There are three givens in my bridal party - my cousin, my best friend, and my fiance's sister who is exactly my age (28). I will probably have one or 2 more friends since my fiance wants 5 GM, and I will also have my nieces as Junior bridesmaids.
I have been getting signals, and hints, however, that my fiance's older sister (37ish) wants us to choose her and her husband to be one of our BM and GM. I was kind of thinking I'd have a younger-ish bridal party (peers and the nieces) and thought that asking someone who is 10 years older and more of a maternal figure to me would be a bit strange. We had been planning on asking her to do a reading and asking her husband to be an usher. I am really torn, because I know she is going to be upset if I don't ask her to be a BM, but the thing is I also have 2 older sister-in-laws (brother's wives) that I am much closer to and would ask them before her if I was going to be including people that were much older than me. Also, if I have both of his sisters, then I would want him to have all three of my brothers instead of just the one that is his age (29). My older brothers are 39 and 42 and we were going to ask them to be ushers. We are having his sisters kids as our Flower girl and ring bearer. i'm really not sure why she wants to be a bridesmaid but I really can't see including her and her husband (my fiancees brother in law) without including all of my brothers AND my sisters-in-law (who would totally not be offended not to be bridesmaids even though I was a Junior Bridesmaid in their weddings). Including all the siblings makes our parties huge unless we don't ask any of our friends. Plus it leaves no one special to us to do readings and be ushers!
I guess I thought it would be meaningful to have them be in the bridal party but not as bridesmaid and groomsman - but i've heard both from my fiance and from his sister (the one who i want to have as a BM) that the older sister has asked several times if she is going to be a BM.
What would you do?