Threat to gate crash DD wedding

[Aussierelative]

Bit of background DSis lives in Australia and has been living overseas with her family for about 30 years. We keep in touch but are not really that close. We have not met in person for over 6 years and only every 3-4 years before that.
My DD is getting married in September. It is a fairly small wedding, 60 for the ceremony and wedding breakfast with another 40 [mainly friends] coming for an evening party. The decision was made months ago not to invite any cousins from either side. DSis and her DH are invited and have accepted although she made it clear that she was very disappointed that her two DCs were not included. They are both late 20's. My nephew is independent, but niece is still at home with parents mainly due to MH issues. I have heard a rumour that my DSis and BiL are planning to bring the uninvited niece with them presumably in the hope that we will somehow shoehorn her into the arrangements. My DH is fuming to say the least and never had much time for them anyway. He says that this is gate crashing and if they do this we should uninvite them even if they have travelled from Auz. I am not sure how to handle this. Any advice?

Good that you are going to speak to DSis to find out what's going on.
You can't be relying on a rumour for information. When a rumour spreads it grows legs and often ends up being an exaggerated version of the truth.
Perhaps they are going to bring your niece over from Australia with them but have no intention of bringing her to the wedding and the person spreading the rumour heard that the niece was coming over and added on (or assumed) that this meant they would be trying to shoehorn her into the arrangements.

Great.

Don't get yourself all stressed over something that hasn't even happened and stop letting your drama llama husband wind you up.

my niece got married and didn't invite cousins, she has 9 on her mother's side and 12+ on her dad's. plus most of them have spouses / partners. I don't know how many on the grooms side, but just adding her cousins would have been an extra 20-40 people.

Tbh unless there's good reason to not invite her cousins I think your dd is being weird and pretty nasty. 🤷

It's numbers. She has t seen her for 10 years.

Can I just say that 100 people isn’t a small wedding….

I agree that if she’s coming from Australia with her parents just invite her. My cousin asked me to invite his girlfriend a few months before our wedding and I said of course - I hadnt met her but more the merrier!

That completely ignores the context, though, doesn't it?

The other cousins, presumably, aren't travelling from Australia. It's a vast difference between allowing a cousin who has made the journey from the other side of the world to attend and allowing cousins who live a couple of towns over, isn't it?

The DD knows nothing about off all of this.

Lighten up, why wouldn’t you invite the cousins? Sounds stingy to me, they are willing to come all that way for the wedding and you’re not letting them

Goodness me they are coming all the way from Australia and you can't extend the invite that's quite rotten.

Do you know her?

I agree

Are you sure the 'bringing daughter with them' rumour doesn't just mean bringing her with them to the UK?

They are coming from Australia, not just up the road! Make room for the cousin if you can. If she has MH issues perhaps she won’t actually want to attend the wedding and is coming for the trip/to accompany her parents.

Agree with previous posters - just invite her. What difference will one extra person be?

If you invite her, you have to invite all the cousins though?

Unless of course people are suggesting that her MH means it’s different.

The venue has a size restriction and is already full. I would be very direct with your sister and say something like, 'we're all so glad you and your DH can come to the wedding. I know that your DD is travelling with you for a holiday and, just to avoid any confusion or embarrassment on the day, I wanted to clarify that we can't add any additional guests due to venue restrictions.'

Fair enough!

This. What a shame not to invite her cousin.

😂😂

OP's sister has "been living overseas with her family for about 30 years." Her son and daughter "are both late 20's", so presumably were not born here, did not grow up here, are relative strangers to their mother's family because they are half-way around the world from them. OP's daughter and OP's sister's daughter have next to zero shared history. They are cousins by genetics only.

OP's daughter's fiancé "comes from a bigger family who live quite locally so they have had to exclude quite a lot of cousins from his side." Cousins he presumably grew up with and who are cousins by genetics, by shared history, by kinship.

I'm a bit gobsmacked at the number of people who would prioritise this near-stranger over people who are close to the happy couple. All on the basis of 'well she'll have come a long way'. And 'her mental health'.

OP's sister chooses to live as far away as is possible from the UK. That is a physical insurmountable barrier to close relations. It was a choice she made that her children would not be growing up with her sisters' children, that they were extremely unlikely to ever be close. It was her choice. She doesn't get to be snitty about it now. She made it so.

Would it be possible for niece to attend the evening do or she attends instead of Dsis’s partner?