To be annoyed at SIL-to-be?

[CableCar]

My brother and I are your average siblings. We get along, see each other a couple of times a year, chat about the important things, always celebrate birthdays with gifts to one another etc.

My brother is getting married and my SIL-to-be has no interest in involving my family in the wedding. Neither me nor my DC (primary aged children) have been asked to be part of the bridal party, which is a bit of a shame for my DC as they're little and would make cute flower girls / page boy etc, but it's not my wedding, so that's fair enough.

However I just found out that I haven't been invited to her hen party, which is at a spa. Now I personally think that as sister of the groom it is etiquette to invite me... I am a bit offended as I'd have hoped to have come along to her hen party to celebrate - she will be my SIL after all! If this is how their wedding is going I am starting to feel like she doesn't value me, nor care for my brother's family. My mum hasn't been invited either. AIBU? All the hen weekends I have EVER been on have always included the close family on both sides of the wedding party, not just the bride.

It bothers me as it makes me think she doesn't particularly care for me!

YANBU - it's a bit rude to not invite you

YABU - it's her hen do, let her do as she pleases

It honestly would never occur to me to invite my future SIL to my hen do. I went to the hen dos for both my sisters and neither of them had invited their future SILs either. Just sisters and close friends usually. Sometimes cousins.

I certainly wouldn't want a flower girl to be a child I barely knew. Obviously your future DH knows his nieces but if he wants to involve them he makes them ring-bearers and has them on his team, not yours.

You only see your brother twice a year so I assume you must live quite a distance from him? You can only have met this lady a handful of times? Maybe she just didn’t think of you given there isn’t much relationship there?

I'm pretty old and things may have changed, but it literally never occurred to me to ask my sils or mil to my hen do. I didn't even invite my own mum. It's was just my close friends.

I was also not invited to my sils' hen dos and would have been very surprised to get an invite.

Also, I would expect bridesmaids and page boys to come from the bride's family, not the grooms.

I could be wrong but I think you have some very rigid views on how families work. You say you are average siblings but I don't think that's even a thing...every family works differently with so many variables that affect closeness.

Do you get on with your SIL? Are you friends with her?

Doesn't sounds like your particularly close so not sure why you would expect to be invited? I wouldn't say it was necessarily the norm to invite your in laws to be.

Why would it be the bride's job to have the groom's family's children in HER bridal party?

If he feels strongly about it, then presumably your brother would invite your children to form part of the groom's party?

As for inviting future female in-laws to a hen do - meh, I'm agnostic.

It might be a nice thing to do, possibly, but if you don't know each other well it turns the whole thing into a bit of a networking event.

I'd concentrate on developing your relationship after the wedding rather than getting hung up on the pre-stuff.

Hen parties are traditionally for the bride's family and friends, not people from the family she's marrying into. Again, traditionally brides' attendants. bridesmaids, flowergirls etc are from the bride's family/friends, not the groom's.

If you want to be involved in the wedding, it would be by request of your brother. But as you don't sound particularly close, that's not obvious either -- and why you'd expect to be invited to a hen party or be involved in the bride's part of the wedding party when you see your brother twice a year, so presumably barely know his fiancée is a bit mad. You sound spectacularly aggrieved over the decisions of someone you must only have a fairly initial acquaintance with. Which may be obvious and why she's steering clear of you.

She's going to be your sister in law, not necessarily your friend. Hen parties are - in my view - more for friends of the bride, unless family members are particularly close.

I wouldn't be offended, it doesn't mean that she doesn't like or value you, just possibly that you'd cramp her style being the sister of her husband to be?

A hen do is for the bride and her friends. You aren’t one of her friends, so obviously you are not invited.

Flower girls are part of the bridal party, chosen by the bride. She sees you maybe twice a year so barely knows your children.

It would be completely different if you were a tight knit family and you saw them frequently.

Do you want to spend a hen do listening to
jokes based around your brother’s penis? Because that’s how some hen dos I have been to have ended up.

I wasn't invited to now-SIL's hen do. I was a bit hurt at the time but got over it and we have a good relationship.

my brothers wife didn't invite me to he'd hen party. now our situation was a bit different to yours. she lived across the road from us was a few years below me in school. brother and her started going out quiet young. she had been to many family events big birthdays and spent many an eve at our house. so I was a bit hurt and so was my sis at tye time. my sis did invite her future sis in laws to her but she lives near them and would have seen them loads. one lives next door to her. mu sis would have invited my sis in law to her hen but she lived in a different country at the time. when my hen party came along I didn't invite her. but alos didn't invite my mother mother on law or future sis on laws on my husbands side. one I dint believe mother should be at hen party's and 2 sis in law are a good bit older than me. so I arranged for afternoon tea for them ( I did not invite my brothers wife to that either ) which I think is more appropriate. my sis did simualr but with dinner instead. i also did not have any nieces and nephews as flower girls and page boys. tried to keep it simple. older ones did a reading. in yoir case as it sounds like yoi dint know her well I wouldn't get too worked up about it. we didn't no much about my brothers wedding either so we just put on nice clothes turned up smiled for the camera and enjoyed the party. that's all yoi can do. enjoy

But you only see your brother twice a year so you can hardly have ever met this stranger. Why would you expect to pop up at these very personal events?

I've only been to one of my three SIL's hens and it's the one I was friends with before she got with my brother. Hen's are for your pals surely, not the extended family?

My SiL (husband's brother's wife - so the widest definition of SiL I suppose) had her hen do 10 minutes up the road from where we live. They live two hours away, so it's not like it was local for her. She didn't invite me for any of it. I have to admit it bothered me at the time because in her shoes I would have asked me for a drink or even a coffee at some point in the weekend. (She literally had to drive past the turning to our village to get to the venue and could even have stopped off for a cuppa on the way there or back).

That said, we weren't close then and haven't got any closer in the decade or so since, so I guess it was a sign of how things were to be. It also made things clear early on, so I've never felt obliged to extend invites where I might otherwise have done (and she's probably glad she's not obliged to attend everything we do).

No bad feeling (now) - just a distance that's never been closed down between us, and I'm fine with that.

You said in your OP that you see you brother a couple of times a year, so you probably dont see her very often either?
Do you and your kids know her well?

I didn't invite my prospective SIL to my hen do. They were my closest friends and female relations, and she was neither at that stage.

I’m 30 and in London. In my experience (have attended 4 hen dos in the past 18 months) it’s really normal to invite your husband to be’s sisters to the hen. But I think all the ones I’ve seen invited are close-ish to the bride or have at the very least enjoyed spending some time together pre hen do.

My brother is going on my BIL to be’s stag. They aren’t the best of friends but have spent a lot of time together at family events/holidays.

Bridal party eh the clue is in the name. And if you are not friends no I wouldn't expect an invite to a hen. Surely you should be asking your brother if he has any plans for involvement in his party?

Depends on then hen do, depends on the relationship. It's not a firm rule, and no, it's not RUDE.

You really need to chill now. She doesn't have to include your family just because she's getting married. See the wedding as a possible way to get closer, maybe you will be compatible, maybe you won't. You might become friendly, you might just stay distant in-laws.

You are not exactly close to your brother. The only people I know who invited their future MIL to their hen had a special afternoon for older "guests", no MIL on the actual hen 😂

I know her as well as I do my other SIL, and I was invited to their hen parties! But I appreciate the fact that IABU also. I just care about her and am excited to be getting a new SIL, so want to celebrate with her I suppose.

I feel like reading the replies has suddenly just slapped me in the face that they probably don't care about us that much... I've just realised that the times we do see them, it's always ever only if we visit them - they NEVER visit us... Despite us having invited them to ours. When we see them it is always because we go and make the effort to organise it and go to theirs, which they welcome. But they have never once offered to come and see us, nor ever taken us up on any of our (multiple) invites to visit us. When we meet up we have fun. But deeper analysis is suggesting that I probably hold things in a higher esteem than she does/they do.