My cousins wife refusing to allow my partner to wedding

[LondonElle]

A very close cousin of mine is getting married in a month.
Due to living in different parts of the country we haven’t physically seen each other for a year but regularly keep in contact via social media and phone calls.
His mum and my mum are close sisters and we have grown up together.
My current relationship started around three years ago we are engaged .. my cousin has met my partner several times and they get on very well.
However we recently got a invite to his wedding ( he’s met her 18 months ago) and only my name was on it... thinking this was a mistake I tried to get hold of him to clarify but he didn’t get back to me.
Eventually he called my mum to state that his fiancé has refused to allow my partner to attend the wedding as she’s not met him... apparently he’s very unhappy with this decision but she won’t bend and says the only way she will invite him is if we meet up... but due to work and family commitments on both sides we can’t manage to meet up before the wedding.... I suggested maybe we could meet up the evening before the wedding briefly but she can’t make it.. I can understand this as she will be very busy but the wedding is over 300 miles away and we won’t get another chance.
Do I just accept it and go alone despite the fact that all my siblings partners will be there or see if I can try and persuade her to allow him to come?

Go to your cousins wedding. I am sorry this has happened, but it's not upto you who is invited. Don't take this personally, they have to draw a line somewhere, and this is the line they chose.

Look really nice about it. It's a wedding. There are so many things to be fret over,a nd probably your partner would find it dull and lots of small talk. Other peoples families are pretty errrrrrrrr.... what the word?

My DH’s close friend got married a few years ago, they’d been good friends for about 10 years.

I had met him and his fiancé plenty today times, we’d all socialised together, we’d been to each other’s Hen Nights, they attended our wedding etc.

When they got married the invites said no babies over 6 months old allowed but younger babies were. This included bottle fed babies so it was not about about young babies who were reliant on their mothers for feeds.

At the time of the wedding our baby was two weeks over the 6 month mark and was exclusively breast fed. My DH spoke to his friend and explained that I wouldn’t be able to attend unless the baby could come and as the baby was only two weeks over the ‘cut off point’ would it be ok. The Groom had no problem with this, said of course it was fine and that he’d let his fiancée know.

A few days later the Groom got back in touch and said that he’d tried his best but his fiancé didn’t want me coming because although our son was 2 weeks over the rule and EBF she didn’t think that was a good enough reason.

Her view was fine, it was her wedding, they can invite who they want to etc etc but the problem my DH has with it all was the fact that even though the Groom had no problem with me attending the wedding, because his fiancé had said no that was the decision made, despite my DH and the Groom having been close friends for over 10 years.

His friend was really apologetic, much like your cousin, said he really wished he could have talked the bride round but he hadn’t been able to.

My DH’s view (as others have pointed out on here) was that it wasn’t just her wedding, it was his friend’s wedding too, and he was upset that his friend hadn’t stood up to her and said that he wanted me and the baby to come because he should have had as much ‘say’ regarding the invites and guest list as she did.

As apologetic as his friend was things became very strained and my DH declined the invite to the wedding.

We have seen the couple many times since then but things have never been the same.

The point I’m making is that people can invite who they want, they can have ‘rules’ about who can and can’t come BUT your cousin should be standing up to his fiancée because sometimes friendships and family relations are more important.

If your cousin isn’t prepared to invite your partner then you should decline the invite because it’s very disrespectful to your relationship and it actually proves how little your cousin wants you there if he isn’t prepared to stand up to his fiancé.

sometimes friendships and family relations are more important.

This. Absolutely. I think people get so wrapped up in planning "their wedding" that it becomes the most special, important event ever. Which, clearly, it is to them! But they lose track of the fact that the same doesn't apply to everyone else. So the whole "Fred can come but he can't bring Mary" is based on the assumption that Fred is really, really keen to come. Whereas it is probably a bit of a chore for him, no matter how much he likes the wedding couple.

I had the reverse experience of the one Queens mentioned. I have family friends; two brothers a similar age to me. I've always been friendlier with the older brother, but invited them both. Older brother was slightly apologetic about the younger brother's lack of RSVP; when we chatted about it, it turned out that he had recently acquired what was obviously becoming a very serious girlfriend. Older brother was quite embarrassed about it all. In the overall scheme of things, my DH and I decided that (to put it crassly) one more person's dinner was a drop in the ocean and so I wrote to younger brother along the lines of "So sorry not to have included Louise now we've heard all about her from your brother - if she's free and would like to come, we'd be delighted to meet her then." And so both brothers came, with Louise. Louise was, by all accounts, a very charming guest. She and younger brother got married a year later and have three children now. And I've actually seen far more of younger brother over the years - I'm sure as a result - because we made his now wife feel welcome. It can often pay off in the long term to be inclusive in terms of these sorts of situations.

I wouldn't go on principle and make the reason very clear to other relatives that you won't acquiesce to this batshit rule

Exactly.

Make no mistake, your cousin is supporting this disgusting choice by choosing to go along with his nasty BTB. For that reason the relationship between cousin and me would effectively be over.

Neither cousin nor his fiance would be invited to my wedding.

No, relationship would go to pot after this sort of rejection and there would be no invitation to my own wedding in the light of it.

Fwiw, I have a fairly large family with many many many first cousins. We all knew each other well when we were growing, older cousins minding younger cousins etc, many family get-together evety year as my mum was very close to all her siblings.

Consequently, there has never been a wedding where the b&g knew, or had even met, everyone invited, and there were always many great-aunts, ancient Cousins X whom no one had seen since the year dot, etc attending, sometimes with children and grnadchildren too, maybe because they just happened to be in the country at the time....

The advantage is that you widen your family circle, with all that entails. I am now able to stay with someone in almost every country, no almost every town, in Europe for instance, Australia, also in Canada, the Eastern Seaboard, etc etc. should I want to visit those places. And if there's not someone I met at a family wedding in a place I am going, there will be a friend of someone I met at a family wedding there.

Further, should I need help my family will always be able to do so, I probably have 30 people I could call on right now....

Apart from sharing the joy of your union, and wearing a pretty dress, surely the point of a wedding is to forge bonds with people?

We are having our wedding celebration later this year (did the legal bit already). I have never met any of my MIL’s side of the family but they will all be invited, including partners. If I’m honest, I am not really bothered whether they come or not because I’ve never met them and my other half never sees them. But we are inviting them because it would be really disrespectful to my MIL not to invite her side of the family when my FIL’s side and both sides of my family will be there.

Likewise, when we did the legal bit we only had immediate family and witnesses and their partners, which meant that out of a handful of guests, there was one person neither of us had ever met (the new-ish boyfriend of one of our witnesses).

For us, getting married is supposed to be about sharing our happiness with our closest friends and family, and it’s not worth the risk of damaging our relationships with those people if we don’t invite their partners (or in MIL’s case, her family).

Lol, there were quite a few of DH's friends I hadn't met when we got married, one of them was an usher as he was actually a very good friend. I'd have been very unkind to say no. I just left him to choose which friends he wanted there, I chose which of my friends to invite.

The wedding is a chance to get to know your DH's family and friends. You don't have to have met them all beforehand.

If I were you I would go alone because hopefully all your family will be there, so you will have a nice time, but when it comes to the invitations for your own wedding you should only invite your cousin and not his wife and give the reason that your fiancé doesn't want anyone that he hasn't met at his wedding