"And Family" on wedding invitation

[WeddingInviteAIBU]

My first AIBU. This is quite an old tale but has been on my mind as one of the main players is still off with me so I thought I'd check with the hive mind if I was in fact unreasonable.

The wedding was of my DH's youngest brother. I'll call him BIL3. DH has several DBs and this was the last to get married. We have 2 DSs. At the time of the invitation they were both adults. Both in long term relationships. DS1 was living with his long term partner. DS2 was living at home with us but in a long term relationship. BIL3 and his fiancée are actually closer in age to my DSs than to DH and me, socialised with them and knew both partners well.

Anyway, the invitation to their wedding arrived at my house and the invitees were DH, me "and family "

Was IBU to check who was covered by the invitation? If it was just my household then one of my sons was excluded. If it was everyone who I considered my family, then it would include both my sons and their partners.

Should it have been obvious what the invitation meant?

To cut a long story short, it turned out both DSs were invited but not their partners. As a result of my query the partners were grudgingly told they could come as evening guests.

The fiancée (now SIL3) was so annoyed at me querying the invitation that she uninvited me from her hen party and has barely spoken to me since. This all happened about 12 years ago!

What did I do wrong?

SIL wbu. The invitation was definitely not clear.

They sound like lunatics if they would get so upset about a factual question about an ambiguous invitation. Lucky escape I say.

They should have named who was actually invited. I would have thought from “and family” they would have meant, you, husband and two sons. I wouldn’t have thought their partners too but how ridiculous to hold a grudge against you for so long. You were doing them a favour by clarifying!

She doesn't like you and you can't like everyone, your kids are grown up and you don't have to have any contact with her.
In fact I'd never see her again, tbh.

I would have assumed family meant yourself and any kids living in your home. If any kids have their own place I would expect them to have a separate invite. I would not expect their partners to be invited.

There is no harm in checking with the hosts and I would have done the same. She is being unreasonable but it sounds like there is more to ot.

I’d also assume family meant you and your kids. The girlfriends were not family at that point.

I doubt this is why she’s off with you. Unless there was some pressure to invite the girlfriends. You say grudgingly invited so clearly it wasn’t something volunteered up.

Hmm, is there really no more to this? First of all you said that the invitation to the evening was grudgingly offered, and then later you said that they wrote back that they could come to the evening do if they liked. Doesn't sound grudging to me. And then you were hurt that your sons´ names were on the invite? That does sound like quite an overreaction to not very much. Also, if this whole exchange was one message from each person and no follow up, it seems a massive jump to think your SiL has never spoken to you since because of it! So either there is a lot more to this than you are saying here, or your SiL is annoyed about something entirely different and you are trying to find the reason in the wrong event.

Your adult son, even living in your home, should have received his own invitation. The bride is annoyed with you, but it was in fact the bride and groom who violated basic invitation etiquette.

You didn't do anything at all. In fact, you were very sensible, to clarify.

Sending an invitation to "and family" in your circumstances is just unclear.
If your ds who doesn't live with you was invited, I'd have thought they should have had a separate invitation, but if the hosts wanted to save postage / save time looking for the address etc., then they needed to be clear who it was they were inviting.

It was fine to clarify who the invitation was for, but you shouldn’t have asked about partners.

The invitation was “and family” - you and your two sons. Their partners are not family and wouldn’t be included when chances are they don’t even know the bride and groom.

My assumption would have been you, DH and your two sons. If the sons + partners had been invited, I would have expected them to receive their own invitations.

I'd think they probably meant any children under 18, adult would get their own invitation but I'd need to check, I don't know how you could be expected to guess.

Seems I’m in the minority on this one! I haven’t been to many weddings so I don’t know a lot of the etiquette around them but I would have found it a bit vague and asked too!

We have loads of family members who have long term partners (5 to 10+ years or have children together) but are not married but are considered very much part of the family. I understand not inviting every random girlfriend/boyfriend in the entire family but would someone together for years really be generally excluded from a big wedding (as OP said theirs was)? Strange!

I'm in a similar situation, recieved a "save the date" card addressed to "ITE , Partner and family ".

Well , I have 2 children at home, 2 who don't and one of those has a baby...

So who are they inviting exactly?

It's a close family member who I will ask at some point.

Just curious how others would read it.

but Ultimate - the OP didn't have children under 18, so that makes no sense here.

I agree with @victoriashleigh about long term partners being part of your family though. OP wasn't talking about someone her dc has recently started going out with. @heartsonacake - if a couple choose not to get married, ever, for how long is it legitimate to 'not invite' a partner to things ?

Writing "and family" is lazy, obtuse, and designed to cause confusion.

And bloody annoying.

It's not that difficult to write the names of those you are inviting to a wedding on the invite!

Two nieces recently got married. Both sent DS 22 who lives at home his own invitation. That’s how it should be I think. After invitations were sent out he began going out with his girlfriend. By time of wedding they had been going out over 12 months. She was invited verbally.