in laws being invited to wider family weddings

[DMBZ1985]

Hello!

I wandered if anyone could share their experience of this:

My sister in law is getting married next year. She hasn't invited my parents. is this normal? is there a 'normal' in this situation? She doesn't know my parents very well, but the few times they've met they have really bonded, and my parents really love her. I don't think my parents will really mind, they are very chilled and tend not to take these things too personally. And I certainly don't want to get grumpy about it, I get that people have really limited numbers. Im just curious if there's a cultural norm in the UK. (for context, my family are not bon in the uk, and our ethnic customs dictate you definitely invite in laws as they are considered family, even if you don't know them well).

Thanks for any light anyone can shed!

If your DH parents are the hosts and get to invite some friends of their own, they could choose to invite your parents as their own friends.
Some PIL, as hosts, would invite your parents to a large wedding of their daughter out of respect for their DIL, you.

Do your parents see SIL and PIL often and have they become friends?
Would your parents invite your PIL to the wedding of your sibling?

It is perfectly reasonable that your parents are not invited, however.

This isn’t really the norm in British culture
In my own culture we definitely invite the in-laws of our siblings, this would include parent in laws and any children they may have eg: I would invite my sisters PIL and her brother in law and his wife.

Why would your parents be invited? I wouldn't expect mine to be particularly as they don't know they very well

This is what we did. DH’s brother’s fiancée’s parents were invited to our evening reception and BIL invited my DF and DSM to theirs the following year.

I think it’s completely normal. It wouldn’t occur to me that my SIL would invite my parents to her wedding. They’ve met a few times and get on fine but they don’t know each other well enough and there’s no social expectation that they would be invited.

It's not the norm in mainstream English weddings no. In fact we invited my kids' partner's' parents to our DS wedding and they were surprised and touched, so I could see it was unexpected.

Completely normal.

Unless they had their own close or independent relationship with your parents and invited them as their friends this wouldn't be expected in the UK.

It would not have occurred to me to do this.