Are we wrong for not inviting my MIL and SIL to our micro wedding ceremony?

Wow. Quite the leap there. You have no clue. My brother even says himself it was to keep the wife happy because she said if they invited my mum then we would all want to come and there’s too many of us. Try not to jump to conclusions

Usually the mum’s who are not invited to their adult child’s wedding have only themselves to blame. No child would do that to a genuinely caring parent. I also believe if you are not nice to your adult children’s partners for no reason them, you don’t care about own child’s happiness.

But if her mum is nicer to the couple and respect OP’s fiancé, it’s different.

It sounds as if you are taking revenge on the in-laws. Did they attend the reception/meal?

My brother did this. Ruined family relations forever probably. She had her mum but mine wasn’t there. She was devestated

If your mum was there, his mum should have been there. No wonder she’s gutted.

If I were the Aunt , no way would I be going to an occasion were my sister has been disregarded in such a cruel manner!

As long as you a re a baptised Catholic, he doesn't need to be baptised to get married in a Catholic Church

I think you'd be making a big mistake if you didn't invite your MIL and SIL to your wedding ceremony. I understand you want a small wedding, but it's still going to be very small with those 2 people added.

You would still (only) be a MIL if you had daughters who married.

I bet you wish you'd not bothered consulting the "sisterhood" on here! The number of commenters who haven't bothered to read the thread is cringe worthy!! I think the only option really is for you to do what makes the two of you happy. Perhaps support him in maintaining a positive relationship with the aunt who took him in after the abuse. Sounds as like she'd make a good substitute grandparent down the line. Doesn't sound like the abuse-enabling or denying MIL would!!

I'm just going to have to say it, OP is your fiance quite controlling? You sound very passive in what should be a mutual thing.

The OP said she didn't mean to exclude her initially - but she also said:

"As I said before, I tried to suggest having a ceremony later on so we could pay for the bigger ceremony room and everybody could be invited to both the ceremony and reception. My fiancé insisted on us doing it this way."

Which part of insisting on continuing not to invite her, when offered a solution by the OP (despite being treated badly by her) suggests that it is unintentional?

If it was unintentional, he would have agreed to the suggestion.

And unintentional or not, it still doesn't excuse blaming her for his decision!

Good point we didn't tell our families to save ourselves the stress and the money, we wanted to get married for us, not for others or a party. If someone spoils your wedding, it's spoiled, you can't get it back. I wouldn't invite them at all.

She always prioritised his stepdad during his childhood, even when he was abusive to him, and that kind of started everything and it is the reason why we moved in together so early on. They feel like I took him away from them though.

If the DH-to-be's mother is upset because she isn't a main character in her son's wedding then it's a case of chickens coming home to roost. She stood by and allowed him to be abused by her husband. He has chosen to invite instead the person who offered him love and security and safety when she didn't. There isn't a violin small enough to indicate the extent of my sympathy for her.

And OP, I bet they feel you took him away from them. Now who are they going to abuse? Well done for supporting him.

I think this is awful. Why would your fiancé do that to his mum and sister?

Read the OP's posts and what I've written above. Not wanting his mother there is a no brainer as far as I'm concerned. And maybe the sister has never offered him any support either, maybe she thinks the sun shines out of her mother's arse.

It was self-evidently a very pointed choice by your dh not to invite his own mother to be a witness at the wedding, OP, and I think you are being disingenuous not to own that. Personally, I would feel obliged at this stage to give her a few home truths - it was her son’s choice for his aunt to be the witness instead of her, not yours, and by persistently trying to blame you for the poor relationship she has with her son, she has driven a further wedge between herself and him, because it shows a complete failure on her part to accept responsibility for the real reasons for their poor relationship. It is not for you to appease her - if she actually cared about her son, rather than being obscenely self-centred, she wouldn’t expect to be a witness at your wedding. She clearly doesn’t wish you well, she just wants to deflect the blame for her own failings onto someone else. You are her excuse not to make an effort for her son and yet again, as was the case in his childhood, it’s all about her and her feelings. She is abusive towards him and you’re enabling her to continue to be abusive by pandering to her.

You didn't "deliberately" exclude someone from her son's wedding? What, you honestly just. . . forgot she existed?

You can do what you want, but if you treat someone like that, they're going to be very hurt, very insulted and very angry. Actions have consequences.

I don’t really see why you care what they think. My DH has an abusive mum and she wasn’t at my wedding. I don’t care if she blames me - it wasn’t my decision but if it makes my DH’s life easier to tell her it was all my fault then he can go ahead. I could not care less what she thinks or what she tells anyone. She is lucky my DH speaks to her on the phone.

If you barely see her like you say, what difference does it even make?

If you're not in contact with the mil, how do you know she's blaming you? I'd this from your dp?

Your dp needs to stand up to his mother and stand up for you.
He needs to make it very clear that it was HIS decision to invite his aunt, that he won't have his mother blaming you, and you're trying to make amends but as far as he is concerned, it's on HER that she won't accept your invitation now.

We didn’t realise it would cause all of this I mean this kindly, but what were you both thinking? If your mum remarried and only invited your sister because she was getting married in the same room you’ve chosen, but told you not to worry because she’d be having a party later and you’d be invited to that, would you be completely ok with that? And as you’ve invited your mum, I’m guessing she’s much nicer and more reasonable than your fiancé’s mum; did you not stop to think whether MiL’s reaction would be calm and measured? Does she have a history of reacting calmly?

Having said that, none of this is your problem. Your fiancé was the one who didn’t want to delay it so that you could afford a different room (I wonder if he didn’t really want her there and thought this was the perfect reason to only have his aunt?) Your fiancé was the one who chose not to invite her. Your question is not ‘Are we wrong for not inviting them’ but ‘Why the fuck isn’t my fiancé telling his mum that it was his decision, not mine, and that if she says one more negative thing about me, she won’t be invited to the party either, because I am his wife, I am his priority and I did not make this decision’. That’s the question you should be asking.

Not inviting your mother to your wedding is in my view the child's equivalent of disinheriting one's son or daughter

Yep. Your DH (and you) seem to have made this decision quite casually. If his mum is as bad as you are (only now) saying, then surely have gone NC with her?
If he had, the decision would be reasonable, but given that she's still in his life, not having her there is incendiary.

@JanineR you haven't said whether the aunt knows that she's not in addition to her sister, but instead of. If she does know, is she honestly comfortable with that? If she's not already NC with her sister, effectively their relationship will be over.

OP setting aside all the stuff about your STBMIL, you can get married in a Catholic Church even if one of you isn’t baptised. It is a valid marriage but you can’t have a nuptial Mass. If one of the parties isn’t Catholic it’s normal not to have a nuptial Mass.

BUT you need to check carefully what you will be allowed to do if you do a civil ceremony first (assuming you wre in the UK). You may not be allowed to have a Catholic wedding service after. But just have a convalidation process.
https://catholicweddinghelp.com/questions/civil-ceremony-first.htm
Check with your priest.

On the guest thing, change your plans. Spend another couple of hundred quid and invite your MIL unless you want to damage the relationship for good. I know it’s not your fault but be pragmatic.

Could you seek help from your Priest? Perhaps it would be better to wait until you can receive the Sacrament of Matrimony with everyone present in Church.

If the faux naivety here is actually genuine naivety then I'd really question both of your emotional intelligence here.