Sister’s Wedding

[AKAotherwise]

My sister has chosen her late father’s brother to walk her down the aisle and not our dad who has brought her up since she was 3.

Her dad had addictions and died and she had only sporadic contact with his family. The uncle would turn up at Christmas and birthdays sent by the grandparents who were too upset to see her on these occasions.
She and my dad have got on but she always introduced him as ‘step’.
When she went to university there was an inheritance that was in the uncle’s name so he is clearly a moral person.
My parents and I are so upset and i just don’t want to go. It’s up to her though isn’t it? I can’t sleep I am so upset. Her other half-sister will also be a bridesmaid but I think we should be closer because of our mum and growing up together. Her cousin will be as well but not my dad’s cousin.
Would you be happy?

Its her day , her choice. I can't believe you and others are making such a fuss about a role that takes 10 minutes max.

OP, your self-centred and blinkered attitude is quite shocking. This is all about your feelings. You have not shown an ounce of genuine compassion or understanding for your half sibling. The reaction by you and your parents borders onto controlling and quite frankly somewhat abusive behaviour. Having lost my father young, milestones like my wedding day and birth of my babies were incredibly painful reminders and tinged an otherwise joyful occasion with sadness that he could not be there. It is not up to you or anyone else to decide whether or not YOUR father can take away from this painful loss and your attitude about her decisions is horrendous. I don’t know how old you are but you come across as a spoiled brat. I'd be tempted to uninvite the lot of you for trying to force your ideas on her wedding day!

If you're going to have a miserable face, then don't go.

@AKAotherwise

I think I posted in order to vent my upset. My sister has never been the cuckoo in the nest and is a full and complete member of our family. She received an inheritance from our grandfather like all of the cousins and was a bridesmaid at my aunt’s wedding. My dad has been Dad to her since she was three. Her real dad was never ‘airbrushed’ out and I think the fact she has a relationship with his family proves this. Of course she has a right to invite who she likes to her wedding and her uncles, aunts and cousins should be there but not to ask ‘our’ dad to walk her up the aisle is a kick in the teeth for him and our mum is devastated. It’s made me question everything. I didn’t want to go to the wedding but that was an emotional response. She hasn’t spoken to me about anything and doesn’t know my feelings. I am married myself with children and know the stresses of arranging a wedding. Someone asked if I had invited her cousins . Of course I didn’t as I have never met them but she grew up with ‘my’ cousins. As far as I am concerned she is my real sister and my dad is our dad who is heartbroken. This is not taking away anything from a bond she had with her real dad. No one ever suggested that she should be grateful for my dad ‘taking her on’ it was a complete non issue. I totally accept what people have said and wasn’t just looking for people to agree but I remain really upset but we will all go and paint smiles on our faces.

Get over yourself! ‘Paint a smile on’.... seriously, so dramatic.

He. Is. Her. Stepfather. The fact she doesn’t call him Dad underlines that. She can love him, respect him and care about him, but he is not her ‘dad’.

You’re so wrapped up in how you think it should be that you seem to forget it’s her wedding.

OP my parents made a big deal about which of my extended family members got a role on my wedding day and it really hurt me and damaged our relationship. They couldn’t understand why I didn’t feel as close to my aunts and uncles as they did, even though I tried to explain a sibling relationship is completely different from an aunt/uncle/niece relationship. They took it as a personal slight, when it was nothing of the sort! I have a good relationship with my aunts and uncles but I am nowhere near as close to them as I am to some other people and my parents just couldn’t accept it. The whole thing was bizarre, controlling and very upsetting. And that was without them trying to erase any blood family ties I have, so I can only imagine how painful it would be for your sister if you or your parents tried to interfere with her decision at all.

She wants to honour her late father on her wedding day. There is nothing strange or horrible or about this. On her wedding day it doesn’t matter if he was an alcoholic or a terrible partner to your mum or anything else. She just misses him and wants him there, but that can never be so she’s doing the next best thing and having someone as closely linked to him as possible. This isn’t about your family being rejected, it’s about a woman who still feels like a little girl who misses her daddy and wants to remember him on one of the most important days in her life. Please don’t ruin this for her.

Oh god maybe you're not a bridesmaid because she's now how judgemental you'll be over every decision

OP, you're insisting on your interpretation of your family and its interrelationships at the expense of your sister's take on those relationships. One of the reasons weddings can be so fraught with drama is that guest lists and asking people to play key roles in a traditional wedding is a crystallisation of how the people getting married see their family relationships at one moment in time.

Yours and your sister's don't match. Which is understandable, given that you have different fathers, her father was highly problematic and had split from your mother before she remembers and then died, and she has a relationship with her father's family which you don't. Don't you see why it's completely inappropriate for you to be throwing around all these 'shoulds' in relation to her wedding?

To put it bluntly, you feel her ideas about family should be the same as yours, and they aren't, because her family is different. What you term 'our' family the one that you feel should be prioritised is only part of her family, and she wants to maintain links to the other part of hers on her wedding day. Even if you don't think she should, or if you think that part of her family should be subsidiary to your 'joint' family.

your dad was your sisters step dad. She had a relationship with her own dad and his family. So I am assuming she spent time with her dad, weekends at his and seeing that side?

So I totally understand why she has chosen to remember her dad who sadly died by asking his brother to walk her down the aisle. This is her family and they are important. Your dad should not have assumed he should be stepping in an to suggest he is heartbroken seems very OTT.

@Weebitawks

Oh god maybe you're not a bridesmaid because she's now how judgemental you'll be over every decision

She said that the half sister is “also” a bridesmaid so it reads as if the OP is a bridesmaid. She’s just pissed off the bride has had the temerity to be close to her other half-sister and cousin as well.

OP I think you interfere with her decisions at your peril. She wants to honor her dad and feel close to her father´s family on her wedding day. It is no dismissal of your father. Her family status is not the same as your family status. My father died 20 years before my wedding and I had my uncle walk me down the aisle. My brother´s girlfriend made some comment on why I didn´t have my brother and I had to bite my tongue in order to not say mind your own bloody business. I have a history this girl does not understand. So, if I can remember 11 years later that comment, imagine what your sister will feel if she learns about your ott reaction to a perfectly reasonable arrangement she has made for HER wedding.

It might be a comfort to the dead father’s side of the family to see the role, which should have been his, being fulfilled by the closest person to him, his brother. I think it’s a thoughtful thing to do in that sense.

I really feel for your sister. You and your parents are going to ruin her wedding day because of your 'devastation'. It's her day. Why not just be happy for her and let her have the day she wants? It doesn't mean that your dad means any less to her- she would like someone representing HER dad to walk down the aisle.

You and your parents need to realise that it's all about her and her feelings. She shouldn't make choices about her wedding just to please you.

And if you're going to 'paint smiles on your faces' just because she isn't having the wedding your family think she should have then I think you should be honest with her and not go.

It is not about you. It is not about your mum. It is not about your dad. If you can't be happy for her then it will be obvious oh the day and you'll ruin it. It is her wedding.

This is so nasty. It really reads like you expect her to be grateful for being taken on. Honestly, you should all get fucked. Her dad died. Okay he was a loser, that's the person your precious perfect mum chose.

Your mum was able to move on quick wasn't she. Lucky her.

but not to ask ‘our’ dad to walk her up the aisle is a kick in the teeth for him and our mum is devastated

But he’s not her dad. She had no say in who or where she lived as a child. Not sure why she should pick a non relative over her own family to play a role in her wedding. Presumably you had your own family and not someone else’s in those roles at your own wedding so why shouldn’t she?

You need to keep out of this OP. You have NO say in this. It sounds like you're actually wanting to cause upset for her.

Her real dad was never ‘airbrushed’ out and I think the fact she has a relationship with his family proves this.

They are also her family. You don't get to decide the rights and wrongs of this and neither do your parents. I'm quite shocked to see you are married with a family yourself, your OP reads like it was written by a 14 year old.

Maybe Having her dads brother Will make her feel closer to him on the day. Maybe, despite the issues, she feels the honour of walking with her should be related to her father in some way.

Either way, back off. Not your wedding. You come across as over invested and neurotic

On her wedding day it doesn’t matter if he was an alcoholic or a terrible partner to your mum or anything else.

I disagree with that in that making the uncle part of the bridal party in place of her step dad could feel very awkward for her mum if it means she has to spend quite a lot of time with him in place of her husband through the day. Depending on arrangements prior to the wedding, seating plans at the wedding etc of course. Is the uncle going to be making a speech about his brother which mum has to sit through. Could simply inviting him and asking him to do a reading or something have been a better idea.

This decision makes quite a statement to the groom's family as well. If it's mum and stepdad who are the ones involved in her daily life and have met the groom's parents, this sort of sidelining for a never very present uncle will have people questioning her relationship with her step dad as they are on here.

Op has said they're all going to the wedding, noone's suggesting otherwise but I do think Op isn't unreasonable to feel concerned, particularly about her Mum's feelings actually.

I would go, support her and understand, accept and respect that she needs this connection to her father and it isn't actually about your father at all.

My niece lost her Dad, my brother, when she was a similar age. I could see her asking my Dad to walk her down the aisle. There is such a strong connection between her and us. I see her younger brother as my nephew.

What I'm trying to say is that it may not be a kick in the teeth to your Dad. More a way to connect with hers.

Depending on arrangements prior to the wedding, seating plans at the wedding etc of course. Is the uncle going to be making a speech about his brother which mum has to sit through. Could simply inviting him and asking him to do a reading or something have been a better idea.

Who makes speeches about themselves/the FOTB at a wedding reception?

Could simply inviting him and asking him to do a reading or something have been a better idea.

Better for who? Certainly not the bride.

If it's mum and stepdad who are the ones involved in her daily life and have met the groom's parents, this sort of sidelining for a never very present uncle will have people questioning her relationship with her step dad as they are on here.

Maybe, given that the bride has never called or referred to her step-dad as dad and she’s close enough to her father’s side to have both her other half-sister and cousin as bridesmaids they’ll just be more aware of the relationship between them than the OP is. Especially as even the OP described the relationship between the bride and her step-father as “they got on”. Not even “they’re close” or “they’ve always been like father and daughter”.

The OP dismissed the other family relationship as Christmases and birthdays only, but given the sister is presumably older than the OP and the OP herself is married how could she possibly know the ins and outs of the relationships over their adult years?

Op has said they're all going to the wedding, noone's suggesting otherwise but I do think Op isn't unreasonable to feel concerned, particularly about her Mum's feelings actually.

Might be nice if she had a single concern about her sister’s feelings though...

And the OP did suggest she didn’t want to go to the wedding

Some people's ideas of who should have been invited to our wedding, made me really wish that we'd gone abroad and invited no-one.

It's hers and her fiancé's day, they're the only ones who get to decide.

If it's mum and stepdad who are the ones involved in her daily life and have met the groom's parents, this sort of sidelining for a never very present uncle will have people questioning her relationship with her step dad as they are on here.

So the bride should choose who her stepdad to walk her down the aisle to avoid gossip? Because that’s essentially what you’re suggesting.

The OP dismissed the other family relationship as Christmases and birthdays only, but given the sister is presumably older than the OP and the OP herself is married how could she possibly know the ins and outs of the relationships over their adult years?

Exactly. The OP would have been a small child when much of this was going on. How much of her view is actually informed by her mother? Comments about the uncle ‘being sent’ to see his niece - do they sound like the kind of thing a child would come up with on her own? Or perhaps it’s more like something she’d overheard her mother say to her father and has taken as gospel...

@aSofaNearYou

Depending on arrangements prior to the wedding, seating plans at the wedding etc of course. Is the uncle going to be making a speech about his brother which mum has to sit through. Could simply inviting him and asking him to do a reading or something have been a better idea.

Who makes speeches about themselves/the FOTB at a wedding reception?

The uncle is giving her away and is essentially 'FOTB' in place of his brother in the wedding party. The FOTB traditionally gives a speech. How is it a leap to think he'd talk about his late brother, in essence isn't that why he's been asked (unless like he gave her an inheritance he's also paying a lot towards the wedding and this is as much about that).

There being a suggestion of a difficult history with her late father being an addict does make a difference where her mum's concerned...or you'd think the sister would consider that when making her arrangements. Otherwise, if she doesn't care about riding roughshod over her mum's feelings then it's her day but she can't complain if mum and step dad aren't willing to fully go along with her plans and it affects their relationship going forward to some degree.