To tell my sister she can’t bring her husband to my wedding?

Tbh your financee is proving his point that she really does have a element of control about who sees who and who gets invited etc .it's not aadsive stretch to imagine how this could evolve to you daughter not seeing her aunt . Let's be honest leaving her husband out of a family celebration is not going to facilitate a good relationship between your daughter and her aunt .

Lots of us had people at our weddings we weren’t thrilled about. It’s part of bringing two families together. I loathed my sister-in-law at the time but we’ve made up since, which wouldn’t have happened had I said she couldn’t come.

Am I right that you and your fiancée are both women OP? There’s no chance BIL has a problem with that? Because if so, then no, he shouldn’t be invited.

If however this is down to what sounds like quite a weird situation where your sister was in a group chat about a family BBQ and didn’t for some reason say, ‘Hang on, what about DH?’ and he was hurt, then it’s not a big deal enough to uninvite him. It’ll cause a rift.

How exhausting OP. I feel for you. I would be inviting the BIL and explaining to your fiancee the difficult position you are in. Hopefully she understands. Thats what a supportive partner should do.

If they stay married, and that's the point of marriage, then you'll have him around for a lifetime. There's no point creating hard feelings by not inviting him. It's petty and it will never be forgotten.

What does quite personal mean?
There's a difference between "I was hurt that you didn't invite me to the barbecue" and "you are an effing c*nt because you did that"
If it's the former your fiancee is making a mountain out of a molehill if it's the latter she's certainly got a point.

I think not inviting him will create a rift. But I also understand your fiancee. As you say your family was quite dramatic beforehand so having a good hard think if she's compatible with that seems reasonable. Because she is not just marrying you but also your family.

Wow...this is your sisters dearest, she's family. You don't hurt family like this. Your fiance doesn't like him...fine..she loves you though and wouldn't want to harm your relationship with your family ....oh ...no she has decided she matters more...what a wonderful start to a marriage...

This really isn't about BIL ..it's about your fiance being able to move on from conflict. Beware 🚩

I honestly think you’re just explaining things incredibly badly. If you unmuddled yourself and explained what actually happened from beginning to end, you’d be getting different responses.

It’s your fiancée’s wedding, as well. If she were posting about her nightmare argumentative in laws and how she strongly disliked her BIL, she didn’t want him at the wedding, but her DP was considering inviting him anyway, people would tell her to call it off.

Of course a silly tiff between your fiancée and your bit of a dick BIL and a comment he (allegedly?) made to your DD should not result in his being barred from your Wedding UNLESS YOU WANT HIM TO BE. It should be your call and your fiancée should be loyally supporting you. Your fiancee has escalated drama, is dictating which of your family comes to the wedding and threatening to call off the wedding if she’s doesn’t get her own way. Is she going to continue in this vein? Is your fiancée deliberately trying to undermine your relationship with your closest sibling? Red flags.

I have a suggestion that doesn't involve badmouthing your fiancée and thus, I strongly suspect, putting your back up.

You dislike your BiL.
Your fiancée also dislikes your BiL.
This might mean that you are both sensing something wrong about him: a red flag or two, as it were.

Maybe you could point out two things to her in a discussion about this. One, that if you both feel the ick about him, it may well be that that your sister too will come to feel it and that marriage won't last, and two, that if this happens your sister will need your support, so it would be very unkind to her to put her into a position where she is so at outs with you that she can't talk with you. Shunning him while they are in a new relationship will certainly put her very much at outs with you, and not inviting him to your wedding is most definitely shunning him.

As was suggested upthread, your fiancée may have more reason for her dislike than just this one argument. Whatever else, you need to find out what the matter is from her point of view, and you won't do that by any sort of confrontation with her. And if she can't explain it but says it isn't only because of the row, it's just a gut feeling, well, how many times on this board have I read the advice to a woman that she should listen to her gut?

But whichever it is, if he's ok really then uninviting him is unfair, and if he's a wrong'un forcing your sister to break with you will harm her in the long run. So he has to be invited, for that reason if not simply for the sake of decent manners; it is persuading your fiancée of this that may be a problem.

Please tell me that this dilemma is only known to you and your fiancée at the moment? Nothing irrevocable has been said to anyone else?

Just invite him - it all sounds so petty and if you don't invite him you may regret the rift it will cause with your sister forever. You have to ask yourself 'is it really worth it?'. My answer would be that it isn't. Tell your finance to be less dramatic and just get on with enjoying her day. She doesn't have to interact with him, just tolerate his presence which isn't that hard to do.

My DH invited a few people I didn't particularly like to our wedding and I would never have chosen them to be there BUT it wasn't just my wedding - it was our wedding so he had a say too.

On the day I was so busy enjoying myself that I couldn't have cared less that there were 3 people there I didn't like. I have no memories of them at the wedding and 20 years later Im pleased I didn't make a big deal of it. He invited them, they came, I didn't see them and there was no drama. But we had an amazing day and that is all that matters. (And DH isn't in contact with them 20 years later anyway but he made that decision - it wasn't forced by me).

They wouldnt because you missed the bit about her beloved sister, her daughters Auntie and what this shows her about family bonds and conflict resolution

you need to get this resolved. those directly involved need to gather and clear air and cut a line under the past argument .

spend some of the wedding budget on a mediator if necessary.

you can’t leave your sister and husband out of the wedding because of this.
because it will never be forgotten.

and you can’t ask your sister to attend without her husband.

Do you really want to marry someone who would throw a “if he’s at the wedding I won’t marry you” at you anyway?!

Your fiance needs to grow the fuck up.

Not inviting your sister's spouse will throw a hand grenade into your side of the family, which is bleeding obvious to anyone with half a brain.

If your fiancee is willing to do that, maybe you should be reconsidering your relationship and whether this is the type of person you want to marry.

What would it take for you and your fiancée to be happy to have him there?

I think it’s worth having a conversation that the wedding has brought into focus that family is important to you all and you want to draw a line under it. To that effect, financee apologises for miscommunications around the bbq and any hurt that caused, sister husband apologises for speaking out of turn and any hurt that caused, whoever else does the same and then everyone commits to cracking on…
If anyone objects to trying to resolve it like a normal human (especially when this isn’t a heinous crime!) or decides to break the peace then their card is marked - be that the fiancée calling the shots or the sister husband remaining bitter, and you can all act accordingly.

Of course you invite your sisters husband. This all sounds a bit silly really.

In the name of whatever you value, do not ask your fiancée to take part in any sort of mediation at which the person she so dislikes will be present. This is at the moment just between you and her, and anyone else being involved will make everything fifty times worse: she neither wants nor needs to have a "reconciled" chummy relationship with your BiL.

Don't tell your brother, don't ask for her best friend's opinion; contain it for as long as possible.

Your fiancée certainly doesn't need to be made to feel that you don't have her back and that you want her to go along and be a lone voice in "discussion" with others who are already known to disagree with her and be let's face it unpleasant to her.

Well he was correct.
Your Fiancée IS trying to control who is included in family things and you ARE also potentially choosing her over your family which you’re very much entitled to do but you are not going to make a bad situation better.

I’m sorry OP but you sound really wet and unsure of yourself. I also wonder if your fiancée is dominating and controlling

He’s not wrong, your Fiancée is trying to control who gets invited to family things …

It's pretty striking that the Mumsnet verdict so far has been unanimous - that he should be invited. Do you have any idea how hard that is to get on Mumsnet where men are 99% in the wing for anything.

So I think it's pretty clear that he should be invited, and also pretty clear that there are red flags from your fiancé about some of her behaviour. She does seem to be trying to alienate your family and separate you from them.

Up to you, but if my DH hadn't t been invited to a family do, I'd have told the inviteee to shove the invite where the sun don't shine. 🙄

I think you need to explain the bbq thing properly as it doesn't make much sense.
Was your sister in the group chat? Why wouldn't she just assume her husband was included?what actually happened? Why was your partner making the arrangements with your family rather than you? What actually happened?
What did he actually say that was that bad? And what did she say in return that you admit was not great?
I think him apologising it got heated is an apology isn't it? Did she apologise?

It's really hard to determine how justified your fiancé is from what you've posted.

It seems like there was some confusion over who was in which chat groups when invitations for a bbq were sent out but your BIL felt it had been done deliberately? If so, why did your sister not know and tell him about it if it was a family event? Why did he jump to it being deliberate rather than an oversight? Has there been previous incidents or is he the kind of person who takes everything as a slight?

Eitherway the initial incident seems to have been blown out of proportion.

I know you've said neither covered themselves in glory with the following messages, however, the way the argument played out could be a bigger issue. My family argue but we never call each other names. I know that some people do when angry. If there was name calling from the BIL, that would be it for me and that's before involving a child in the argument which would also be a massive issue.

However, I would not be threatening to call off the wedding. I'd be suggesting just the two of us go to the registry office with two friends as witnesses if it was putting you in such a difficult position with your family. The important part for me would be getting married, not the wedding.

No I wouldn't be able to go through with a bigger wedding if someone I really disliked was going to be there. It would just destroy it for me.

There's a big difference between tolerating someone who isn't your favourite and someone you have a problem with.