Are we wrong for not inviting my MIL and SIL to our micro wedding ceremony?

[JanineR]

We are having a micro wedding with only 3 people at the twin hall wedding ceremony (2 family members from my side, 1 from my fiancé’s side). We are inviting 6 people apart from us to the wedding reception meal, all paid for by us of course. My MIL and SIL are upset over not being at the ceremony. We didn’t intentionally exclude them, but we chose another family member from his family who are are both much closer to. The rest of my fiancé’s family have never been particularly close welcoming to me and I WS always excluded during Christmas and other occasions. That’s probably why his MIL wasn’t at the top of my mind when we were choosing witnesses for the wedding ceremony. His family are of course blaming me for everything. Are we in the wrong?

Then tell your fiancee to own it and handle it with them and explain why he chose his aunty over his mother.

So, you can invite your mum and sister but his are excluded!!

Can you really not see why that is particularly unkind and hurtful? Of course you can, but you'll probably press on ahead with it anyway.

Nobody is saying you must have a big wedding, not at all. But leaving his mother and his immediate sibling out like this is very poor behaviour from you and likely to prove divisive in the future. Unless a humungous drip feed about how abusive they apparently are is shortly to emerge (which won't be believable).

You invite your mum and your sister. He can surely invite his own mum and sister too. Meet everyone else at the pub/restaurant afterwards if you are so inclined.

You don't say where any fathers feature in this, so I'd guess that they may not be on the scene.

Anyway, yes, you are being totally unreasonable here. I would be very upset to be excluded from my child's wedding in this way so, in the absence of any information to the contrary, I am team MIL/SIL here.

You are choosing the way to get yourself off on the wrong foot with your future in-laws. The damage from that may well not be reparable if you proceed with this.

Honestly how did you two expect MIL and SIL to react to this?

I can understand why she's upset, I think the best way forward here is for you and your fiance to sincerely apologise to his Mum, admit you made an error in judgement and would like to rectify it.

I appreciate this was your fiance's call, but if it were me I'd have told him it was a a cruel thing to do. There may not be a way back from this, and despite any mistakes she has made, this will be the defining thing that people will cling to.

Very unreasonable...and I speak as someone who eloped. We deliberately made sure we offended each person equally, as there were huge numbers of family members involved, so we made sure we invited nobody at all... Unlike my brother, who did what you did - his wife invited her sibling(and her DH and kids) and her parents and grandmother, while he just invited me and DH. Their relationship with my mother was ruined forever.

@Stoufer just looked up a random registry office. Price for smallest ceremony (2 witnesses) £56. More guests but same room £250. Different function room £650

Well really. Even if you ‘don’t know her’ you know she exists and is his mother. And anyone would realise that there is an order of hierarchy in blood relatives that means an aunt is lower down a list than a parent, unless there is a massive reason to reverse that order, such as living with the aunt rather than the mother growing up, or an abusive situation.

if your fiancé doesn’t realise this then you are marrying an emotionally immature man. And even if he didn’t realise this, you should.

Obviously your (plural) wedding, your choice. But if you exclude a parent, particularly when including the parent of the other party, and including a more minor relative, then a massive fall out is entirely predictable.

Don't worry about it then. It was your future DH's decision to invite his aunt rather than his mum and it was your MIL's decision to not welcome you into her family so of course she wouldn't be at the top of your list for an invitation.

With only three guests allowed, the split of guests between the two families for an invitation to the ceremony was always going to be uneven. Your DH isn't bothered about not inviting his mum, so neither should you.

It's you're wedding, but I'd be devastated not to be at my sons' wedding ....and I'd guess you'll feel the same.

It’s not my goal. As I said before, I tried to suggest having a ceremony later on so we could pay for the bigger ceremony room and everybody could be invited to both the ceremony and reception. My fiancé insisted on us doing it this way. I had to mention some of the context to explain why she didn’t cross my mind immediately when we were choosing witnesses for the tiny ceremony, that we don’t even see as the biggest part of our wedding as we are reading the vows at the reception.

I'm not in contact with them...

At this stage I think you need to take only your witnesses, neither of whom should be relatives in your situation, into your legal paperwork appointment. It's the only way that anything can be salvaged in terms of a positive relationship between you and your Mil going forward.
No wonder your Mil is refusing to come, you've already excluded her and no matter what you say now, she knows she wasn't wanted in the first place.

I don't think you thought this through enough. It's really unusual to deliberately exclude family from the ceremony and then have a meal with them afterwards. Elopements can have receptions long afterwards but they're not designed to run anyone's nose in the fact they weren't at the ceremony whereas same day events could have that feel.

They might be blaming you for not explaining standard social conventions to your fiancé, people don't usually do this kind of thing for a reason.

If it’s anything like our town hall two witnesses is something like £175 and the larger hall which fits up to 50 is £700 so it’s a big difference in cost

Ooofff!. Of course you can invite whoever you choose. That said if my son didn't invite me to his wedding I would be heartbroken. Even worse that his Aunt is there.

If your mum and sister were there I think you were very unreasonable not to invite his mum and sister.

He could have had three guests to your two.

So you are NC with his family? I think it sounds like his family situation is very complex so in that respect I'd defer to him to deal with it and keep yourself out of it. If she wants to blame you then let her as long as your dp is directly on top of it.

I feel like people aren’t really reading your updates. There’s clearly stuff that’s happened in your DH’s family, and the fact he’s closer to his aunt says a lot. I’m sure they are upset and offended but if this is what your DH wants then that’s his choice. It will impact the relationship but without knowing the history it’s hard to say whether it’s unreasonable or not. As others have said, it’s up to him to speak to them and make it clear this isn’t down to you.

For ours its £81 for the smaller one and £241 for the larger one hence why I suggested waiting for a month more. It’s not unaffordable in itself, but we already paid for everything else so that would be another expense we would rather put towards something else. We don’t see the tiny reception ceremony as the biggest part of the wedding day hence why wanted to save up on it. We didn’t realise it would cause all of this.

Thanks @sittingonabeach

@JanineR So the future relationship with in laws has been completely ruined for approx £200?? couldn’t you have got people to chip in to top up the budget? Or to chip in for the meal afterwards? If it was my son i would be happy to contribute whatever I could…

Oh @JanineR the reason she's / they're blaming you is because it's easier to blame you than their own child / sibling.
What a mess you've got.

It's clear that your DH really doesn't want his mum to come due to abuse in the family before you met him and because of the way that his mum has treated you. It's a lot easier for your MIL to blame you rather than her own son or for her to accept that her behaviour towards you has caused this rift.

You say you didnt deliberately exclude MIL but you arranged things so she wasn’t invited to the ceremony and in doing so have caused huge hurt and offence. It’s not usual to invite the mum of one of the couple and the aunt of the other. Inviting no family at all would have been the only considerate option .
It may not be possible to come back from this except by grasping the nettle and saying you didnt want her there because you are angry at her past behaviour.
BTW I mean you plural OP - you and your partner are equally responsible for the decisions.

If this is truly your DP's choice and your future MIL really has excluded you from past events then I'd be inclined to agree with you and not invite her.

You shouldn't feel that you have to have her there, as someone that hasn't been very nice to you to the extent that you're now NC then she must have played her part in the outcome.

Either you or your DP need to have a word and tell her the reason behind your choice and hold fast, dont let her make out shes the victim in this.

Do make sure your DP is 100% with the decision though as you'll still have the reception to get through.

Also remember if you have DC they'll be family events for their milestones, what does the future look like for those.

Families are complicated but no one person has the right to dictate how the dynamics work then cause uproar when that same treatment is coming their way.

You have my utmost sympathies OP because I have a situation where I have both (seperate) parents in my life but do not want to invite one to my registry office bit either. My parent would only see it as me being horrible and awful and not think in a million years 'hmm... this is quite significant, maybe i need to look at myself and ask why she would invite the other parent and not me' or 'im sad but so happy she wants to include me in the day at the meal'

(They are the type who will say 'do what you want!!' But what that actually means is 'as long as you invite me, because those are the societal 'rules' and even if you in no way wish to send a message by excluding me, or you just feel differently about having people at weddings than society demands you should, your intentions are no longer your own, and you will be labelled as rude and awful)

You invited your mum and sister, and he didn't invite his own mum, but did invite his aunt. How on earth did you not expect that to kick off? However, your future DH needs to explain it to her and tell her that it's his decision, not yours.

I say that as someone who had a very small wedding. We just invited our 2 DS as witnesses (early 20s) and no one else. But at least both families were treated the same and no one knew the wedding had taken place until over a year later apart from DH, me and our 2 DS. I'm not a big wedding fan but if my sons got married and my DILs mum and sister were there and I wasn't I'd be hurt. If they went ahead and did it with just themselves and 2 random witnesses, then I think it's understandable and ok.