Hi ladies, FI and I are starting to build a guest list so that we can begin researching venues. We are hoping to book them in the spring. We got to a certain name on the list and ended up debating it for a long time last night. Neither of us knows what to do, so we thought we'd see if you ladies had any thoughts.
One of FI's best friends (we'll call him Fred) is obviously going to be included in our wedding - we anticipate that he will be part of the wedding party, though we haven't yet asked. Fred is one of my good friends too. FI talks to Fred almost every day, and I talk to him a few times a week.
Fred's parents went through a horrible divorce a number of years ago, while Fred and FI were in high school. Fred's dad (let's call him Bill) was awful to his mother (let's call her Susie) - had multiple affairs while she was in the hospital, etc. Susie is now happily dating a wonderful guy we'll call Joe. Susie and Joe have both been very generous and kind to FI and I - they invite us to dinner at their house whenever we're in town, etc. I've never actually met Bill, and Fred says that's because he and FI have tried to make sure I never do. Apparently Bill likes to reminisce about "the family he used to have" and has literally cried on FI's shoulder on a number of occasions, even 8 years after the divorce. They both think Bill would be very rude to me if he met me in person because FI and I are in a stable relationship - when Bill met Fred's FI for the first time, he made her cry within the first 20 minutes.
Our dilemma about Bill is this. Even though they are divorced, Bill and Susie co-own an amazing beach house on the Gulf of Mexico that FI and I have been going to for the last several years, multiple times a year. Fred always invites us, but everyone knows that Bill really calls the shots on who can go and who can't. While I've been attending the last several years, FI has been going since he was in middle school. Basically Bill has treated FI very very well over the years - think free trips across the country on Bill's jet - and I've benefitted as well in recent years, even though I've never met the guy. We both feel like it would be very polite to invite Bill, Susie, and Joe to our wedding. At the very least we are inviting Susie and Joe.
Fred, on the other hand, is really uncomfortable with us inviting Bill - Bill causes noticable drama whenever he's around family members (or former ones) - and he's worried that Bill will make a scene at our wedding. FI and I feel like we can handle this aspect of him (and we probably will be too busy to notice what's going on with Bill anyway), but we know it will embarass Fred terribly. Fred doesn't really even want his dad at his OWN wedding (next Sept.), let alone ours.
My parents, who are paying, say that it would probably be most polite for us to invite Bill, given how generous he has been to both FI and I. My mother in particular has this thing about needing to invite the parents of the wedding party so that they can watch their children stand up next to us - though I'm working on this reasoning with her, and in Bill's case it would probably just make him more dramatic to see his son in the context of a wedding. Ultimately, my parents do realize that our relationship with Fred is very important to us both, and so they are willing to defer to whatever FI and I think is best. Neither FI nor I have a strong sense of what to do on this, which is why we've come to you ladies. So do we invite the guy who provides our vacations? Or do we listen to Fred and not invite him?