AIBU regarding my step sister's wedding?

[Cardboxed]

I'll start by saying I probably am BU because everyone has the right and ability to do whatever they want with their wedding.

I met my step sister when we were around 10yo. Her dad and my mum went on to get married and we all moved in together. I'm an only child and she has 2 older sisters so for me, at the time I was very excited to have siblings. As we were the same age we pretty much had the same interests and lived in each other's pockets. I never regarded them as 'other' or 'step' to me they were my family.

My AIBU: this summer my step sister is getting married but she's only asked her 2 sisters to be bridesmaids. Not me. I am invited but I do feel very upset that I'm not one of the bridesmaids. I know I'll get over it and I should be happy for her but its made me wonder if all these years maybe she regarded me as not one of her 'real' siblings?

[OutWithTheDogs]

YANBU - I think it's mean. If I was a guest or a family member I would be wondering why you hadn't been asked.

OP, is there any other possible reason? Are you already married? Or are you really busy with work? or are you ttc? Are you really tall? Have you previously said you hate wearing dresses?

What about your partners? Do you like your DSis's husband to be? Does he like you?

[DinosaursRoar]

It could be to do with her mother, or her mother's family. Even if her mum treated her badly as a child, that doesn't mean she isnt as an adult trying to avoid hurting her or other step/half siblings on her mum's side.

Families are tricky, it doesn't mean she doesn't love you.

(Also is there any other possible reason, like you being the only one who's married/has DCs - some people are traditional about bridesmaids being unmarried/not mothers, or the groom having a step/half sibling he's not including in the wedding party)

[HeddaGarbled]

Weddings are a nightmare of diplomacy. Whatever the B&G do, someone, somewhere will get the hump. Maybe one or both of the full sisters would have thrown their toys out of the pram if you were included and she's had to do this to stop one of them throwing a strop. Given free choice, she may well have had you and not either of them but she doesn't really have a free choice without causing massive ructions. Please try and see the bigger picture and don't let this damage your relationship with her.

[BoneyBackJefferson]

ZiggyFartdust

How does the OP bring this up with her without more unhappiness being the result?

It is (IMO) where the OP has to 'suck it up' for the sake of family harmony.

Its not a nice situation but Occam's razor is valid in this case.

[ZiggyFartdust]

Nonsense. Keeping quiet, seething silently and changing your relationship forever based on a one sided judgement is not the way to gain family harmony, is it? Quite the opposite, in fact.
If OP thought they were very close before this, how did it not come up anyway? Wasn't she involved in the wedding planning and talk?

I suspect that they weren't actually that close at all and that OP's stepsister would be very surprised the OP is saying any of this. It doesn't add up.

[TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams]

I haven't brought it up with her and I don't really intend to do so

When I asked if you two had spoken about the wedding, it was more in a general context? Christmas was only a few weeks ago for one, it's likely to have been a topic of conversation around the table?

I agree with Ziggy to some extent. With many families you could jokingly ask why you hadn't made the cut to be a bridesmaid or joke about having escaped her mad fashion schemes.

Or while you might be close in some ways, maybe she's a bridezilla in waiting and you simply look completely different to her and her birth sisters. People get some pretty weird ideas about weddings.

Either way, you've dodged a bullet. God but it is a mind numbingly boring way to spend the day and the "top table" is usually dullsville.

[Funandgamesandfun]

I had an almost identical set up to you and I would have been absolutely devastated if any of my step sisters had acted the same way. They just wouldn't have and our individual parents would have reacted very strongly if they had. When you grow up in the same house from childhood you are sisters in all but blood.

I am not overly close to my step sisters, we don't have that much in common but they are my sisters, part of my life. I consider their children my nieces and nephews in exactly the same way as I do my sisters children and I would go to the ends of the earth for either of them and I'm fairly sure they would for me too.

I would talk to your mum and see what she says but you are absolutely not unreasonable to be upset. Could you arrange to meet your step sister to ask her about it.

[2rebecca]

You were in the same household from age 10-18 but if she's now 30 how much have you seen of each other for the past 12 years? To me that is more important, she maybe views you as someone she lived with for 8 years where as her sisters have been in her life for 30 years.
I suspect some of it is just 2 being a better number for bridesmaids than 3 as well.
I have 2 kids and 2 stepkids, those biologically related have a much closer bond, the step relationship is more casual friend, we didn't all live together all the time in 1 house though, but few step families do unless other parents are dead or completely useless, there's usually some tooing and froing.

[tkndnv]

I can see why this would hurt. I have one "real" sister and one very close friend that both my real sister and I call our sister as we grew up together, spent all our holidays and christmasses together etc.

My real sister had us both as bridesmaids.

[elliejjtiny]

I'm sorry you feel upset op. I have 2 sisters and both of them were my bridesmaids. My sister got married and had my other sister for a bridesmaid and not me (I was quite relieved, the bridesmaid dress and hairstyle would have looked awful on me). My mum had one sister as her bridesmaid too and not the other. I did get a bit annoyed when people asked me why I wasn't my sisters bridesmaid but I just pointed out that traditionally bridesmaids are unmarried (I think the groom is supposed to choose one to marry if the bride doesn't show up!)

[Cardboxed]

OutWithTheDogs I get along fine with her soon to be H. I can't think of anything that I might have said or done that would have offended him. Again, having gone through all the possibilities there really isn't any other one but she just felt that way.

TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams I see what you mean now. Yes it comes up quite often (or came up quite often over the Holiday period) so we do talk about the venue, her weight-loss before the day and that sort of thing. She has told me that she wanted a 'low key affair' so I'm taking that to perhaps mean i.e. not too many bridesmaid and as PP pointed out maybe 2 looks better than 3.

I'd be more inclined to ask my mum about it but then again I don't want her to talk to my step dad who then might talk to either of my sisters. Just not worth the potential fall out or bad feeling.