follow her through the wedding and sidetrack problems.

62. Thank you so much for writing this! I’m trying to figure out if I invite my emotionally absent, manipulative and homophobic parents to our wedding. My partner and my partner’s family keep saying no, my sister (who has a VERY different relationship with them) wants me to invite then, and I’m having a really hard time figuring out what on earth to do. Having them there will result in breakdowns and fights. Not having them there will be a lot of tears in advance, but also the opportunity to celebrate with the people who do truly love me and my partner. Beautiful advice, I just need to own the real problem: I do not feel comfortable having them there.

    • Don’t do it!! This is about you and your partner. Why have people there that don’t agree that will judge. Don’t feel obligate. If they reach out to you wanting to support your day then maybe consider it. You can’t make Everyone happy.

63. I’m not inviting certain negative family members and have no problem with them Not coming. However my boss mentioned if I invite one person from our team I should invite them all. Pff! The nerve of her, she not paying for my wedding to tell me who I should n shouldn’t invite. My finace not even inviting any co workers. Plus my venue is small. I have no problem telling people why they can’t come.

64. First thank you for the helpful article and comments, I appreciate the support. I’ve seen many posts about family you don’t want coming to the wedding, but what about estranged family members that you still have a relationship with? My dad cut off all contact with his relatives as soon as he turned 18, but my mom made sure that I saw them on holidays (I’m pretty sure without his consent). I’m not especially close with them, but I like most of them and they have supported me and my SO when and how they can, like including him in wedding invites. However, my SO and I understand my dad’s reasons for not wanting any contact with them, including at our wedding, and we care more about respecting my dad’s wishes than my relatives. I just wish I didn’t have to pick and choose like this, since there’s no way to do this without hurting anyone. I’m thinking about having a special dinner for them without my dad in lieu of inviting them to the ceremony and reception. Anyone done anything like this before? Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated!

    • A special dinner is not a wedding – definitely 2nd best. Tell your Dad to suck it up. He is an adult.

65. So I am having a very particular non inviting issue. My sister has asked me not to invite one of our uncles for what turned out to be a very good reason. But I still want to invite our aunt(his wife). She is very dear to me and I can’t imagine my big day without her. But I also need my sister there and she can’t be around my uncle. How do I go about this tactfully?

    • Seat them far, far apart. Tell your sister to suck it up. She is an adult.

66. There are a few people from my family that won’t be invited, including my dad, grandmothers and my older sister. I won’t be letting them know either. If they need a reason why, then they have all forgotten my entire life. My fiance’s sister also won’t be invited. We both know that his mother is going to flip when she finds out. Neither of us like her, we’ve tried to be friends but she is arrogant, ignorant, nasty and uneducated. She is not the kind of person we want to be around, much less at our wedding. His mother is pretty fake when it comes to family. She trys to pretend we are all a big happy family, like a commercial. We aren’t. My fiance and I have no interest in being fake or lying. inviting her would be nothing but trouble. Especially since we don’t want children at our wedding either and she has a son. We’ve been screwed over enough that we have built a shield

    • Remember, you are going to have to live with these people and the rest of the family for a long time. Make it adult only; maybe that one won’t come.

67. I know this is an old post, but any advice on how to deal with not inviting a family member when it is over an issue not everyone in the family knows about? In this case, it is abuse, and the person it happened to has chosen to only tell certain family members (and is not my place to disclose this info). If I suddenly don’t invite the family member with no explanation, shit will hit the fan with my family members who do know and those who don’t know will probably just be confused and angry at me. Very strange situation that stresses me out.

    • I have a very similar situation. My younger sisters and I dealt with abuse from our father for basically the entirety of our childhood. It has just recently come out to our mother, and while she is pursuing charges, no one else knows. I definitely don’t want him at my wedding, but I do want the rest of his family there (my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins). But how do you not invite him without it all going to hell? I’m afraid they will all be so angry with me over something they know nothing about. For this very reason, I’m considering eloping, even though I know it would make my fiance’s family so upset. I can’t win.

    • Exact same issue in my family, my sister was abused by my uncle and the family didn’t know our entire childhood. Only recently in our late 20’s has she slowly told some of our aunts who are devastated but trust that she is getting through it in the way she needs to – supporting her in the ways they can. The uncle was married to my aunt who is my mom’s sister. They’ve recently divorced so it might be easy to not have him invited. I LOVE this aunt – like crazy. She’s become like a second mom to me. I still see it possibly becoming an issue but because the family knows but it’s not discussed openly, maybe they’ll just be silent. Also, even before the family found out, no one really liked this uncle anyway – could be a non-issue.

      Regardless, I’m sticking to my decision of not having him there. When I send out the invites, all 4 of my aunts will get their invites. Only one of the 4 is married and I like that uncle so I’ll invite him. (he’s also helped me move in college and has been there for me in different ways – so he makes the list). I suppose I’ll just specifically write who exactly is invited and trust that adults will react like adults. If they don’t, I’ll ignore their behavior and/or explain unapologetically that it’s my decision and I hope they can respect the difficulty of the task at hand (i.e. the guest list).

68. I know this post is a year old, but my *god* did I need it today. We just found out we’re likely going to have to get married before we move next year or risk having my boyfriend move back to Canada every few months. I wasn’t planning on getting married, especially after my mother and grandfather died within a few weeks of each other in December, but it looks like it’s happening, and we’re starting to look forward to it, despite everything.

    My mother’s sister has been a huge disappointment to our family in the last few years. She has always lived in rural areas and about 10 years ago moved about an hour outside of town, and used that as an excuse to rarely visit or call my grandparents, even on major holidays. After my grandma died, my grandpa needed his family around him more than ever and she would only stop by once or maybe twice a year, leaving the extensive care of him up to my uncle and my mother (who had had three strokes). My family was very close and my grandfather was devastated that she wouldn’t visit him or call, or even send him a card on his birthday (she makes cards for a living). She never visited my mother or my grandfather when they were in the hospital- even when my grandfather was in rehab for over a month.

    She didn’t show up to her sister, my mom’s visitation (she came to the funeral the next day though), has been in contact with my uncle only to find out when we can sell my grandparents’ house so she can collect her money (she says she has some outstanding debts to settle), and the only words she said to me at my mom’s funeral was “Do you miss her?”. My sister and I didn’t say a word to her at my grandfather’s funeral, though we weren’t unpleasant. My sister and I have written her off as a selfish, clueless jackass, but have been pleasant as we can to her in public because my uncle is still trying to keep in contact with his only family member and I’m friendly with my cousin, her daughter.

    I’d like to invite my cousin and her partner to my wedding, especially as someone for my uncle to talk to, but I don’t know if she’ll come if no one else in her immediate family is invited. I don’t want to create any family drama, as I was invited to my aunt’s kids’ weddings, but I hate how she treated my mom and grandparents and don’t respect her at all.

    Whew! Felt kind of good to get that all out, actually. Not sure what we’ll do, but agree that with commenters who say “I’m sorry” isn’t something that’s on the table. She’s made no effort to explain her position to any of us, she’s a self-involved, pretentious, ungrateful person and I have no desire to have her at my wedding. Best case scenario? She keeps ignoring us as per usual and we never have to deal with confrontation.

    • That sounds like you made the right decision not to invite her. I think you can still invite her kids. I personally don’t believe that they should be punished for her horrid behaviour. So if you want to invite them do and if anyone asks just say that you feel upset with her about how she treated your grandparents. End of drama. Then people can take it or leave it.

      At least that’s what I did.

      • Thanks for the vote of confidence, Tessa – these things are so fraught with tension and meaning it’s hard to know how to proceed – especially when I’m normally a very drama-free person. I like your no-nonsense approach. It’s a weird thing being an adult – suddenly I realize I’m not really beholden to all these people just because we share a bloodline.

    • Sounds like she is self isolating – may be a symptom of depression. Needs medical help, not rejection.

      • If she does, she’s very selective about it. She’s the head of her classic car group and they take trips and outings all summer. She has a home business that takes her to shows and stuff all the time. Honestly, I’m sure there’s something psychologically wrong there, but I have no desire to reach out to someone who has been absent when our family needed her most. She can continue to drop friends when it’s convenient and head off to social events instead of family gatherings but I don’t have to applaud it.

69. So I know this is an old post, but it’s reassuring to know that I’m not the only one dealing with this and I thought I’d put in my two cents.

    I have a relative who is toxic, spiteful, abusive and a narcissist who has never been able to attend any family function without doing everything possible to make sure all the attention is on her. She’s also a self-proclaimed ‘proud bigot’ who used racial slurs in front of my FH the first time she met him, not knowing what his own feelings on the matter were (very much against them). Whenever I was direct about disliking that growing up, she would attempt to make me feel like crap for it. My FH and I both strongly dislike her and knew there was no way we wanted her anywhere near the wedding, although she naturally expected an invite.

    Luckily, our wedding is going to be super small, so we were able to (truthfully) say that due to the size of the venue and our limited budget, we would only be inviting immediate family and close friends. While I would have loved to be more direct, unfortunately personal circumstances didn’t allow for it. In the run up to that, there was a lot of panic attacks, crying and agonizing on my part, but ultimately it was really freeing to make a decision to make FH and I happy and not worry about everyone else. Oh sure, I’ve had to deal with the ensuing emotional blackmail and passive-aggressive Facebook statuses, but it feels great to know that we’ll be celebrating our big day without having to worry about what this woman is going to say or do to ruin it.

70. I’m currently planning a wedding, and this has been the hardest, but most liberating decision. All my life I have struggled with my relationships with my family. I always thought there was something wrong with me. When my mom died, it was me and my dad. My sister’s were from my mom’s previous marriage, so they kept us in the loop for a while. But they have always had issues with my Dad. He’s not a bad guy, socially awkward, yes, but not a bad guy. Anyways, between my one sister who will “tease you only if she likes you” and my other sister that lectures but never listens, I was never comfortable with my family. On top of all that my Mom’s sister never really liked my dad, so she has been giving him a hard time ever since. She was told a while ago by my sisters that we’re a package deal. She doesn’t get them if she won’t have my dad and I. Well, at first I was glad they said that, but now I know that I don’t want to be some place I’m not wanted. Besides, if you would think that after the passing of her sister, she would want to reach out and get to know ALL her nieces. But I was my Dad’s kid, the same age as her kids (which swear and curse at every family occasion, even though she calls herself the “church lady”), oh, and I didn’t just have a baby. And with my cousins and nieces and nephews it has only gotten worse. I can tell that my aunt and my oldest sister has said negative things about my dad and I in front of them. I’ve tried to connect with my niece, but there is something there, and at first I thought it was just awkward teen syndrome, but my fiance noticed it too, that she only acts that way around me and my dad. Distant, and weirded out. My sister blames my dad for never coming to his granddaughters birthdays, but she never made it easy. We got invitations the week of, and sometimes only on Facebook. My dad doesn’t go on Facebook! But yet my sister I insisted that it was all on my Dad. She never even brought my niece up to visit. Maybe once or twice, but she always brought her to my aunts. My cousins on the other hand have been awful. Even when we were little, the oldest one told me that she hated me. I’ve tried, but it’s not worth it anymore. I’ve been thankful for my fiance, because he saw their behavior towards me, and tried to help, but was able to confirm that they just don’t like me. It didn’t help that my sisters teased me all the time in front of them. Their respect towards me as a person is gone. So, yea, that was my life. I was prepared to live with it, until my middle sister had lost her job and moved back in with me and my dad. At first it was okay, I thought “here is my chance to bond with my sister”, but then it was just drama. He would ask her to clean up her dishes, or at least put them in the dishwasher. She would then talk to me about how mean he was being. I tried to reason with her, but she didn’t see it that way. In the year that she lived here, she broke my futon couch, several dishes, and left Tupper ware full of food under her bed. Actually, it was Tupper ware that I bought dad, for the house, because he buys it and it always goes missing.
    He just threw it out. He tried really hard to not upset my sister. He constantly asked me how to deal with her. No matter how nice he was, she always looked at him like he was being a jerk. He did ask her to pay rent, but a few months went by and she said she couldn’t afford it. My dad said they could figure something out, and then she up and went on a $600 vacation with my other sister and their friends. She had left one job for another, then lost that one. Then she had some medical complications and had to go to the hospital. They put her in a rehab facility, but wanted to bring her back to our house. They brought her by one day to check out if it was possible. It wasn’t. Aside from all the modifications needed to my dad’s small ranch house (made before 90 degree angles were invented…I kid but there isn’t a perfect corner anywhere in this house) she would also need assistance getting around and doing things. Dad works, and I work. There would be no one home for her. So Dad made the call. He said it wasn’t safe and there would be no way we could make the house the way it needed to be. Even the med staff agreed. So instead of understanding that and looking at other solutions, both my sister’s cut my Dad out. They say that they can’t forgive him for the “horrible” stuff he has done. I’ve tried so hard to figure if there is something I can’t see, but it’s making me doubt my dad. He hasn’t done anything wrong that I know of. And he’s tried so hard, it isn’t fair for him to endure all this. He’s old, and he had been through so much: Navy Veteran, lost a wife, just lost his mom, and has had to deal with this cruel set of people so that I would have a family. They’d make fun of him right in front of him. And he never knew it because he’s socially awkward and doesn’t understand that stuff. And I have been ridiculed for being his daughter and being like him. He raised me, of course I may be a bit like him! So after all this, I think I am making the right decision. I don’t want to be at my wedding wondering what they are saying about my dad. Sorry if this was long. If you read it, do you mind giving me some feedback? My heart is breaking, because it shouldn’t be this way. I should want my family at my wedding, but I don’t. 🙁

71. I am very happy to have found this website. I understand things more clearly now.

    My wife became adulterous and she split. A year later, my oldest daughter got married…but I found out about it by someone at work congratulating me on her wedding. I had not been invited, or even told about the wedding. This hurt me deeply.

    The hurt grew deeper when I discovered that everyone on the mother’s side of the family, including the adulterers, were invited. The adulterer paid for the wedding, too. My other two daughters participated as bridesmaids, but were sworn to secrecy to keep the event from me.

    Consequently, I have estranged myself from my daughters. I never want to see or hear from them again. It is sad…so very sad, and the pain is likely to drive me mad…as I was the innocent and faithful one in the family. I was a great husband and father, and to be treated like this has destroyed me. I am a different person now. I am cynical and live alone. I feel bitter and hateful.

    Yet, thanks to your article, I now understand why my daughter made the decision she did to invite everyone but me. To me, it seems extremely selfish. She could have sent a clear message to EVERYONE on the mother’s side of the family that ADULTERY will not be tolerated and those that embrace the unrepentant adulterer shall not be invited to a holy ceremony and a blessed sacrament.

    In my opinion, the kiddo blew it…just so she could have the perfect wedding. But how perfect could it have been? I was not there to walk her down the aisle. And then, there should have been questions. “Where’s Brian? Why isn’t he here?” I imagine that everyone who knew I was uninvited lied through their teeth to explain. In telling the truth, they would have had to reveal that the still married mother was an adulterer, and the guy she was with was an adulterer, too.

    To me, she and her sisters are sell-outs. We have nothing in common other than our DNA. That is reason enough to estrange myself from them.

    • My guess is that your daughters feel that their mother was justified in her actions by something you don’t recognize in your behavior; perhaps something that interacts with their personalities in a negative way, and may not be a problem with others. Your daughters and wife have built a new family with the current spouse, and don’t want the fairyland disturbed by your presence. Everyone knows the adultery was wrong, but it is easy to set aside in fairyland. You and your daughters need family counseling. You need each other in the long term.

72. I will not be inviting my parents and all other family members associated with them as I wouldn’t want to place extra guilt on them. Both my parents are narcissist and if they’d come, they would find every way to split our marriage if I don’t be a slave to their control. And if it is, it would’ve been their wedding and not mine. They would probably blame me for not inviting them anyways like they’ve done my whole life. Example: During my convocation, my “father” said clearly to everyone that it was all his effort, while it was me who was going to pay for my tuition fee.

73. I know that I am late coming into this conversation but I am so thankful that I found this website. My HTB and I have been together for 6 and a half years and we are finally going to be getting married. I am totally happy that we will finally be getting married but I know there is some heart ache involved in us planning this wedding. I am not inviting any of his family because of how they have treated me and I am not inviting any of my family because I do not wish to be embarrassed by their behavior as has been a problem in the past. I wish that things could some what be different but I have to agree with most of the things I have been reading online your wedding day is about the couple making a commitment to each other and if inviting or letting someone know that you are going to be getting married and it is just going to make the day horrible then don’t invite them. My HTB and I are the only two paying for our wedding so ultimately it is up to us. I wish everyone the best of luck on their big day though no matter what.

74. We have decided to not invite my brother. I waver on my choice often, but seeing as we have been engaged for three months now and he hasn’t said congratulations (me, my feef and my folks reached out to him to try to tell him before posting on social media, but he refused to respond to any attempt to contact him), and we have now seen each other with still not a congratulations (or even acknowledgment) from him- I really feel like I’m making the right choice. If he isn’t happy for us, then I don’t want him to be there.
    A lot has gone wrong in my relationship with my brother, and as far as I know, my whole family knows that our relationship is strained at best. Sometimes, I’m not sure, but mostly just because he’s my brother and I always wanted to celebrate with my family and friends, and I’m not sure really how I can possibly look at my wedding pictures without him in them. I’m not angry, I’m sad. I think if someone asked me about it, I would probably just start crying.

    • Invite him for your own sake. You will miss him the in pictures later. What if he is struck by lightening and killed shortly after the wedding date?

75. My fiance and I have been together for 11, going on 12 years. We were on great terms with his family for 8 years, we all seemed to have a genuine concern for one another, despite our differences in life choices. We ended up having a falling out with his siblings 8.5 years into our relationship, where they jumped to conclusion, and assumed some terrible things about us. It felt like an attack, and a huge betrayal. We initially tried to put in some effort to reconcile our relationship with them, but they continuously met us with negativity and spiteful actions, talking poorly to us, behind our backs, and pretty much performed a character assassination on us. It has come to the point that we had to quit trying for our well being and mental health, because we were continuously met with spiteful actions, drama, negativity, and no way to have a reasonable conversation. We are now engaged, and are planning a destination wedding. If I had it my way, we would all get along, and have his siblings their to support us, but in reality, they don’t..and they’re genuinely not happy or supportive. They lack respect in general, and my fiance and I have talked about this multiple times. I feel like if they could be their to support his brother, and we could be civil and respectful adults, then I would have no problem inviting them. However, the likelihood of them being respectful/civil is extremely low, and I don’t feel like we are obligated to invite them. My fiance agrees, even though I know that it hurts him. I’ve asked my fiance if he has any ideas on how to effectively communicate with them, and he really cannot find an effective communication technique to deal with them. I’m looking to see if anybody has any advice, or anybody that has been in a similar situation and how you handled it.

76. Currently going through this and very appreciative of this post. While I anticipate a challenge telling my father that I don’t think it’s the right decision to have him at the wedding, the problem is actually with my mother. When I told her I was not planning to invite him, SHE is the one who threw a fit — screaming, crying, acting very childish. They’ve been divorced for 10 years but she still pines for him, even though he is not there for me, cheated on her, and the whole family detests him — she is the one who wants him there. How do I handle her push-back?

77. My inbox just blew up with GussieG’s judge judyness.

    • SERIOUSLY. I don’t understand the behavior of that individual.

78. We didn’t invite my FIL. He barely had a relationship with my husband prior to the wedding and tried to pick a fight between my husband and I a month or two prior to the wedding itself. No one asked where he was – the majority of my family thought my husband’s father dead. All in all, his absence helped to keep the drama out of our wedding entirely.

    Plenty of other folks couldn’t be invited due to our tiny budget, and we had no drama about it. Everyone understood.

    I say do what you need to keep your day a happy one. If that means you have to prevent certain individuals from coming, then that’s what it means. Just go into it with open eyes and acknowledge what may happen as a result of that decision.

79. This article makes no mention of seeking advice. Yes we all ultimately get to make our own decisions but getting other’s input is wise too. I’ve made decisions that I later regretted due to lack of foresight about consequences etc. Being empowered includes not only having the power to decide for ourselves but also that our 60-year-old self can look back and feel we did the right thing.

80. I’m on the other side of this. My sister decided to get married abroad. My 7 year old son has severe autism and has a very hard time dealing with airports, train stations and etc. She didn’t want to upset my parents by not inviting us outright or look like a bad person, but I know that she is doing this to keep him away. For me and her this is probably the end of our relationship. If you find enough love or care for us to share 1 of the most important days in your life because we may “interrupt” or “embarrass” because of disability then that’s a real shame. But enjoy your wedding day.

81. My niece is getting married and has chosen to not invite her aunt who happens to be the only living sister of her father. Now, my niece has not had a falling out with the aunt… the reason she is choosing to not invite her is because the aunt’s daughter has told the bride, basically, “do what you want, but if you invite my mom I won’t be there”.
    I am not quite sure why my niece is feeling this loyalty to her cousin and none to her aunt… the cousin is one of her bridesmaids. Needless to say, this is stirring a whole lot of emotions/drama on the bride’s father’s side and many are saying they won’t go if the aunt isn’t invited.
    The bride’s mother and grandmother (my sister-in-law and mother-in-law) both asked me to talk with the bride. We do have a good relationship but I only stressed her more, because I feel she should invite her aunt, as well as the cousin. The issues are between the aunt and cousin, not between the bride and aunt. I feel the cousin is trying to control a situation that she has no business in doing so.
    What can be suggested to a very stressed out bride right now. She is trying to send her invites out by the end of this coming week.

    • Yes sometimes third parties can destroy family dynamics. In fact in those cases the bride and cousins can be victim. ( Manipulators will love bomb the positive victim and destroy the negative victim. Classic distructions of entire families and communities) . I suspect that’s what happened with us. So far I have managed to stay out of the way, that can always change. No one is immune. I spent weeks after the wedding crying over it. And again siblings were not invited through no fault of their own. And there is a person who love bombs those who are successful or cool and treats a few relatives with contempt. My cousin gets love bombed my siblings and a couple other relatives are treated poorly. It’s very sad. Again I can’t make sense of it. It’s very painful.

82. I don’t want my mom to come to our son’s wedding next May. I am able at most to have a long distance ‘polite’relationship with her, in reality I can’t stand her (for very good reasons) and I don’t want the stress of her being there. If it were a local wedding, maybe I could handle it but she would have to travel up here and be underfoot for the whole weekend. I am dreading telling her however because I know her feelings will be hurt and she will think I’m just awful. I considered trying to keep the date a secret but now thinking I should just write her a honest letter.

83. Thank you for this,
    I’m going through this too. Except it’s with my whole family (parents and siblings). Long story short, it became mentally and emotionally unhealthy living in the same toxic home with them. Two years ago, I moved out and stayed with my best friend and her family for 6 months and cut off contact with my family. It was hard but it was worth it to start feeling happy and healthy again. My now-fiance (and his mom when she found out) has been incredibly loving and supportive.
    The one thing I felt pretty certain of since being engaged was that I didn’t want my family to be at my wedding. I’m dreading the day I’ll have to tell his family and the family I’m still close with this news but I know it’s the right choice because I only want to be surrounded by people who add love and joy to my life.
    Thank you again for this article.

84. The issue ultimately comes down to expectations. Some family members may be upset by not being invited because of feeling a sense of entitlement to be there. Often comparisons will be used too. “You can have your friends but not your family”. I understand that it can be painful for those not invited, but they should not base the value of the relationship on the choice made for one day. The uninvited may never truly understand. You do not have to justify your choice. You only need to know it is the right one for you. You have nothing to prove. A wedding is one day. It will be a day the couple will remember forever, and guests dependent on who they are, will most likely not. We made the decision to just have parents, grandparents and siblings on the day. We decided we would celebrate with Aunts, Uncles and Cousins another day. Some of my extended family are extremely upset. Especially my Aunt who is also my Godmother. It has even impacted on my Mum’s relationship with her sister as she has been so hurt by it. You can’t make everyone happy. Some of my family have been great about it. In the end we decided to open the church up to everyone and have a buffet lunch the next day. My advice is: You have to be 100% behind your decision. Don’t hide from it. Own, and be open about it. It is your day. The people that really matter will come around in the end, and those who don’t maybe never really mattered.

85. This annime is pretty much my obsession at this point.
    Featuring primarily voice actors, the following guests will host an array of panels, events and signings
    throughout the weekend. Sometimes this comes
    from feelings of low self esteem, but this is not always the case.

    • My sister is not inviting me to her wedding because my wife and my mom have not been getting along. We have a 2 year old and my wife does not want my mom alone with her. Basically because my mom doesnt like my wife. My mom made sure to hurt me and make my life hell due to me not backing her up. Mind you my mom is a narcissist and my siblings have sided with my mom and pushed me out because they think I side with my wife over my blood family. My mom always plays victim, I am the oldest and was always there for my siblings. So not being invited has been a major blow to me. I wish I did something terrible for her not to invite me. Her spite and vindictive heart is too strong.

86. Please everyone, just elope.

    You are going to hurt the feelings of the people you exclude and the people who then have to negotiate the landmines you have set out.

    In a situation where it is just an inconvenience to have a couple around (say a first cousin and his wife with drug problems that don’t and never have directly impacted you other than say, made you uncomfortable) you end up hurting their parents, siblings, grandparents and the poor other aunts and uncles who have to watch the whole thing in the background.

    I am sick just thinking about it and, yes, now trying to figure out how we respond knowing that others around us are really hurt by the whole thing.

    Just elope, please!

87. Its nice knowing I’m not the only one with this sort of issue.

    I can’t deal with my dad (have cut him out of my life cause of past abuse and not willing to stand for his trying to manipulate me into playing happy family with him when I don’t trust or like him as a person). I have a brother and mother that I wouldn’t mind inviting but I know if I do it will become all about him and how he is the victim of my cruel decision to not deal with his drama (like most abusive personalities he makes it about him and how i won’t forgive him instead of the fact that I just don’t have the mental/emotional energy to deal with the negativity of having him in my life or the stress of dealing with someone I don’t trust). I also realized that if I invite them there’s the odd chance that he might try to come with them if they decide to come despite not being invited. Thinking this through made me realize its just easier not to ask any of them. I might for my mother sake send video footage of the ceremony since I do care for her but I feel like her and my brothers decision long ago to keep trying to introduce my father in my life basically just adds up to them not understanding or caring about my mental well being with dealing with him… so if not inviting them hurts then I’m sorry but it was technically their decision in the first place that lead to this.

    But all this drama often means I have to field questions from people about things like roles in my wedding and my family members and who all I’m inviting. I become a little frustrated with the feeling of having to explain my actions/decisions/thoughts constantly even though its well meaning on most people’s parts but despite that I have stuck to what I feel is the best. I just feel a little sad for my future Husband since he also has a troublesome (drama filled) family member that is not going to be part of the wedding party (probably invited for family’s sake but not part of the wedding party) and he has to explain why to his mother who is a dear but thinks its awkward not having this person be in the wedding party when their child is a part of the wedding party… she’s a bit traditional and we aren’t (in fact half the wedding party is actually going to be children because I have quite a few close friends with children and he has two sons that we are thinking of making into his best men if their mother doesn’t have one of her “going to be the evil ex” episodes and try to prevent it). I also let slip that the one we are thinking of letting officiate is a friend of mine and isn’t christian and his grandmother is religious so my future mom in law is thinking of finding someone else. But we as a couple are more of a “believe there’s more to life” but not necessarily leaning to any certain religion type so I feel having my friend officiate actually fits us better so I might broach the subject of my friend officiating again and reassure them that while the ceremony might not have all their leanings it will not have mention of anything that they feel is sacrilegious or troublesome either since my friend understands our personal views on religion and the fact that we have more conservative family members (since she also has the same kind of situation of a mix of conservative and not conservative leanings in her own family/marriage situation)… plus basically because of my bisexuality I wanted someone who is pro LGBT+ to officiate even though I’m marrying a man, my friend is open minded about such things so I felt like she would have the proper respect toward our viewpoint and who I am as an individual.

    So basically we are walking a tightrope on both ends but at lease if we stick to what we want the drama we aren’t capable of dealing with will be avoided (people we don’t care for and issues that have no need to be aired out during a wedding) and the drama we can’t escape (people questioning our choices or being upset over things when it’s not their wedding) will just be the things we can deal with .

88. This article really helpful in telling me how to deal with not sending invites but how do I choose who to send an invite to because it’s not me who has the problem with a family member it’s family members that I love dearly on both sides that can’t get along and I don’t know if they can put aside their differences for my special day

89. Honestly I would have rather not be invited at all over what my family did to me at my brother’s wedding a year ago. I was invited and agreed to attend. I took time off work and spent money I barely had on a nice outfit. I looked forward to the wedding and seeing everyone.

    But apparently they didn’t want me there at all because I was given the wrong address and my calls were ignored when I tried reaching them for directions. I was stranded at another church for an hour (because I left early in case I got lost) with no idea where to go. My other brother answered his phone a few minutes before the ceremony started and gave me the correct address and directions, but by the time I got there the wedding was already over.

    Please don’t do this to family members or other guests. It really hurts. I still don’t know what I did wrong to upset my family that they would do this. If you don’t want someone to attend, just say that you want a small service and/or can’t invite everyone

90. This! I am running into this guest list drama, hardcore. I’m having a smaller wedding (less than 100) in three weeks and extended family is not on the guest list. Unfortunately my grandfather has just passed, so I saw a majority of them just a few days ago. Many decided to ask me how my wedding plans were coming along and when the BIG day was. I was upfront and told them it was next month. Lots of congratulations came way but also some hurt feelings. One of my father’s cousins went so far as to accost me about why she wasn’t invited, AT MY GRANDFATHER’S FUNERAL. I couldn’t even remember her name when she approached me. Mind you, neither my fiance or I have seen these people in years. They don’t know us as a couple. To add more fuel to the fire, these are my father’s relatives and he hasn’t pitched in a dime. I’m kind of worried the older generation will give me a lot of grief about not being invited and I don’t need to be any more stressed out than I already am. Help! What should I do?!

91. So I am looking for advice. I had to not invite my entire immediate family because of some major drama involving my future husband. Basically my parents told me they would not support my marriage and are starting to get hurt now that they realize the date is getting close. What I am worried about is the shower.
    I did not invite my mothers sisters out of respect for my mom. It is not her fault that she can’t come to the wedding but my father’s. My aunts were really upset especially because I invited some of my closest cousins. I had my first shower with his family and of course posted pictures of the shower because it was beautiful and I had one aunt making rude comments. Her daughter decided to throw a shower for me and invited the aunts and my mother. I am not worried about the shower, but what do I do when it comes to wedding questions. Would inviting them to the ceremony be enough? I dont have the money to invite them to the reception.

92. This helps me a little bit but I’m in need of more advice. I’ve been with my partner for over 10 years and we just became engaged this week. The primary reason we’ve held off is because of his family dynamics,which are complicated at best:They all live across the country from us and my entire family, his mother has significant mental health issues and is prone to playing the victim and holding grudges for life,his step-father is now divorced from his mother and has falsely blamed my partner for everything wrong in his life, he is as unstable as you can get, and truthfully a possible safety risk, his biological father physically abused him as a child but is trying to make amends, and none of them can be in the same room together without creating major drama. Add to this that the presence of any of them triggers my partner’s depression and anxiety.

    My gut is to elope but I can’t imagine getting married without my family present. They are all very supportive and we are very close. But my partner doesn’t want a wedding with only my family.

    I have no idea what to do. I want to get married and it feels like 3 unstable adults, who have very little to do with our lives are preventing it.

93. Speaking as that cousin who got the invite. Even though I enjoyed the wedding. I felt like something was missing since my siblings were not included. My siblings were always kind and nice to our relatives. And for some reason they were not included. It’s hard to be the chosen one. I can’t talk about this beautiful wedding. I loved everyone there . I was grateful to be there. But I felt lonely without my sisters and brothers. Especially when sitting to eat. Felt like something was missing. My siblings are hurt and I can’t even share this with my closest family. It hurts . My sister is my best friend and she is good to everyone. Including relatives . I feel when I am home there is no one I can relive this wedding with. My brothers and sisters did so much more for and with my cousin. I have no clue why I was asked and none of my others, seriously none were invited. One other cousin and I were the only extended invited.
    I think when I get married, depending on my budget, I will invite all cousins or none. But it really is difficult to invite on sibling and not the others. Especially since I think some of my siblings deserved a invite more than I did. Please if you invite relatives do not split up siblings in particular. My siblings and I are still trying to heal from my going and them not being included. I am not able to be free and open. Just don’t do that to your cousins.
    Like the article said …. you need to have a good reason to exclude someone. And it has to be very serious issue.

94. My 18 year old does not want to invite my husband (stepdad) to her graduation party that is being held at her aunts (my sister). They have a terrible history and cannot tolerate eachother. He tried to kick her out when she turned 18 because he felt her disrespect was ruining him. Our house has been a tension filled home for months.

    I agree whole heartedly that he should not be invited however since it is a big family event where extended family will be traveling to come as well as my daughters biological father and his family i have no clue how to tell him that. My family does not want him to there either because of his threat to kick her out and his childish behavior of not letting go.

    My hisband has previouslt stated if my daughter did not want to invite him to events (such as wedding or holidays) then it is my responsibility to tell her that he is my hisband and if he is not invited i will not go. He has told me, in these situations, if i decide to go i am choosing her over him. He also will not agree to me taking our sons (daughters half siblings) with me to events.

    I have no clue how to tell him he’s not invited. This article helps but how do you bring it up? I’m not putting that on my daughter to tell him but i have no clue how to do this…

95. My family is currently dealing with the aftermath of such a situation and it has been a whole lot of drama and heartbreak. Here’s the short version. My brother was married yesterday. The invitations were sent out quite late (end of March) and my sister who lives a 7 hr flight away booked a ticket to come for the wedding several months before that. My brother was aware. Well, every thing came to a head at the rehearsal and my sister was not on the seating plan so my mom asked my brother. He lost it on my mom, told her that my sister is dead to him and she is not invited. This is all 2 days before the wedding. The reason I am writing is because my brother is estranged from my father and he also was not invited to the wedding. I have been stuck in the middle for years and I refused to do his dirty work so I told my dad that he would have to ask my brother what is going on. I had really no idea about his feelings towards my sister. There had been some issues many years ago but to my knowledge everything had been fine. What I am not ok with is how my mom was trying to find out information he told her he wished she was dead and told her that my mom and her family were uninvited to the wedding. The way this was handled has my mother heartbroken. I’m sad I used to be very close to my brother. Now he wants nothing to do with any of us. Please if anyone else is in this situation do not wait communicate your wishes. Had we all known we would have respected that. My now sister in law told me off yesterday saying I was a bad sister and I wasn’t showing love and support. I was uninvited, he didn’t want my love and support.

    Now begins the grieving process. Please make your wishes known before causing pain. It would have been easier yet still difficult for my mom and the rest of us. 🙁

96. I was abused by my biological sibling and have chosen to go no-contact upon reaching adulthood and realizing the extent of what happened growing up. My parents are very much about presenting a facade to the world (this includes to other family members) that everything is just fine with our nuclear family and if there’s any issue, it resides solely with me. I have zero intention of inviting my sibling to the wedding but I know it’ll result in questions and raised eyebrows. I’ve done my best to prep my mother that this is non-negotiable, but I have my doubts she will let it go and I feel pretty certain there’s going to be a few family members/friends that would love to dig for dirt or attempt to make me feel bad for my decision. These responses to possible inquiries are great, both in the article and from a commenter on the first page. Thank you! 🙂

97. My family juay doesn’t have the money for my groom’s big family, and my father is fighting cancer, so we can’t force the stress on him. My groom fought with me about it, but once I reasoned with him, we brought down our guest numbers, and I now have to prepare for battle with his father about how important family is to them. My family is important, too. My father’s health is important. Your family triples the size of my family, and you will not force me to change. I am not a doormat.

98. I am making my guest list and have left off my abusive brother. I still get panic attacks when we are at family events, but my parents really want him to come. They are really wonderful in every way except when it comes to the boundaries I have set around him. I just don’t know how to do this. I told them I would go to counselling to consider it but what if I still am not comfortable having him there? Any and all advice would be good. As even with the advice in the post, I feel lost.

99. My problem isn’t about drama or anything, it’s just that I’m not that close with my family. I’m not even going to bother inviting my mother’s side, cause they’re on the other side of the world and would never be able to afford it. On my father’s side we basically only see each other on big occasions like this, so I’m not sure what to do. My fiance doesn’t want many from his family, so I wonder if I should limit it too. I haven’t spoken to my parents about this yet though.

100. I only read a few of the comments about how many of you agreed with the blogger and left out family members from the wedding. I just hope that each of those that made that decision will then accept that you will be left out of certain family gatherings which will include those same uninvited family members. Maybe the family dynamics is so bad invites to other functions isn’t an issue, but when you decide to exclude someone to an important event…you have set in motion a permanent divide in the family in certain situations in the future. Anyone who may not agree with your decision, may choose to exclude you from family events going forward so that they can enjoy the one that was excluded without the drama of the past uninvite. So, I would say be careful to think through carefully this very important decision.

101. I’m dealing with this shit myself right now. I have an aunt that is extremely self-absorbed and only cares about herself and her kids. I cannot stand listening to her go on about how “perfect” her kids are and how they can do no wrong. I’ve spent the entire day being guilt-tripped into inviting her by one of my other family members and I’ve just about had it. I’m so fed up and so close to not inviting any of them.

102. My fiance and I are planning our wedding…it will be our second marriage.

     We were planning on only having our children (from our first marriages) and an officiant to marry us; we had thought about having a small outdoor luncheon afterwards with a small amount of invited guests.

     I have a sister who has been a toxic influence in my life for the past few years, but I was planning on inviting her and her husband and children to the outdoor luncheon; even though she has said terrible things about me, and I have not spoken to her for a year.
     Recently she has told my father that if I don’t invite her, but invite my parents, she will lash out and close their accounts and never speak to any of us again; my father had given her Power Of Attorney a few years ago and is now trying to control all aspects of their lives.

     I do not appreciate this threat and feel that this is unfair for my parents; my dad even said that perhaps it’s best if I don’t invite him and my Mom if I am not going to invite her, which is only contributing to her controlling nature. My fiance and I are now considering only having the ceremony and no reception

103. I found your website and I’m just seeking some insights because I’m feeling terribly distressed right now. My younger sister, the mother of the groom unloaded on me by text accusing me of inviting my adult children to her son’s upcoming wedding in January ’22. She said I do not have permission to contact the bride or her son about their wedding reception plans. She further elaborated that she is paying for half the wedding reception, and that she, not the bride and groom, get the final say on the invitation list. And she was upset that I would upend plans and invite more family when they are on budget. She wouldn’t take my call when I tried to discuss, and only would text me. My sister has previously informed me that only my husband and I are invited, and we live 2000 miles away. I called my sister last week asking if their reception was still “a go” as it was moved back a year because of Covid restrictions on reception size.. We still haven’t received an invite, and I need to plan for airline tickets and lodgings for 5 days (our extended families all live back East, and we want to visit family too). My sister informed me to call the bride myself, and confirm the reception and hotel details. I had a wonderful phone call with the bride and my nephew, and the bride shared me that she was excited that all of us were coming, and when I inquired who was “all”, she said my oldest daughter and her fiance are invited too. The bride has become friends with my daughter through FB. I informed the bride extending her invite to my daughter was appreciated, and yet, I said it was no “big deal” if she can’t extend invites to my daughter or her sisters as I know myself weddings are expensive, and decisions have to be made on a limit of family and close friends due to budget considerations. Through my upset sister’s texts, I learn that the bride casually informed my sister that she spoke with me, and that my daughter and her fiance are coming to the wedding too. My sister didn’t ask the bride if I had asked her to add my daughters to her reception, and I didn’t. This fact doesn’t seem to matter to my sister. She informed me I’ve created drama, that she needs to inform her son and bride that she is paying the bill and decides who is invited, and lectured me about budgets., My sister’s communication to me was horrible. It didn’t matter that I apologized, that she had her story wrong, and that I had no intentions of inviting extra family. I informed her I love them all, and am excited to be invited to their reception. It doesn’t seem like my side of the story mattered. She curtly texted me that I may only text her about any further questions about the upcoming wedding. No compassion or care…I’m devestated:(

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