Inviting parts of families?

Re: Inviting parts of families?

• Jen4948 member

  

  July 2015

  1) You don't have to invite the daughter.  It is okay to invite parents and some, but not all, adult children.

  2) I'd just invite your cousin and her husband.  Your aunt sounds like a real piece of work.

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• [Deleted User] member

  

  July 2015

  cookiecutterrebel said:

  Hi everyone,

  
  

  I had a couple of questions for wedding etiquette veterans and I was hoping you could help.

  
  

  We're having a small-ish wedding (65-75 people) and the guest list is already causing me grief. I have two main etiquette questions for you all:

  
  

  1) There's a family of four where my mom and dad were close to the parents and I grew up with the son (our friends crossed over in high school), and while we're not super close, we're friendly and he's a good guy. The daughter I don't know well, but she invited me to her wedding about 5 years ago and her baby shower last year (I didn't attend due to a family emergency.) No falling out that I know of, but she recently de-added both my sister and I from Facebook, and we can see she's still active on their with her family and some of my other friends. While we've always been pleasant, we've never been close. If I invite the mother and father and brother, I have to invite the sister and her husband too, right?

  
  

  What if I just invite the son and his girlfriend? Would it mean I invite the whole family as well?

  
  

  2) Bear with me, this is kind of tricky. There won't be a lot of my family at this wedding. My dad and sister for sure, and my uncle on my mom's side, but that's all I have on my A list.

  
  

  Things on my mom's side have been complicated for a bit now. My mom has two siblings - my aunt and my uncle. I grew up with my uncle and have no issue inviting him. My aunt has been weirdly distant for years. She refused to come to christmas, thanksgiving or birthday dinners for the last 8 years or so, with no explanation, just randomly showing up once every few years or sending a card when she felt like it. My mom's side has always been big into family and her attitude hurt my grandparents' and my mom's feelings badly (one of the last things my grandfather talked about was "what did I do to make her hate me?"), and her siblings had no idea what the issue was (its possible there was more to it that they didn't know about, but maybe not.)

  
  

  Things have gotten more complicated since my mom and grandfather died last December. My aunt didn't show up to the visitation for my mom, just the funeral (45 minutes was too far to drive two days in a row, she said), and then the only thing she said to me the whole day was "you miss her, huh?" My sister and I don't like her and feel that it's false to invite her to an event like this when she hasn't acted like family in years. I'm neutral on her husband and I dislike her son (he has a temper and was hostile to me my whole childhood). I've been the closest to her daughter, my cousin. She came to the visitation for my mom (she was starting a new job on the Monday and apologized that she couldn't take the day off for the gfuneral) and afterwards took me and my sister out for a "girl's day". She's the only one who's tried to keep in touch at all over the years.
  
  I'd like to minimize drama as much as I can on my wedding day - do i invite my aunt and her family anyway? Do I invite just my cousin and her boyfriend? 
  
  I'll be frank, normally these are the questions I'd take to my mom, as she was an incredibly fair and level-headed person. But now that I don't have her here, stuff like this makes me feel like I'm drowning.

  
  

  Thanks, guys.

  If they're all adults, only invite who you want to invite.  The only time you're not supposed to "break up families" is when the children of the family are minors; so, you can't invite just the 14 year old and her parents, but leave the 10 and 12 year olds un-invited.

  
  

  (As far as being un-friended on facebook, I went through and unfriended everyone who wasn't family or local friends a year or so ago.  Not having to deal with random posts about the swim meets of the children of my best friend from 3rd grade makes me much happier with facebook.  I just really don't care if junior [who I've never met and never will meet] is starting to swim an expert butterfly.)

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• SP29 member

  

  July 2015

  We're talking all adults here right? In that case, who can invite whoever you want, without inviting the people you don't want. Adults are their own social unit (with their respective SO), so there is no requirement to invite the sister of a brother, or the aunt of a cousin- they are all separate.
  
  1) Invite the son and his SO if that's all you want. It is also fine to invite the son and his SO plus his parents, if your parents are still close with them.
  
  2) I would invite only your cousin and her SO. You are not required to invite your aunt, nor required to invite anyone BECAUSE they are your family.
  
  Sometimes there are cases where I would say invite family members to keep the peace, but it doesn't sound like you have a relationship with your aunt at all, so it doesn't seem like there is a relationship to preserve.
  
  As an aside, regarding the FB deletions. I wouldn't take this personally as anything bad happened between you two, she probably just went through her list and decided to un-friend the people she doesn't regularly engage with, not that she doesn't like you. However, seeing as you two aren't that close, I wouldn't feel bad about not inviting her to your wedding.
  

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• flbride2015 member

  

  July 2015

  SP29 said:

  We're talking all adults here right? In that case, who can invite whoever you want, without inviting the people you don't want. Adults are their own social unit (with their respective SO), so there is no requirement to invite the sister of a brother, or the aunt of a cousin- they are all separate.
  
  1) Invite the son and his SO if that's all you want. It is also fine to invite the son and his SO plus his parents, if your parents are still close with them.
  
  2) I would invite only your cousin and her SO. You are not required to invite your aunt, nor required to invite anyone BECAUSE they are your family.
  
  Sometimes there are cases where I would say invite family members to keep the peace, but it doesn't sound like you have a relationship with your aunt at all, so it doesn't seem like there is a relationship to preserve.
  
  As an aside, regarding the FB deletions. I wouldn't take this personally as anything bad happened between you two, she probably just went through her list and decided to un-friend the people she doesn't regularly engage with, not that she doesn't like you. However, seeing as you two aren't that close, I wouldn't feel bad about not inviting her to your wedding.
  

  
  What she said. I regularly delete people from FB if they're not someone I regularly interact with. I still like them. If I ran into them somewhere I'd have a nice conversation with them. But since we don't get hang out and I probably wouldn't make an effort to go see them or make plans with them, I remove them from FB. Keeps my Newsfeed relevant.

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• cookiecutterrebel member

  

  July 2015 edited July 2015

  Thanks so much for the feedback, guys. So immensely helpful. It helps to have the votes of confidence as I navigate this stuff. I was worried I'd be committing a well known faux pas but glad to know that's not the case. We're moving shortly after the wedding and my sister gives zero fucks about how I leave that relationship, so that's good too.
  
  Good points too on the FB de-add. No hard feelings there from me (she just had a baby and she and her mom are definitely frequent posters of the "watch out for these signs of cancer!" And "share if you have a great daughter!" Variety) and I won't let it influence my decision.

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