Not a mom or a maid...a FSIL issue! 
Yesterday my FI’s sister called him, upset. She feels that she and her husband and kids have not been properly “included” in our wedding, meaning that we have not set aside time to specifically go on a family outing with just she and her husband and kids during the two days before the wedding. She said that she didn’t buy tickets (although they used frequent flier miles and are staying with friends, lol) to come out to “be a spectator at [our] wedding” and that she came out to spend time with her brother (my FI) and me.
I’d love to spend time with her. There are several reasons that this is difficult at this time. Our wedding is in Washington state. I have family flying in from PA and FL. He comes from a large family – seven brothers and sisters, plus his parents and other family. Not all of them can make it, but a good amount are flying in from VA. He and I both have to work up until the day before the wedding. We have a lot of people in town and a lot going on directly before the wedding.
We were able to arrange several activities with his parents and mine – because his parents will be here a week, including a weekend, prior to the wedding which gives us a lot of time to work with. His sister and family are arriving two days before (as are the majority of his family and mine), and flying out the evening after and the last two days so far appear to be already quite full of prep for the actual wedding day. We have invited all family and out of town guests to the rehearsal dinner (and it's over 50 people, so that's no small thing) to make sure that we do get to see everyone before the wedding.
My mother is hosting a brunch the day after the wedding. She wanted to invite my godparents (my godmother is throwing my shower), my grandmother, and my FI’s parents and elderly Aunt (like a grandmother to him). My immediate family is very small – my parents and me only. The house I grew up in is very small. We could not invite the rest of FI’s family as there would literally be no space to accommodate them. To make it fair, my mother also did not invite our extended family (they wouldn’t fit either anyway). FI’s sister feels extremely slighted that she was not invited, along with her husband and kids, to this event. She is generally put out that we will be busy that day and not available to spend time specifically with her before they fly out that evening. I do wish we could have invited more family to this, but short of renting a space, it wasn't possible.
Of course, being irritated as I am, there are all sorts of other details that make me less sympathetic to her – that my parents and I flew out to meet his parents and family this summer, and she chose not to come see us during the four days we were there (so…there goes the “we never get to see you “ argument). We will also return to VA for the holidays each year for the foreseeable future, starting with last year. Also that, when my FI returned from deployment, none of his family made the effort to come greet him and he was the only one with nobody waiting, so the Army had to send some random guys to come pick him up (just before we met). I could go on. It seems that many of his family members, including this sister, are not big on spending family time, nor on expressing caring gestures – yet the wedding rolls around and suddenly there is a great fuss about lack of family time.This frustrates me.
I guess I just needed to vent, and some reassurance that we are being reasonable hosts. I think that the best thing to do is to continue to be polite and friendly to her as always and express our joy that she is attending, but also be firm that we unfortunately do not have extra time so close to the wedding to go on a family outing. What do you think?
At any rate, besides always being polite and friendly to her, I've stayed in touch with her via email since we met, and when we planning a visit to VA we always let her know in advance and ask if she and her family would like to get together. So I do feel an effort has been made by both of us.
Thanks for reading!