Family refusing to come to my wedding

[Bluemooninmyeyes1]

A bit of a strange one. I’m having a very small wedding next year and have decided to invite friends and only family members we are close to. Having thought about it, I’m not close to any of the male members in my family- my dad used to beat my mum up, my brother is also abusive, I have uncles I never speak to and one of my uncles is a full blown alcoholic who is always nasty to people when he’s drunk. However, the alcoholic uncle has a lovely partner and 2 young daughters who I’m close to so I explained the situation (told a little white lie and said I was trying to keep costs down rather than singling him out) and still invited the partner and cousins. Initially they said they would come and the kids got very excited about it then I got a text message last night saying that they won’t now attend without the alcoholic uncle. I tried calling them but they kept cancelling my calls and I heard through another family member that that the uncle had the kids in tears and told them they couldn’t go to my wedding without him.

I’m absolutely distraught to be honest and wondered if anyone had any advice or experience of how to cope if family don’t attend a wedding, as I’m now worried I’m going to feel really sad on my wedding day

@SeasonFinale

I think in view of what you have said about uncle you should just reply that you are sorry they will no longer be able to attend.

Yes to this. Also let your uncle's partner know separately (and privately) that you'd like to meet up with her and the children on a day afterwards. She can always "accidentally" bump into you so your uncle doesn't tag along.

I don't think you necessarily did the wrong thing. @Bluemooninmyeyes1... I think I might have done the same. By inviting them, you've given them the choice of whether to join you or not. That was a nice thing to do. It's up to them if they do, or if they decide that they can't attend without the uncle, which it seems that they've done on this occasion.

The only thing that I'd have done any differently is steel myself for the pressure to invite him, and I'd probably have tried to make peace with the fact that they were unlikely to come without him - but you've invited them, and that was a nice, inclusive thing to do, whether or not they actually attend.

I thought I was being nice inviting his partner and my cousins (mainly for my cousins to be honest)

You weren’t being nice, though. Because as much as you don’t like your uncle, his family obviously love him, so you’ll have caused issues with leaving him out.

I think you wanted to make a point and then act the victim when they wouldn’t come. Well, point made.

Genuine question: what did you expect your abusive alcoholic uncle to do/say when you made your (justified) disdain for him clear by not inviting him, but inviting his partner and children, to your wedding? The "keeping costs down" excuse was transparently a pathetic figleaf for the fact that you don't like him - that would only have made sense if you were only inviting him. It's not that people don't understand or sympathise with you not wanting him there - we do. But it was hopelessly naive of you to think you could invite his DW and DC but not him. Realistically, your options were all or neither and you could not have more obviously snubbed your uncle or put his wife in a highly awkward position.

A sensitive way to handle it would have been to call her privately and say "Non-DUncle is not invited, end of. I'd love to see you and the kids, but I don't want to put you in a bad position. Shall I send you an invitation? How shall we handle this?" But now all you can do is politely accept their decline.

It will be on him and not you if his DW and DC experience punishment for this incident, just to be clear, but you genuinely might want to consider that possibility when you are engaging with them again in future.

You have publicly told this woman that you dislike her husband/the kids father. Very rude if no previous discussions had been had on the subject.

@burnoutbabe no I didn’t. I said none of my male relatives were coming to my wedding so if _ came, I would need to invite them all and I’m trying to save on costs. That’s not personally telling someone I dislike their husband.

[quote Bluemooninmyeyes1]@burnoutbabe no I didn’t. I said none of my male relatives were coming to my wedding so if _ came, I would need to invite them all and I’m trying to save on costs. That’s not personally telling someone I dislike their husband.[/quote]
...did you seriously expect her to believe that? Come on. People have "no children" weddings or "immediate family only" weddings, but nobody has "no male relatives, but male friends" weddings or "not inviting actual blood relatives, but inviting their spouses and DC" weddings. Even leaving that aside, wedding convention is firmly that you may choose not to invite DC, but you either invite both of a married couple or neither. She knew what you were doing, and so did your uncle and anyone who heard about you inviting them but not him.

@SeagoingSexpot I don’t really care if that’s not the required etiquette but the facts are I’m not close to any male relative in my family and did not want any of them there. To be honest I can now breathe a sigh of relief that a racist, abusive alcoholic is not coming to my wedding.

My family know what he is like anyway, as well as his partner and kids hence the reason they were initially going to come without him. I don’t think I’ve ‘exposed’ anything about him to anyone as everyone knows what he is like anyway.

Thanks for the responses.

[quote Bluemooninmyeyes1]@burnoutbabe no I didn’t. I said none of my male relatives were coming to my wedding so if _ came, I would need to invite them all and I’m trying to save on costs. That’s not personally telling someone I dislike their husband.[/quote]
That's simply astonishing. And makes absolutely no sense. I'd gamble that no-one in the history of weddings has ever said 'no male relatives' to save costs.
It's truly unbelievable. Did you run this insane idea by anyone before you sent the invitation? Because surely no-one else could have thought it a good idea.

choices have consequences. Partner chooses to stay with a violent racist drunk, and keep her kids with them. This is one of the consequences.