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?

I understand why he would pick his aunt over his mother, but it is still a choice that is going to have lifelong repercussions. Not including your parent in your wedding ceremony makes a huge statement.

Imagine your own mother not protecting you from your stepfather's abuse.

You should’ve posted the context of his mum not protecting him from the abuse in your OP and you wouldn’t have gotten so many angry replies.
no you aren’t being unreasonable if his aunt is more of a mother figure.
however are you getting married in a cupboard?! Three people?

Absolutely. I felt desperately sorry for his mother til I read the bit about the abuse.

It's your day, one you want to look back on fondly for many years. We got married quietly at the local registry office, 2 best men and a maid of honour. We didn't want any of our toxic family there to spoil our day, they didn't find out till much later.
We had booked a beautiful hotel suite, champagne, earl grey and cucumber sandwiches. We didn't have a reception or party. At 5pm we left to take our dog for a walk around the park in wellies and our wedding outfits.
We look back on that day with such happiness it was perfect for us ❤️ that wouldn't have been the case had any of our family attended.
Family problems are a big reason many people elope.

I’m not clear on how you’re receiving the news that the MIL is blaming your etc but from what you’ve said so far, she doesn’t sound like a hugely significant person in your / your DP’s lives for reason you’ve stated (which I totally get, by the way). If you care about what people are saying, I would get the message out there somehow that this is firmly between her and DP. It’s a shame she can’t take a good hard look at herself, accept the reasons why she’s not been included alongside the aunt and celebrate with you at the reception but I’m sure this ain’t the first time she will have made a family occasion all about her.

OP I’m obviously in the minority here but I don’t see any of this as your problem/fault. You have offered alternatives and your DH has decided on a smaller room with less guests.

For everyone giving you a hard time I wonder if you have thought what kind of mother she is not to be invited to her DS’s wedding?? Being a mother doesn’t automatically give you an invite and it sounds as though it’s been his decision.

I don't think the couple is doing anything wrong, and this is not OP's issue to fix. It's her partner's choice and sounds as though it's for very good reasons.

But I will say that this is why eloping and telling others AFTER the fact is a better choice. It's always gauche if not rude to tell people about events they are NOT invited to. Just keep it to yourselves, do the deed and then joyfully announce your wedding after it's taken place.

Is she refusing to come because you insulted her so badly by not inviting her in the first place?
You appear to have cocked up mightily here. His poor mother.

It is just the smallest and cheapest reception room our town hall provides, and they are strict about the number of guests allowed. :)

Just be the bigger person and invite them. But it should actually be your fiance who wants them there.

I voted yanbu because we are doing the same thing. We've made it abundantly clear to everyone that we are not having a "Wedding", we're just going to sign the paperwork, maybe get lunch and then go home. Obviously having only two witnesses means we can't have everyone there but luckily they don't seem to mind in our case (including mil). It's entirely on your dp to deal with this situation I think

This was a joint decision ultimately. It's on both of them unless the OP was saying 'are you absolutely sure, you know she's going to be super upset'. She admits she didn't. But again yes much more on the DP.

The MIL was always likely to throw a complete hissy fit and so what I don't buy is that if she was truly abusive that they didn't discuss how upset she was going to be. There was an obvious solution of the two mothers and the aunt. Either this is something that genuinely means nothing to OP and her DH, or it is really important and he didn't want his mother to be there for this moment.

I think the DP just didn't care about his mother's feelings, and the OP didn't actually care either (why would she) and just went with what he said without challenging why not his mother, and now they've suddenly realised that others actually do care so (the OP at least) is backtracking to not seem like a bad person.

It might be a good thing if this is a dysfunctional abusive family, but choosing your wedding day for this fall out is dysfunctional too, and that's the part of all of this that is most concerning. As I said, I would not have let DH do this on our wedding day - the options would have been to bring this to a head in advance and tell the MIL that they were going no/low contact, or suck it up on the wedding day itself and do that afterwards. Maybe the DP has such a history of abuse and disfunctional relationships he didn't see what he was doing (but then I sure as hell wouldn't be marrying him until he'd addressed that) but the OP should have seen what was coming as well.

The blame for the mother being upset is on the DP. It was his call. The blame for the massive mess and drama they now gave surrounding their wedding is on both of them.

It sounds like this is entirely your fiance's decision and doing. If you aren't in contact with them why is flack from his family coming your way. Ultimately he needs to deal with his family, so any comments you get tell them they need to talk to him and make sure he isn't blaming you for his decisions.

I read about the abuse after posting my comment. You should have put that in the initial post, then would have got very different replies.

@JanineR I'm sorry, I just don't think your later explanations are quite what happened. You gave a very different impression in your first few posts, and it is hard to understand that as you could only have two witnesses, you didn't each choose to have your own Mums' and either leave it like that, or have the Aunt as well because you are both close to her.

If signing the paperwork at the Registry office doesn't seem important to either of you, then why not live together until you can have the Roman Catholic Wedding that is obviously so important to - which is fine in case I sound disapproving?

However, did your DFiancé want to join the RC Church before he met you, or is it a case of if he wants to marry you then he has to be baptised into your faith, and presumably he has had to agree to your children being brought up in that faith, which will presumably also mean that any Christenings, confirmations, etc. will be led by your, and your Mum's beliefs? As I said before, all of that is fine because your DFiancé is am adult, so is presumably agreeable to all of those conditions.

But what it does probably show is that you have already got your own way in a lot of things to do with this Wedding, and that it would therefore be kinder and more generous of you to let your DF have more priority over the guest list at the Civil Ceremony, as that will presumably be of more importance to his family members, than to your DM and DSis? I also expect that your family members will give much more importance to the religious ceremony, than the civil one. Of course I am making assumptions here, and I give you my apologies if I have made an error in my assumptions.

Unless things have changed, I think that for legal reasons you have to have a civil service as well, when you get '
married in a RC church. So it is understandable that you would obviously have to have a civil ceremony at some point too.

I would like to suggest one more thing, I think that if you and your DF try hard enough you will be able to get his mother to reconsider her stance (as I am sure she is desperate to do so) by making her believe how neither of you had thought it through, and that when you both did, your DF realised he would be devastated not to have his DMum there when he gets legally married, and that you also wanted her to be there when you realised that the legal ceremony would mean much more to her than to your own mother, because of the reasons I mentioned above. Good Luck OP. I hope that both of your Wedding Days are lovely 🩷

You really should have included this in your first post, instead of as an update. I think more PPs would agree with the decisions you and DH have decided on.
Both his parents sound awful.

I have a friend who was not invited to her son's wedding as they had no guests & went abroad, only for my friend to find out a few year's later that her DIL's mum did go, this has caused a massive problem & I don't think the rift will ever heal. For the sake of keeping things civil (for what could be many, many years) I would go parents/siblings on both sides or no family at all.

What a load of nonsense, don’t believe this for a second.

He’s very angry with her and he’s done it deliberately. It’s very dysfunctional to have approached it in this way . He really should have spoken to his mother and addressed all this at a different time. I think he meant to hurt her. OP has sort of gone along with it but she shouldn’t be accepting the blame.

The problem is @JanineR YABU as you haven't communicated with your DP BEFORE you invited his aunt about what an awkward position this puts you in.

He is being unreasonable because he hasn't owned his decision and communicated that to his mother & sister. He needs to be transparent with them.
He has insisted on the smaller room with limited capacity.
He has insisted that his aunty be invited to the ceremony.

You need to insist that he tells DM & DSis the truth, otherwise this will always be your fault in their eyes.

All of this sounds like it was predictable & could have been avoided if you had both just been a bit more thoughtful of your decisions and their implications

Gosh the conflicting messages escalates. OP doesn't think the ceremony is the important bit of the wedding, but is planning on a Catholic blessing in two years time, which her fiance is going to get baptised for. I really think the invitees is a side issue, you both need to think about what your priorities are.

If you are serious enough about a Catholic marriage that your fiance is getting baptised for it why are you doing the register office? Catholic weddings are legally binding. You don't have to do them separately. Why skip the Catholic wedding and go straight to a blessing? Have you discussed this with a priest/

Well. OP if your DP has no wish to have his mum at the wedding ceremony, I'd be asking myself why I wanted to have a closer relationship with her when he is distancing himself.
Step right back, let him deal with the fallout.

So, to summarise:

"She always prioritised his stepdad during his childhood, even when [his stepdad] was abusive to him." "He actually lived with his auntie for a time as a teenager" which suggests living with his mother&stepdad was either intolerable for him, or, his stepdad wanted him out and his mother was again prioritising her husband over her son. He presumably moved back at some point but his home life was again unsatisfactory, which is "the reason why we moved in together so early on." Despite not providing a loving home for her son, "They feel like I took him away from them". (Because, there is a type of person who, even when they don't want 'something', get very possessive should anyone else show interest in the 'something'.)

Rather than drawing a line and forming a new adult-to-adult relationship with her son and you, the woman he lived with, his mother instead pushed the two of you away by "always excluded[ing you] during Christmas and other occasions" and never being particularly welcoming.

On top of all that "His mum told him she downed a bottle of vodka when she found out she’s having him" , effectively telling him she tried to abort him. What a lovely thing to tell your child!

Did I read your posts right, @JanineR ?

Honestly - fuck her. She was an appalling mother then and she remains an appalling mother now. She treats her son and his fiancee like this and then expects to be prioritised? Pfft! I'm surprised your fiance talks to any of the family apart from his beloved aunt at all., never mind involves them in his wedding. It would probably be best for him to put some distance between himself and his birth family, who give him nothing but grief.

Should’ve gone to Gretna Green. I think you’ve messed up OP