One of DH’s brothers is getting married soon and he’s given a ’token’ invite to his DM. He doesn’t particularly like nor speak to her but has invited her more out of feeling he had to and we’ve heard she’s planning on attending.
She is separated acrimoniously from DH’s dad who is also going and DH and I are NC with her. DH has 2 other brothers, 1 who lives with their DF and is more in the middle and 1 who does speak to her. DH tells me she’d often not speak to him for no apparent reason when he lived at home and he’d have to go to her. She lived with his DF in their family home for a while, whilst they were sorting their split and would stay in her bedroom, refusing to leave if his DF was in the house so if we visited, we had to visit her bedroom to see her.
We haven’t spoken to her for maybe 2 years if not more. When our DS (3) was born she went a bit OTT; wanting to come as soon as he was born and know when I was in labour, tried to kiss him when she gets coldsores, turned up multiple times unannounced on other people’s first visits, despite having had her own and stormed out of the house when asked politely if she could not hang over his face with her phone when he was sleeping in his basket.
She then progressed to telling people we hadn’t made her feel welcome when we were first out of hospital, turning up at our house unannounced and demanding DH provide her his shift patterns so we could have video calls constantly which was difficult as DH was working response PC shifts and I was in the midst of PND. She was always spoken to politely and DH tried to accommodate her but couldn’t always get exactly what she wanted.
She then one day decided to stop speaking to us, birthdays etc all went ignored out of the blue. If she was upset about something, she didn’t communicate it and offer the chance to discuss and resolve it.
DH sent her messages / photos of DS which she ignored as well as asking her what the matter was. She proceeded to take this unknown issue out on DS - refusing to acknowledge his birthday, Christmases etc.
When I became pregnant with our second child, DH wanted to tell her so I encouraged him to if he felt that way. He sent a message acknowledging he didn’t know what was happening but he still wanted her to hear it from him and he would be open to a discussion. She finally responded without any congratulations, just that she’d moved to her own place and DH had been so hurtful to her by not visiting her now she wasn’t in the family home (despite this being whilst she was ignoring any messages and refusing to speak to him).
So - after the long winded history (!) we’re both feeling really nervous about the wedding. We love his brother and SIL to be and have both agreed it isn’t the time or place to say anything or get into any disagreement but more a question of how to handle the day? Is it better to be cordial if she speaks or ignore her completely?
We’ve just been told there is going to be a family ‘posed’ photographs section of the day and we really don’t want, should the photographer try, any photos with her and our children as she hasn’t met our second and has flat out ignored DS for so long, despite him being separate to whatever problem she had with us.
Ultimately, we want to be as graceful as possible but it’s difficult to prepare as we don’t know how she is going to be, nor do we want a scene of any kind on someone else’s day. Any advice appreciated, thank you.