Wedding invite dilemma with a feuding, abusive, vindictive extended family.

[Riversguidebook]

I don’t know ether to post the backstory. It’s a bit Jeremy Kyle with lots of DV, police, sibling feuds, abuse, etc. But it avoids dripfeed and helps outline the dilemma.
But nowadays on Mumsnet you have to think twice, because they allow the Daily Mail to take your posts, publish your username, and put it in the paper! This is going to be unavoidably personally identifying.

To simplify, we are 49 and 50 and getting married for the first time this year.
We have two young children from my previous relationship (DV, absent bio father).

How do I go about inviting my family members when many of them are feuding with eachother, or don’t talk? This is a very large extended family in which exists domestic violence, child abuse, financial fraud, vindictive social media hate campaigns against eachother, police involvement, and dishonesty on a huge scale.

I am one of 4 children, of whom the pivotal middle sister is instrumental in much of the abuse that is occurring. Neither of her other sisters talk to her.

We can’t just do the secret elopement or beach wedding thing as my fiancé’s family is quite normal and he wants them to enjoy the day so we can’t all decamp 100 mile to the coast, and the troublemakers in my family will ‘ invite themselves’ on the day regardless as they’ve done this before to events.

How do I go about choosing who to invite, when so many of them are in feud and won’t turn up if A or B turns up? Is there such thing as an ‘open invite’ for weddings?

Go somewhere and just invite DPs family and the least insane problematic of yours?

Do you want them there?

Can't you just not invite any of them? Keep it secret? Maybe have it abroad?

The problem is, I don’t know who to invite, as A won’t turn up if they know B is going, even though I might really want A there.

But I don’t know who’s currently feuding it’s who.

Plus, both my sisters aren’t talking, so I can’t have bridesmaids, and my brother isn’t talking to me (connected to the pivotal sister and the police issues and all that stuff) and so on, so what happens there? Do I invite both, or some, siblings, or none to avoid drama?

I’m a private person, this will be a quiet wedding hopefully, and not showy, but I’m stumped on this initial invite dilemma .

No can’t keep it secret and can’t have abroad, couldn’t afford it.
No elopement or beach wedding due to logistics of inviting fiancé’s family.

I know someone who had bouncers at the church and the reception to prevent a particular person from getting in . Could you swear to secrecy, those chosen to attend from your side?

Who in the family would you want to attend? Are you only inviting them because he wants his family and you feel obligated to invite yours too?

I can’t, no. The middle sister is in cahoots with our mother and she will do the same thing she did at the other sister’s party event ; she will send her stepchild with our mother, as an excuse to then turn up herself because the child is there so she has a ‘right’ to be there.

The middle sister is violent, extremely vindictive, has had police involvement recently because of her actions against me and my family. She is a clever manipulator and will pretend to people that she hasn’t been invited because I’m trying to ‘control’ everyone, as she frequently complains.

What a crappy wedding dilemma, OP you have my sympathies.

I might aim to have as small a wedding as possible, that way you can afford to leave out a few troublemakers. Or just invite less from that side. Make out that as your DH has a bigger family, they got more percentage of the invites in case anyone asks?

A previous post to mentioned having bouncers, that sounds ludicrous, except not in your case. Could that be an option?

I went to a wedding recently in which a couple of known to be problematic family members from one side had their pictures circulated to various (volunteer) guests who were primed to immediately removed from the premises if they caused any trouble.

Bouncers.
Tell no one where it is, give a time and meeting place with a coach to the wedding. Someone to drive a minibus shuttle back at the end.

Child free wedding for your side

Elope/minimal guests. Then celebrate reception with DH's side and never get around to sorting your side.

A friend of mine went to a wedding which was on an island off the Cornish coast and the only way on or off was via a tractor and trailer. Maybe you could book that?!

Or in a similar theme, can you find a golf club or private club with a long driveway, which will have security at the gate and only let invited guests onto the premises?
The gatecrashers may still kick off but you’ll be blissfully unaware, as will all of your normal in-laws

I’d have the wedding at a registry office and invite no one.

I’d have a party some time after the wedding and have bouncers on the door and make it invite (ticket) only.

Don’t invite your family. Do invite his. Simple and saves hassle.

Seriously invite the minimum of DP family and none of yours!!!

Weekday registry office lovely restaurant meal afterwards.

"Bouncers.
Tell no one where it is, give a time and meeting place with a coach to the wedding. Someone to drive a minibus shuttle back at the end."

Great ideas. Are they doable?

What OhGuessWhat said.

What a shitty thing to have to think about for your wedding. I hope that in the end you have a lovely day.

Congratulations on your engagement!

I agree with the last few posts.
Tiny registry office ceremony with just your children and two witnesses (could be your fiancé's parents or two mutual friends).
Then a small reception with his immediate family plus friends from both sides. The reception could be a meal or an evening party but ideally I think you would need "bouncers" at the door check names off the invite list when people arrive.
And tbh I don't think you should even tell your family that you're getting married until it's done and dusted.

Sorry about the situation btw, it sucks, but your marriage is the important thing here - not your family and their drama.

Is there anyone in your family that you'd like to be there? Could you trust them not to tell the others?

Have a big picnic, open seating something or other in a big field somewhere. That way it doesn't really matter how many come and they can sit at opposite ends of the field if they want. Hire a swing band or something like that that spans generations.

With this level of abuse and dysfunction, I don't think sitting at opposite ends of the field is quite going to cut it, do you?!

Tiny registry office do, minimal invites sent, general invitation to party afterwards at venue with security?

I agree with @AnotherEmma.

Wrt any family of yours who you get on with, could you invite them out for a meal after the wedding to make up for no invite and to explain.

Or you could invite them to the wedding but add a little handwritten note in with the invitation saying that only a few members of family will be invited to keep numbers down, just family members that get on?

Remember the saying, those who don’t matter will mind, and those who matter won’t mind.

...or maybe stick to the meal after the wedding, might be easier...

If your DB isnt speaking to you then dont invite him, if your sister has a fued going on then dont invite her. It's perfectly reasonable to not invite people who are being horrible to you. Being related does not mean an automatic invite.

Thanks for input everyone

I think we’re going to go with only my sister and her immediate family and my partner’s family to the marriage ceremony,

then some kind of open invite to the reception for my extended family, but I will have to write up some way of saying a particular person isn’t welcome due to the drama they tend to cause.

I’m not sure how I’m going send an ‘open invite’ either.
I don’t want to put it on Facebook as that looks attention seeking or showing off about getting married and I’m a very private person, so should I just send traditional individual invites to family members instead?

I already know I’m going to get sad because thanks to the brill job my middle sister has done with pretending to everyone I’m exiled and crazy, many of them might send a haughty no thanks you raving psycho rsvp back, or not reply at all .

I’ve never been close to family anyway, but I’ve never had falling-outs either. So maybe I shouldn’t really expect lots of family to turn up.

It would be nice for my young kids though, to see plenty of extended family in the wedding photos. Something normal to look back on, instead of the reality of the extended family being majorly damaged and toxic .

If you have a party style reception and send invites out it could still all kick off, stick with small intimate wedding they are really not that unusual!