Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Picky Picky.
My DH and I just found out that his cousin in FL is getting married in 2 weeks and we weren't invited, but DH parents and 2 of his 6 siblings were. DH mother said to not take it personally... how do you not?! He and his then GF came to our wedding in OH last year and he went to Canada with DH for his bachelor party...
We thought we were all pretty close, whenever we're in FL we hang out, or when he's up here we all hang out, and we had gotten an engagement announcment from them. We had been asking my MIL when they were getting married for probably the last 6 months, we were looking forward to it.
This will be a second marriage for the both of them, so they wanted a low key wedding because they are paying for it themselves... wouldn't know anything about that!!! But to me, it's personal when you pick and choose what family memebers you have no qualm with to your wedding. You don't invite some cousins and not others espically when they are siblings! It's all or nothing, to avoid situations like this! I don't know if they didn't plan on us finding out or what, but that never works...
Honestly, I am kind of hurt, and I'm hurting for my DH. I asked him how he felt about it and he said he didn't really know. We just found this out last night, so it's still a little new. I don't want to press him about it until he's ready to talk about it.
So my question is, how would you feel about this? Should we call him and ask him what's up, or FB him... we're friends on FB with both of them. What do you think?
Re: Picky Picky.
If you do anything at all, it should be to call (not facebook or e mail) the cousin and say "Hey, I heard you're getting married! Congratulations!"
Then said cousin will probably explain why the guest list is the way it is. Maybe they didn't want you to spend money to travel to a "low key wedding."
Yes, if you truly arent' invited but other siblings of DH's are, I'd be miffed and wonder what's going on. This is a situation where I do think it needs to be "all or none". His parents being invited but not the kids? That would be fine. But to pick and choose which kids? I find that weird.
But, what would I do? At the most I might try to find out if I truly am, in fact, not invited. In a subtle way, but I would wonder if there was any chance the invitation got lost. (Of course, out of 6 siblings, I doubt 4 invitations were lost!)
Past that, I would do nothing. In the end, they have their reasons and they don't have to explain it to you if they don't want to. I would take the information, though, and adjust my expectations of what I thought our relationship was.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
Then they should have let us decide that... like I said, we've been planning on going to his wedding since last Christmas! Fitting it into our budget, letting work know... and his cousin knows that! Everytime we'd talk to him, we'd ask when he's getting married and never got an answer...
I think we're going to have to... something feels off...
Don't get me wrong - I understand why you made the assumption! My DH's family is huge and weddings are looked at as family reunions. Cousins got married a few years ago and truly had a very small wedding and when we all realized we weren't invited, there was a moment of "what? Really?".
But over the years, I've learned to not make these kinds of assumptions. Especially as weddings are just so darn expensive these days!
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
I too would think that its improper to invite some but not all. We decided that our low key reception was for parents aunts and uncles only because DH has a HUGE list of cousins - that family loves to procreate. One person actually said at a reception that "that family has litters - not kids".... haha.
I recently found out that my DH and I were not invited to his cousins wedding - but DH's older brother was. No idea why. We received the bridal shower invitation for her, but not the wedding invitation. We heard about this at another wedding after she was just speaking to us about her upcoming nuptials. I didn't think a thing about not being invited until DH"s older brother told us that he was. I thought - that's odd. Oh well. We really aren't that close and I couldn't care less. To each their own.
I agree with PP.
while i would be irritated as well however it's always up to the B&G as to who they want to invite and who they don't-and they don't really need to give a reason (oh wait-they did already-it's their 2nd marriage and it's a very small group). there you go.
send them a nice card and assume that they dont like you any less-but, as we all know, when guest lists need to be cut it can be very difficult. having people ask 'why' just makes them feel worse about not inviting everyone.
Sometimes I think I am the only person on the planet who doesn't care that much about weddings (or showers or bachelorette parties) and wouldn't be upset to not be invited.
I would just pass along your congratulations next time you see them.
Don't go digging for why you weren't invited and make other people feel awkward over this.
I agree that it's rude to pick and choose amongst family members when you're sending wedding invites.
Still, it's just as rude (if not moreso) for you to contact them and ask for an explanation as to why you weren't invited.
Plus, it's your H's cousin and not yours, so you need to butt out of this entirely and follow your H's lead on whatever he wants to do. Don't take it upon yourself to figure out what happened here. You don't know their reasoning behind not inviting you ... it could be a money thing or them wanting a really small wedding, or they just might not consider you as close of friends as you consider them. It happens to everyone at some point.
Accept the fact that you weren't invited, and move on. Send them a congratulatory card or a small gift if you feel so inclined. But I also agree with the PP who said that you might want to reevaluate the relationship with them because of this. I don't think you should cut them out of your life or anything like that, but if it were me I probably wouldn't be going out of my way anymore to spend time with them or do big favors for them or anything like that. Meaning, I probably wouldn't be doing anything to inconvenience myself for their benefit after this.
What do the other two siblings have in common with your cousin? Are they closer in age? Closer geographically? Closer relationship-wise?
You need to realize that your dh's family has 16 people total (when you include spouses and/or dates). That's a HUGE amount of people to invite if you want a "low-key" wedding, and you are ONLY cousins. Cousins who "hang out" when they/you are in town does not = closest friends and family members. It doesn't mean they don't like you, just that there are other friends and family who they have a closer relationship to. Also, the bride has her own aunts and cousins. They can't invite every last person from his side, and then not invite hers.
If you find out the wedding is relatively small, then don't hold this against them.
I would be hurt...but I wouldn't say anything.
My sister and I werent' invited to our cousins wedding...the reason "we're not having children at the wedding...fine, but we were 19 and 21 at the time and when we were forced to look at photos, there were so many actual chidren there (like literally kids) that they had a children's dance...there are no kids in our family and they said these were kids from the neighborhood.
She did tell my mom that if wanted to come to house afterwards for kaoroke, we could and bring our boyfriends...we didn't and to this day (12 years later) we still hear crap about not rsvping to the wedding...I figured no formal invite, nothing to rsvp to and we always say "we weren't invited to the wedding" and she insists that the kaoroke after the reception was part of the wedding.
Eh, with 6 siblings in one family, I can see why they felt they had to pick and choose, especially if it was a small wedding.
We're having a small/intimate wedding that we're paying for ourselves, and while on my side we just invited aunts/uncles no cousins, on FI's side, there are a few cousins he's really close to, a few aunts/uncles that he's close to, and others that while some even live close by, he never ever sees. So, we did invite some siblings and not others.
Send them a nice card, a gift if you'd like, and be on your merry way
.
I would be completely fine with it and woulnd't be bothered in the least. Invite who you want for any reason that you want - it doesn't have to be explained to me.
My sister would be crushed and devestated. She would think it was a personal slight to her and she would be humiliated and would go-out and book a vaction as a cover story for why she couldn't attend in case anyone every mentioned it.
I honestly would accept that it was a money/size thing. And frankly, I would rather have a few siblings invited that to have the group banned just for appearances.
This.
(and couples can't win. "Ugh, why didn't I get invited, angry at Bride & groom" vs. "Ugh, I don't have the vacation time/$/whatever and now there's family pressure to go, stupid B&G"
^you might not be like that but more than enough people are.)
It's not just some cousins and not others. It's 2 of her DH's SIBLINGS and not the others.
OP: I think it is rude. If they want to keep it small and limit the guest list they should have cut it at the older generation and just invited your MIL and FIL.
Its still not rude, lol. You might not like it. You might be offended (which is weird to me but I realize I'm not the norm on that) but its not rude.
You can invite who you are closest to, end of story. The only real rule is that you can't invite one part of a social unit without the other (like a husband without his wife). Other than that, its fair game.
to remove the redirecting hyperlink spam.
PLEASE STOP SPAMMING THE BOARDS.
I agree with PPs about the invite list being their choice, but I think somewhere in here you mentioned a wedding shower and engagement/save the date cards. These two things imply, IMO, that you will be invited to the wedding as well. Why would someone invite you to the shower and not the wedding? Why tell you when it is going to be and then not send the real deal invite? I would be offended if someone invited me to the shower and not the wedding because I would feel like I had been used for a gift.
I know it must hurt but in all honesty, it's totally their decision not to invite certain people. Perhaps they only invited those that are SUPER close to them. I'm sure it was for budget reasons and nothing personal. Honestly, call them up (a month or so after the wedding) and wish them congratulations. Don't push it or do anything to ruin the relationship....it seems these people are important to you.
I will say tho - poor ettiquette on their part. They should NOT have sent you an engagement announcement if they weren't planning on inviting you to the wedding.
Do you really know it wasn't an oversight? Maybe they did send out your invite and it got lost in the mail or they put the wrong town or zip code down (saw this on a recent one and I only got it because the zip was correct, town was wrong).
People do forget... it happens. Also you stated that you asked repeatedly when they were getting married and they never answers, you should have taken that as a hint.
That's what we did when we got married last year. We didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings so we picked a generation to stop at and stopped there. We didn't want to have to worry about hurting anyones feelings because we invited some and not others.
We're just going to let it go... it is what it is... We're a little miffed about it, but we don't need to fret over it.
If you mean you were asking him this question before he even met his fianc?e, well......giving people a hard time about being single is a great way to alienate them and make them quite uncomfortable around you. Just saying.
If the two of you can't let this go, then your DH should find out if he or you did something to offend him before complaining about not being invited.