I have a sticky situation that I'm not sure how to handle. I've been searching for an answer when it comes to divorced/widowed parents but they all seem to avoid the topic of my family situation. If it were one or the other, my job would be easier, but we both have step-parents due to different reasons:
- My parents divorced when I was young. My father remarried, but my mother did not. I grew up with my mother while I visited my dad once/twice a year (out-of-state living situation). While everyone is cordial with each other, I'm not sure how to list my parents on my wedding website. I'm paying for the whole wedding, but my father and step-mother contributed $1,000 to my wedding recently. My mother can't afford to contribute financially, but I'm including her in some of my planning decisions.
- On the other side of the fence, my fiance's father died when he was 13. His mother remarried a year later. While he and his siblings have some hard feelings toward the step-father, he and my fiance have become very close in the past year. The step-father is a good man, and I think his image was tainted solely by the fact that he married their mother so soon after the death. They have helped us out emotionally and mentally throughout our entire relationship.
For the sake of simplicity, I'm planning for our wedding invites to say "Together with their families," but I'm not sure how to list our parental lineage on our wedding website. The only thing I can think of is writing each person on their own line like this:
BRIDE
Mother: Melanie Thompson
Father: Walter Thompson
Step-Mother: Shelly Thompson
GROOM
Mother: Sue Altman
Father: Eric Smith
Step-Father: Bob Altman
What sucks is that I don't want to tarnish my fiance's step-father's name simply because he's not the biological father. Also, it makes it seem like his parents got a divorce too, instead of it being the result of a death in the family. At the same time, I don't want to taint the memory of his deceased father (I don't want to make it look like he ran out on the family). On top of that, my mother never reverted her last name, so all three of my parents have the same last name. It looks strange. While my fiance's mom changed her last name to match her new husband, all of the siblings have kept their deceased father's last name.
Does anyone have suggestions/advice? I thought about leaving them off the website completely. I don't feel as bad since I've paid for almost everything.