Don't want a family drama but feel kinda left out

SheileLori · July 2014

So I’ve been reading this Etiquette board for a while since I’m Russian marrying American and not really familiar with American wedding etiquette. And I’ve found lots of helpful information – thanks to all of you who post here! But also some of that information made me feel frustrated.

Ok, so here’s the thing. My FSIL got married last year and I wasn’t invited. I and FI weren’t engaged at that point but had been dating for 3.5 years. Also, he’d moved to my country to live with me 1.5 years before her wedding – which tells you that he considered our relationship pretty serious. We were absolutely sure till the very last minute that I was invited so I even started to fill all that application forms for the US visa. We did not receive any invitation so we just assumed it was obvious that I was invited. And then one random evening during Skype conversation with FI’s mom she tells him like “oh, by the way, SheileLori is not invited. FSIL decided she’ll only invite engaged couples because it’ll be too expensive to invite everybody’s SOs”.

So, first, not only FSIL didn’t tell us that directly but also FI’s mom just mentioned that during random Skype conversation!

Second, FSIL invited almost 200 guests including relatives like first cousin once removed, but her brother’s long term girlfriend wasn’t good enough to spend money on?! I know I don’t have a right to dictate who she should have invited and who she shouldn’t have, but seriously?!

Third, FI was in the wedding and even that fact didn’t help him to get his SO an invitation!

And fourth, no thank you note.

So, FI was really pissed off by that fact and told that his mom. And later his mom (again, not FSIL!) told him he could bring me. Like “OK, fine, FSIL says she can go”. Obviously, I was extremely upset and offended and didn’t attend.

I have to say, same happened to FI’s another sister who was a MOH! and also was told her boyfriend wasn’t invited. But she also eventually got a permission to bring her boyfriend and hi attended.

So after a year I pretty much got over it but then I started reading this Etiquette board and questioning myself why FSIL would do that. Because otherwise she (and everybody in FI’s family) always seemed to be really nice and welcoming to me and I just don’t want to believe that she doesn’t like me at all to not invite to her wedding.

Could you maybe give me some good reasons why people in America would do things like not inviting brother’s/groomsman’s girlfriend? It really hurt my feeling then and starting to hurt again now – and I don’t want to have any tension between me and FI’s family when our own wedding is coming up. But I just can't help getting upset and thinking FI's family doesn't like me. Help!

MandyMost · July 2014

This almost happened to me. My brother and his now-wife did not intend to invite my then-boyfriend (now fiance) to their wedding. I through a bit of a fit and made them invite him, and he came.

Why would people do this? Because they are inconsiderate, rude, and self-centered. Don't take it personally. It has NOTHING to do with you and how much they like you. They created a rude, inconsiderate, self-centered "rule" of only inviting engaged couples. That's on them, not on you.

The best thing you can do is forget all about it, and go about your wedding planning in a polite, considerate way.

climbingsingle · July 2014

That was really awful of her. I honestly don't understand this. What a huge slap in the face to her siblings and to their SOs.

I know it's not easy, but you should try to move on. I don't think it means his family doesn't like you. I think it means they're rude and inconsiderate people.

offensivekitten2 · July 2014

It's not an American thing, it's an asshole thing. If you lurk the boards, you know that we ALWAYS tell girls to not judge relationships like queens of the universe. Because it's rude, offensive, and bitchy. Your story is a prime example of why we tell people to just invite SOs and not to pass judgments.

I'm sorry she put you through that. She sounds like she was raised by wolves.

Jen4948 · July 2014

Unfortunately, not everyone is a kind and considerate person.

And when they're paying, they sometimes just aren't willing to accept that SOs who are not married, engaged to, or living with their partners are still SOs who need to be invited, and they treat people, even close friends and relatives, rudely.

I experienced this last winter when I was invited to the wedding of a guy who was like a younger brother to me and whom I used to babysit when he was little. His parents are my parents' best friends. But, despite the fact that I was in a relationship for over 2 years by that point and this guy could have found that out through Facebook, since we're friends there, he and his now-wife chose to invite only engaged or married couples. I chose not to attend. Funny thing is, his father had friended my BF on Facebook when we announced our relationship on there (in fact, one of the reasons we did it was in order to be invited to things as a couple and it ha been going on for some time and was very serious) and after we heard about their "no ring, no bring" rudeness (which the guy's parents defended as "they're paying for the whole thing, we don't have a say") my BF defriended him.

alpacalunch · July 2014

Wow. That was really rude of them. The only positive I can see here, is that it wasn't *just* you, but other SOs as well. The only suggestion I have is to rise above this, and be a bigger, better person. You and your FI are now able to be more polite in your choices for the wedding, and all other occassions. Personally, I would be a crankypants for a while, and maybe think a few disparaging thoughts, but go about my planning without thinking about how freaking rude they are. Which they are.

csuave · July 2014

Some people are rude, period. Others can redeem themselves if given the chance. It is easy to let what happened in the past continue to upset you but trying to forgive and forget may help you feel better and develop a better relationship with your inlaws. 15 years ago I was a BM for my sister in law. I had some horrible etiquette. Not a good excuse but some of it was just being young and stupid/inexperienced with weddings and etiquette. She never held a grudge against me and we have a great relationship today. When planning my own wedding I fully realized how many mistakes I made back then and I feel terrible about it but I am glad she didn't hold it against me.

beethery · July 2014

SheileLori said:
Could you maybe give me some good reasons why people in America would do things like not inviting brother’s/groomsman’s girlfriend? It really hurt my feeling then and starting to hurt again now – and I don’t want to have any tension between me and FI’s family when our own wedding is coming up. But I just can't help getting upset and thinking FI's family doesn't like me. Help!

There aren't any good reasons, unless you physically assaulted someone who would be present at the wedding. They were very rude to not include you.

SheileLori · July 2014

Thank you for your support! I understand it's not 'American' thing, I guess I wasn't clear enough - I ment I possibly could come up with some reasons for that rudeness if FSIL was Russian, but since she's not I'm pretty lost here.

My main worry was if she was showing she didn't like me by not inviting me.

If she was just being rude then I think I'm able to get over it. I basically learned from threads here that you have to invite SOs and that surprised me because last year I considered it's just a common thing to invite only engaged or married couples. And since I thought of FSIL as a nice and well-mannered young lady I tried to come up with another reasons except just simple ignorance and rudeness.

annathy03 · July 2014

chrisandcait said:

Wow. That was really rude of them. The only positive I can see here, is that it wasn't *just* you, but other SOs as well. The only suggestion I have is to rise above this, and be a bigger, better person. You and your FI are now able to be more polite in your choices for the wedding, and all other occassions. Personally, I would be a crankypants for a while, and maybe think a few disparaging thoughts, but go about my planning without thinking about how freaking rude they are. Which they are.

Your FSIL was incredibly rude not to invite you. That said, the bolded tells me it was a dumb rule they made and that it isn't that they don't like you, so I wouldn't worry about that aspect.

When you and FI make your guest list, you should include all SOs regardless of relationship length or "seriousness". And if FSIL or FMIL mention anything about your guest list, especially if they try and get you to make cuts to add first cousins once removed and the like, I'd respond with something along the lines of "We are inviting boyfriends and girlfriends, it would be extremely rude of us to ask them to celebrate our relationship while dismissing theirs."

MairePoppy · July 2014

SheileLori said:

Thank you for your support! I understand it's not 'American' thing, I guess I wasn't clear enough - I ment I possibly could come up with some reasons for that rudeness if FSIL was Russian, but since she's not I'm pretty lost here.
My main worry was if she was showing she didn't like me by not inviting me.
If she was just being rude then I think I'm able to get over it. I basically learned from threads here that you have to invite SOs and that surprised me because last year I considered it's just a common thing to invite only engaged or married couples. And since I thought of FSIL as a nice and well-mannered young lady I tried to come up with another reasons except just simple ignorance and rudeness.

Your FSIL and FMIL are probably ignorant about proper wedding etiquette. What a shame!

If your FILs treat you nicely, otherwise, you should assume they like you. It's very nice of you to be willing to rise above their etiquette mistake.

[Deleted User] · July 2014

annathy03 said:

When you and FI make your guest list, you should include all SOs regardless of relationship length or "seriousness". And if FSIL or FMIL mention anything about your guest list, especially if they try and get you to make cuts to add first cousins once removed and the like, I'd respond with something along the lines of "We are inviting boyfriends and girlfriends, it would be extremely rude of us to ask them to celebrate our relationship while dismissing theirs."

This! Say this all the time!!!

JBee85 · July 2014

I was on a separate forum and read about a BRITISH bride telling her sister that she could not bring her boyfriend. It was posted less than a week ago. So no, this is NOT an American custom.

OnionBreath · July 2014

Oh how hurtful, I'm so sorry that happened to you.

Some people are entirely selfish. I think that's the bottom line. I was reading posts on another website for a while and the type of responses people give are just horrible. They are encouraging each other to exclude people because it's "their" money and 'their" day. I imagine this is what damages relationships....being so self-entitled over one day in their lives.

At this point, I would let it go because there isn't really anything you can do about it. It seems like she applied the rule across the board so you werent singled out at least. It's still really offensive and awful but there's no place to do but move on. Youll b the better person

lazykat9 · July 2014

In response to what annathy03 wrote, I most politely disagree. A wedding is not an event for your SO of say-three weeks. In most cases, they will feel more ill at ease accompanying you to a gathering of (for them) complete strangers than you would attending alone. To my mind, you should be sufficiently entertained by the joy of watching one of your other SOs (i.e. bride or groom) get married. My daughter wishes to have a small wedding so we are limiting our guests' "guests" to spouses, fiances/fiancees, and SOs of six months as we have a few guests that are always with a new "forever" friend. We already have enough family photos with people no one remembers except as "that girl Joe brought that one time". Having said all this, if it were a destination wedding, I would definitely make allowances for single guests to bring a friend as we would be, in essence, asking them to take a vacation alone.

lilacck28 · July 2014

lazykat9 said:

In response to what annathy03 wrote, I most politely disagree. A wedding is not an event for your SO of say-three weeks. In most cases, they will feel more ill at ease accompanying you to a gathering of (for them) complete strangers than you would attending alone. To my mind, you should be sufficiently entertained by the joy of watching one of your other SOs (i.e. bride or groom) get married. My daughter wishes to have a small wedding so we are limiting our guests' "guests" to spouses, fiances/fiancees, and SOs of six months as we have a few guests that are always with a new "forever" friend. We already have enough family photos with people no one remembers except as "that girl Joe brought that one time". Having said all this, if it were a destination wedding, I would definitely make allowances for single guests to bring a friend as we would be, in essence, asking them to take a vacation alone.

Two weeks into dating, my now fiance told me that he loved me. We've been together for about three years now. We were serious from the get go. I wasn't on the knot then, and didn't know about etiquette regarding SOs, so I wouldn't have been overly perturbed to have been invited someplace without him at the time, but if asked I would have been able to tell my friends/ family with accuracy, yes, this is indeed a serious relationship that is going to last, and I certainly would have preferred to have him with me. And he would have liked the chance to meet people who were important to me.

I also have friends that constantly have new relationships. But its not my place to judge those relationships. Any one of them COULD end up being for forever. You just don't know.

annathy03 · July 2014

lazykat9 said:

In response to what annathy03 wrote, I most politely disagree. A wedding is not an event for your SO of say-three weeks. In most cases, they will feel more ill at ease accompanying you to a gathering of (for them) complete strangers than you would attending alone. To my mind, you should be sufficiently entertained by the joy of watching one of your other SOs (i.e. bride or groom) get married. My daughter wishes to have a small wedding so we are limiting our guests' "guests" to spouses, fiances/fiancees, and SOs of six months as we have a few guests that are always with a new "forever" friend. We already have enough family photos with people no one remembers except as "that girl Joe brought that one time". Having said all this, if it were a destination wedding, I would definitely make allowances for single guests to bring a friend as we would be, in essence, asking them to take a vacation alone.

Invitations typically go out 6-8 weeks before the wedding, and it is nice but not required to accommodate dates who start seeing someone after the invitations go out, so if your daughter sends invitations at 8 weeks she can safely avoid inviting couples that haven't been dating at least those 2 months within the bounds of etiquette.

It is extremely judgmental to tie the seriousness of someones relationship to it not being new. Anyone with a bf/gf when invitations go out should have their bf/gf named on the invitation.

Also if you were trying to tag me, you need to use the @ symbol, i.e. @lazykat9.

JCbride2015 · July 2014

lazykat9 said:

In response to what annathy03 wrote, I most politely disagree. A wedding is not an event for your SO of say-three weeks. In most cases, they will feel more ill at ease accompanying you to a gathering of (for them) complete strangers than you would attending alone. To my mind, you should be sufficiently entertained by the joy of watching one of your other SOs (i.e. bride or groom) get married. My daughter wishes to have a small wedding so we are limiting our guests' "guests" to spouses, fiances/fiancees, and SOs of six months as we have a few guests that are always with a new "forever" friend. We already have enough family photos with people no one remembers except as "that girl Joe brought that one time". Having said all this, if it were a destination wedding, I would definitely make allowances for single guests to bring a friend as we would be, in essence, asking them to take a vacation alone.

Nope, this is 100% wrong.

A wedding is not a place for a guy you've been on one or two dates with and are not ready to call your boyfriend, yeah. But it's up to the couple to decide the status of their relationship. If they publicly call each other boyfriend/boyfriend, boyfriend/girlfriend, partner, whatever-- they are SOs and should be invited as a social unit.

The bolded is a terrible reason to judge others' relationships. Just yesterday, my friend's Fi walked out on her. They'd been together for over five years and engaged for 7 months. My parents divorced after 11 years of marriage. You know how many of my dad's family wedding photos my mom is in? Those couples would have made your "cut" and you still would have been left with somebody in your photos you'll never talk to again. And of course it works the other way too. Many couples on TK have noted that they just *knew* they'd be together after mere months or weeks.

The above is not to say that there's some way to perfectly figure out who will stay together and who won't. The point is that you never know what will happen to any couple, married or not. Since you never know, the proper thing is to make your guests comfortable by inviting SOs as a social unit. Don't judge relationships, it's just not your place.

RebeccaB88 · July 2014

lazykat9 said:

In response to what annathy03 wrote, I most politely disagree. A wedding is not an event for your SO of say-three weeks. In most cases, they will feel more ill at ease accompanying you to a gathering of (for them) complete strangers than you would attending alone. To my mind, you should be sufficiently entertained by the joy of watching one of your other SOs (i.e. bride or groom) get married. My daughter wishes to have a small wedding so we are limiting our guests' "guests" to spouses, fiances/fiancees, and SOs of six months as we have a few guests that are always with a new "forever" friend. We already have enough family photos with people no one remembers except as "that girl Joe brought that one time". Having said all this, if it were a destination wedding, I would definitely make allowances for single guests to bring a friend as we would be, in essence, asking them to take a vacation alone.

If I was invited and you told me my serious boyfriend of 5 months was not allowed to attend with me, we would no longer be friends. What a cruel and judgemental thing to do to people you claim to care about.

lovesclimbing · July 2014

RebeccaB88 said:

lazykat9 said:

In response to what annathy03 wrote, I most politely disagree. A wedding is not an event for your SO of say-three weeks. In most cases, they will feel more ill at ease accompanying you to a gathering of (for them) complete strangers than you would attending alone. To my mind, you should be sufficiently entertained by the joy of watching one of your other SOs (i.e. bride or groom) get married. My daughter wishes to have a small wedding so we are limiting our guests' "guests" to spouses, fiances/fiancees, and SOs of six months as we have a few guests that are always with a new "forever" friend. We already have enough family photos with people no one remembers except as "that girl Joe brought that one time". Having said all this, if it were a destination wedding, I would definitely make allowances for single guests to bring a friend as we would be, in essence, asking them to take a vacation alone.

If I was invited and you told me my serious boyfriend of 5 months was not allowed to attend with me, we would no longer be friends. What a cruel and judgemental thing to do to people you claim to care about.

Yea, H and I were engaged at 8 months, which means we were EXTREMELY serious at just 3 or 4 months of dating.

SheileLori · July 2014

Well, thank you all for you responses. They actually really helped me, believe it or not! I feel much better about this whole situation right now. I guess sometimes it's just takes to hear the truth from someone else to actually believe in it. So thank you ladies, I really appreciate your inputs!

pinkshorts27 · July 2014

Everyone thought that when FI and I started dating it wouldn't last. We were young, but at family events he was invited and took pics with us. 7 years later and all FI does is gush about how welcoming my family was and part of the reason he fell for me is the family trait of welcoming everyone always. It was never a question of if he was invited, because the day we decided to start dating he was always invited. As a result, he loves his future in-laws and now we have all these wonderful photos dating back to our teen years of us together.

Yes, I also have photos of me with an ex and my family, but I still love those photos. Even though I only dated him from six months, my family welcomed him too. I learned a lot during that time and we have good memories that don't just go away when I start dating someone new. It isn't like I had to go burn all photos with random guys or girls in them. Silly.

FI's family on the other hand never invited me anywhere. As a result, FI often skipped events to spend time with me. I would be a lot closer with his family if they were more welcoming. I don't dislike them, it is just hard to feel comfortable with them and I always feel left out when they talk about things that they didn't invite me to.

Don't want a family drama but feel kinda left out

Re: Don't want a family drama but feel kinda left out

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