Before I start, I'll apologise for what is likely to be a long(ish) post.
My hubby's brother and his wife-to-be are getting married in late April. They've decided to get married in a really nice (but expensive) resort in Southern California and in Autumn sent out invites to friends and family.
To set the scene, they're both in their late 20's, have good jobs, with good salaries, no kids and a small flat (with a small mortgage). By comparison, my Hubby and I have 2 pre-school kids, a decent mortgage and I only work part time. We're by no means struggling but we're not rolling in it...
When the invites came out we spent a couple of weeks most evenings searching online to see how we could make the trip work financially and practically with a young family. The upshot of our searching was that to take 4 of us nearly 1/3 of the way around the world and stay for the wedding was costing ~£7,000, involved a 16 hour flight (with 1 connection) and when we got there an 8 hour time difference. We just can't afford to do it and really don't want to put the kids though it either. After a lot of thought we said that we wouldn't be going, We didn't mention the cost because we didn't want to make them feel in any way guilty about deciding to go abroad - it's their wedding afterall, and really expected them to understand - how wrong could we be....
The wife-to-be went ballistic, totally spat the dummy, said we were ruining her big day and it if was her sister who had let them down she would never ever talk to her again! At Christmas where we all gather at my mother-in-law's she didn't say a word to either of us all day and was really short and cold with the kids which upset me. Hubby's brother pulled her aside and had a word, but it's become apparent over the last 3 months that he's very much under the thumb and she rules the roost. To add insult to injury, her father waded into the argument and even suggested that we get a personal loan from the bank to cover it since "it's a once in a lifetime event and bank rates are low at the moment".
Its been quiet over the last month and both my hubby and I were beginning to think that her behaviour (which seemed quite out of character) was maybe as a result of wedding stress etc and that the worst was over. However, I've now since discovered that I've not been invited to the hen night but unbelievably, we've been issued with a wedding gift list from John Lewis, where the cheapest item is £95! Seems we've fallen out of favour but not enough that we can't buy them a gift!
Really not sure what to do, obviously don't want to stoke the fires and cause more friction but this rift is really dividing the family. Hubby's parents are now siding with us and giving her the cold shoulder and my poor brother-in-law's caught up in the middle which I think is having an effect on his relationship with my hubby which up until this nonsense was really close......
Any ideas? It's really getting under my skin and upsetting my hubby and I, finding that it's always on my mind and has started keeping me awake at night.