To not invite my parents' siblings to my child's wedding

[userzerozerozero]

I need to sanity check my thinking. My son is getting married, large wedding, no budget constraints fortunately. Long back story but I am NC with my own sibling and my parents have not been supportive of me over this however I still have a relationship with them and see them regularly. Our relationship is not positive and my MH around them is terrible. I come from a background where family is everything and there is a lot of pressure to do the right thing in terms of inviting wider family to significant events though I have broken rules around this many times in the past.

My mother's brother and family have been very supportive of me through the ups and downs of my decision around breaking ties with my sibling and have offered support and advice when needed while still remaining close with my parents. They are lovely to my son but they are not close with them IFYSWIM.

Now my son is getting married and we've decided as a family not to invite my uncle and aunt mostly at the request of my son and his partner as they want more friends and a younger vibe. Deep down I'm wondering whether I've gone along with this to punish my parents in a way. My uncle will be deeply disappointed but they won't make a fuss. AIBU to just go along with it knowing my parents will be upset and potentially my uncle as well?

But it sounds like OP does have a certain number of invites and has given them to friends. Let's not forget she has not asked her son about her uncle and aunt. They weren't on his guest list because he isnt close with them, or her guest list from what I can gather and she hasn't made her feelings be known yet!

Reading this post, something I heard comes to mind:

"Ahh, family. The other F word."

Don't get me wrong, family is very important to me, but some families behave appallingly.

It's because often, the parents' friends have known the DC their whole lives, have remembered them at Christmas and birthdays always, and have supported the parents in friendship for many years, which benefits the DC. My parents' friends came to our wedding, and I was happy to see them because they were adults I'd known my whole life. The same could also be said of older family members to whom the parents are closer than the bride or groom, by virtue of being a generation closer to them (or the same generation).

Generally, the people on the parents' guest list have a lifelong connection to the parents and the DC who is getting married. My parents wouldn't have invited friends who had never met me.

You might have been but how much effort did she make with your son?

I'm not the OP. I was referring to my DDs wedding. My DD has always been invited to all my aunt and uncles celebrations etc.

I think the PP meant this equivalence only in terms of this particular family relationship. I doubt they meant that people should have attended the weddings of EVERY deceased person whose funerals they go to!

I know you’re not the OP - but apologies for writing son in error. I don’t think being invited to a celebration counts as making an effort though. How well does your daughter know them and how well do they know her? It’s about the actual effort they put into forming a relationship.

Your uncle and family may be lovely but they are great uncle and family to the groom ie not a close relationship at all.
I think perfectly reasonable for the bride and groom to choose guests who mean something to them at the wedding.

At our wedding my mum paid and so did have a few friends on the guest list who were not important to me but we were happy as lovely
people and we could have an unlimited number of guests.
If inviting them means not inviting friends closer to the bride and groom then B and G get the final vote.
If having them at the wedding means a lot to YOU then you might have to choose between them and other guests of your own.

I think that's nonsense really. Had they really had such a significant impact upon the kids lives, they would want them there. It's not the parents wedding.

If you are paying for the wedding, I think you have a say in inviting family. It is different if your ds has issues with your uncle, but in this case, I would be inviting your uncle. Your ds will not even notice the two extra guests that are coming and you are the one footing the bill. If I was in the same country as my Uncles and my dc were getting married, I would invite them.

I really didn't appreciate until now (nearly 10 years later) that actually weddings are not always about the bride and groom (although mostly they should be). They are an opportunity as a family to celebrate a big milestone in someone's life and sometimes the only time family get together, esp if like us you live all over the world.
I'm so grateful my dad pushed to have those aunts and uncles there - as much as it meant not having some friends there too (my part of the comprise was to lose 3 friends from the day list).

"We have decided" it has nothing to do with you... if the bride and groom want them there you should not put pressure on them not to invite because you are nc doesn't mean they have to be
If they want them. Suck it up

If you are paying and have your own guest list, invite them by all means. Why not? Maybe I've missed something.
I don't see how the bridal couple can expect you to pay for it and exclude some quite close relatives who have been kind to them just because they want a 'young vibe'. They should pay for their own 'young' wedding if that's what they want.

Nonsense? There's really no need to be rude. I gave you a very sensible and reasonable explanation. And you're splitting hairs about who the invites come from. Most people don't send out invitations from the couple for their own friends, from the parents for their friends, etc.

My parents' friends who came were friends of the family, as I explained above. Maybe you never had family friends so perhaps you don't get it, but most people would be able to understand my explanation very well and it would not be "nonsense" to most.

I think you need a very frank conversation with your son about how you’re feeling, and about the family dynamics.

Fwiw I think that excluding them feels unkind (and rather unnecessary given the budget).

I also think that when these decent people die, you and your son could be left with some guilt if you fail to invite them. This wouldn’t be good for your fragile MH around family issues.

If you're offended by "nonsenses", perhaps the internet isn't for you?
Weddings are for the couple, not the couples parents. Perhaps it was different when people married young. But now, weddings tend to be fully grown people with a fully developed social life of their own. They should be able to invite people who are important to them. If the "family friend" was really a family friend, and not just the parents friend, the couple would invite them.

Look, if you want to be rude and selfish and not invite people who've cared about you your whole life to your wedding, that's your call. My point was that I wrote an explanation to you which would make sense to any rational person. You may not like it, but it makes sense.

I can't wait for when these younger people who think they are islands get wake-up calls, when their precious friends are no longer around ten years after their wedding, their kindly relatives get old and sick, and they realise who was important all along.

And yeah, I'll leave the internet because I call out rudeness when I see it. Massive eyeroll.

I think some young and middle-aged adults are very selfish and self-absorbed these days. I've seen it with cousins who don't bother about their parents or their siblings. All some people care about is their DC and maybe their DH, and that's it, and their friends take precedence over everyone else. These are people who have decent families, too.

Some people are just all about themselves. They're just selfish, and would always be selfish no matter whether they were single, married, divorced, widowed.

If that’s the case (in a wedding context) then why would you want to go to a ‘selfish’ person’s wedding anyway?

If a bride and groom can’t be ‘selfish’ on their own wedding day (by inviting who they want there) then when can they be?

If the wedding is purely for the couple, they shouldn't expect (or accept) their parents funding the whole unlimited budget thing.

If a couple is going to accept parents spending a huge amount to give them a great day, the least they can do is show appreciation by ensuring that they enjoy it too. And if the parents don't know the couple's friends well, ensuring that they have some company throughout the long day, is a thoughtful thing to do.

Because weddings are NOT just about the couple. They make people into mothers-and fathers-in-law, brothers-and-sisters in law, they literally join two families together. I don't know how you can say weddings are only about the couple when they create a whole slew of new family ties. That's what the young and selfish don't understand.

I might want to go to a selfish person's wedding in order to see mutual family and longstanding friends, and I would still probably want to support them and toast their happiness, even if they are selfish. Weddings are all about family, old and new. If people don't want to be part of family systems, maybe they shouldn't formalise their relationship.

To answer your question about when couple can be selfish and only invite whoever they want, perhaps to their birthday parties. But weddings deeply affect the couple's families by creating those new family relationships.

It's a big wedding with no real budget restraints, so as your aunt and uncle have been kind and supportive to you, I think they should be invited. It's only two people at the end of the day and unlikely to spoil the 'young vibe'!
Having said that, you haven't even spoken to your son about it, so it's a bit of a non-issue until you do!

It’s not your wedding and it’s rude to put conditionality on who is invited based on the fact you’re paying. Ultimately it’s up to the bride and groom.

Who says anything was/is expected? If parents want to control the wedding, they ought to make that abundantly clear before offering any contribution. A gift freely given and all that...

When they also pay for it themselves.