Elderly mum getting married and won’t invite us

OP you obviously have a very loving but somewhat fraught relationship with your mother. My mother is 92 and, looking back, I realize she had started to make odd and stupid decisions in her mid eighties. She went from being quite thoughtful, rational, and reasonable to being unable to change her mind or make good, rational, decisions very slowly but, looking back, very clearly.

To me the entire prodrome of looking for conventional family inclusive weddings to suddenly and stubbornly refusing even to change the restaurant booking snacks of this sort of mental decline. The person becomes fixated on one set of issues (cost in this case) and they can no longer flexibly accept suggestions or information from outsiders about parts of the plan. Its a kind of mental rigidity that masks frailty.

I am so sorry this has happened this way. My advice, if you don’t mind my tendering it, is to treat this like a non event. Just say “your daughters and grandchildren will come up and take pictures and bring flowers and cake to celebrate the wedding during the next visit. our wedding present will be taking you two out to a restaurant to celebrate then!” Snd leave it at that. The exact date and time of the celebration doesn’t matter.

but your mum clearly DOES NOT THINK OF IT as being a "big life occasion" for her
I feel like at a fundamental level my mum is telling us that we are not important to her.
I think it's more likely that she is telling you that on a fundamental level the wedding is not important to her
It is just a tick box they are doing for financial security.

to be honest, I think there probably is more going on with your mum and her tightness,given the comment you said she made about you just wanting to safeguard your inheritance, which is horrible and not something I could ever imagine my mum saying. Perhaps that is influencing your views on this.

but you're getting quite aggressive towards some posters who seem to be trying to explain the above - for you clearly weddings are a big deal, for many people they are not. It seems like your mum is one of them, and even if she originally mooted having a slightly bigger ceremony has now decided that she cba (understandable at 81) and literally just wants the easiest option possible, which is inviting the family members who live nearby to be the witnesses and have more availability rather than the ones who live hundreds of miles away and have to navigate kids being in school etc.

I appreciate some posters have been unnecessarily rude, but others are trying to help you - it's not a case whose view of the importance of weddings is right or wrong but if you can reframe this to try and understand that it's not you she is rejecting, it's the concept of a wedding ceremony being a significant event, it will only help you, rather than taking it as a personal insult.

Another cruel and unkind post. Are you the OP's step sister (to be) or her mum by any chance?!

As you get older, you may find that you have less energy to deal with Big Occasions, and that you need to limit contact with some people because, however much you love them, they are exhausting in anything more than small doses.

Makes you wonder what sort of relationship some people have with their own parents and their own children when they can so blithely say something like this.

They want a piece of paper showing a legal contract so that the survivor does not have to sell the house to pay tax or be forced to sell because other relatives now own part of the house. Not a piece of paper, at all, a legal contract. But it doesn't have to be a big thing and if that's what they want then they can do it.

Such an unkind post.

But you dont all need to go surely? You said you are not trying to make it all about you, you want to remember the occasion and get photos etc. So there's no need for the whole family to go

It seems they have chosen the witness they have, because they live closest? Not because they are more valuable than you.
They have limited funds, so have limited witnesses, and have chosen the ones that are most practical?

Could you not offer to pay the cost to attend? Or offer to rearrange and sort the meal so all of you can attend?

are they aware of how you feel, and the issue with the meal? If not, you are being unreasonable to suggest this relates to the value they place on you, they might not even realise this is an issue for you, as this is almost just an admin thing for them.

They started wanting an intimate ceremony which they then realised would 8 adults and 3/4 children so 12 people. They don't want fuss so given you and your sister are hours away, they plumped for the nearest which is her step daughter to be and her husband. Then as they all stay close, a bite to eat at a restaurant they want to go to. Perhaps if you and your sister went aithout husband and kids this would work for then at their wedding., but you seem insistent you all need to go and take photos etc. It's not what you want, but uou don't seem to be able to understand this. As for her being in hospital - the two are totally different.

@Candlemascandy YANBU and I don’t know why so many posters are complaining you are making it all about you.

Despite helping your mother lots, she is effectively cutting you out of both her wedding and subsequent wedding dinner. If she really does only want a legalised union for pragmatic reasons, why are they even having a celebratory dinner.

I didn’t have a great relationship with my mum but she would not have done something like this unless she was coerced or not in control of her faculties. If neither of these apply then I’m sorry, but your mother is being rather callous and ungrateful.

I’d be tempted to take a step back and just let them get on with it.

I get what you mean about the meal @Candlemascandy, but I think this has the potential to really damage your relationship with your mum. I genuinely think if my mum did this it would be irretrievable.

Have RTFT and have no idea why you've been getting such a hard time from some on here @Candlemascandy .

Can completely understand your hurt and bewilderment, and have recently realised that my SM of 40 years has never really liked me, unless I was useful to her, and has masked her antipathy until age related mental health exacerbation has made it crystal clear.

My own late DM, to whom I was extremely close, did on occasion make me feel somewhat irrelevant and excluded on occasion, because of her generational stoic and pragmatic approach to certain things.

While we can absolutely be "the grown ups", "respect their wishes" and make sure we're not "making it all about me", it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, after all, we are still their children and we have those sensibilities ingrained within us. Any perceived rejection by a parent can be extremely hurtful, even if we can understand it on a logical level, and in your case, a step child is getting essentially preferential treatment which us quite savage.

So I can only commiserate really, as it appears nothing can be changed.

I also thing it's particularly egregious to have included you in a year's worth of planning only to change the goal posts at the end. They could have just "got it done" with no input at all if it is really such a clinical formality.

Families are complicated creatures especially in blended cases. On occasion I describe my lot as "putting the fun in dysfunctional".

Take care OP. More people "get it" than don't x

I still don't understand why you can't ask can you with or without your other half attend without any children

@OneEdgyScroller was replying to another post, not the OPs, RTFT! 🙄

Is your sister upset too?

After what you've said about your mum's 80th birthday with her arranging everything but leaving you and your sister to pick up the tab, she doesn't sound like a particularly nice mum. It would be quite difficult to find a restaurant that excludes under 14s, so it's a very deliberate moove on her part to try and exclude your family. I would accept this and just pull back so you don't keep getting disappointed.

I wasn't invited to my Dad's 3rd wedding. They just wanted to tie up the paperwork and get it done. My parents marry a lot though 🙈

It's alright, have a meal to celebrate with them another time maybe?

YANBU. I would be upset too - you were there when no one else could be . SHe should have changed her plans from the original one and extended the invite tp you and sis as well as partner's child.

x

You live three hours away and have kids.

They want minimal fuss so they invited the daughter who lives twenty minutes away without kids and are just having a basic ceremony and a quiet meal afterwards.

You said how disruptive and difficult it was for you to go up and care for your mum when she was ill, why would you want to go all that way just for a meal?

You seem to ignore the questions/suggestions around " have you told your mum how you feel?"

I can imagine the step daughter is much more involved in their lives living so close. It is likely she supports them much more than you do from 200 mile away! It is hardly unreasonable to be expecting you to look after your mum when she was in hospital and makes perfect sense.

If your affection for your mum is unconditional as you are trying so hard to indicate, why don't you insist on spending that money and make the memories!

I would feel hurt for not being invited, but I'd let my mum know how much I want to be there.

I'm surprised that, at 81, they have been planning this wedding for so long - you think they would have more sense of urgency, especially as they are doing it for the purposes of getting their affairs in order (and presumably tax purposes). By the way, do remind them that they both need to make a new will, as marriage invalidates existing wills.

I wouldn't make a big deal of it, just say you would like to be there, but understand if they don't want that.