Hurt by wedding plans gifts?

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Oh Thank you so much again everyone! What great ideas you have!
 
At our wedding we didn’t invite any Aunts, or Uncles for that matter. Or cousins.

We didn’t want a big wedding and by inviting one, you have to invite, them all. Otherwise, they get snarky, and start counting which ones were invited and which weren’t. Crazy.

Of course, since I didn’t plan any wedding showers, the hostess did, I didn’t tell them whom to invite. And of course, Aunts were invited to a shower. 🤷 So were cousins for that matter. There wasn’t anything I could do about it. (Well, I guess I could have sent off wedding invitations to the families, but that would have more than doubled our guest list.)

So just based on not being invited to the wedding but getting an invitation, I am not sure why you are so upset with the bride?

Now, the comment on the back of the invitation. That comment came from the person giving the shower. SHE had the option to put it on or not. As the hostess, the tackyness comes from the her. (Regardless of what she claims the bride said.)

Whether or not you send a gift, is up to you. But I think you need to think about why you aren’t sending a gift. Is it because your feelings were hurt when a wedding invitation didn’t come to your house? Or is it because you were upset that you got a shower invitation but not a wedding invite? Or is it because you didn’t like what the hostess put on the invitation? Those answers will help you decide whether or not to send a gift.
 
maryjk said:
We didn’t want a big wedding and by inviting one, you have to invite, them all.
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I believe this is why the OP is upset. The OP was told “no aunts” are invited to the wedding, but two aunts from the other side of the family have been invited. Its one thing for the couple to make a unilateral choice to not invite family, its another thing to know they picked and chosed certain relatives and give a lie as a reason why a certain family member isn’t invited.
 
PatriceA said:
I believe this is why the OP is upset. The OP was told “no aunts” are invited to the wedding, but two aunts from the other side of the family have been invited. Its one thing for the couple to make a unilateral choice to not invite family, its another thing to know they picked and chosed certain relatives and give a lie as a reason why a certain family member isn’t invited.
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Maybe you should have quoted the entire statement.
We didn’t want a big wedding and by inviting one, you have to invite, them all. Otherwise, they get snarky, and start counting which ones were invited and which weren’t. Crazy.
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The problem is, that the OP is upset, just what I said would have happened with our family.

Maybe the bride is really close to the other aunts, but doesn’t want to tell this aunt that. I know that I am closer to some family members than others. Do you really have to invite Uncle Joe who lives out on the other side of the country and you only see once every ten years, simply because you invited Aunt Jane that lives next door to you? Does cousin Pete, who picked on you growing up, have to get an invite because cousin John, who took you to the prom when your date backed out at the last minute, got invited? To me, that seems crazy. We had to do it, so we didn’t invite any of them. But that is very sad, because those relatives that we really wanted at the wedding, didn’t get invited.
 
Oh Maryjk,

I don’t know the answers to these types of situations and I am truly sorry that you had to make such unpleasant decisions on your wedding day…

I have had to pick and choose, at times, whom I could invite to an occasion for various reasons…not enough seating, etc…please note that my situation is complicated in many ways and that I normally could care less when I do or do not get invited to occasions…the bride’s father is extremely wealthy so she could have invited as many people as she wanted…there are really no more aunts or uncles than me in this case that she could invite (they are all deceased except the two she invited and me, whom she did not invite)…she has always been very materialistic…I suspect her father offered her a certain amount for a wedding or another amount of pure cash for a smaller wedding and she chose the latter…so that is why SHE IS NOT LISTED ANYWHERE and so forth…

We all have to make our choices on what we value most in life…
 
maryjk said:
Maybe you should have quoted the entire statement.

The problem is, that the OP is upset, just what I said would have happened with our family.

Maybe the bride is really close to the other aunts, but doesn’t want to tell this aunt that. I know that I am closer to some family members than others. Do you really have to invite Uncle Joe who lives out on the other side of the country and you only see once every ten years, simply because you invited Aunt Jane that lives next door to you? Does cousin Pete, who picked on you growing up, have to get an invite because cousin John, who took you to the prom when your date backed out at the last minute, got invited? To me, that seems crazy. We had to do it, so we didn’t invite any of them. But that is very sad, because those relatives that we really wanted at the wedding, didn’t get invited.
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Sorry to upset you by my paring down your paragraph to one quote.

If you give a bold face lie to a relative why they aren’t invited to a wedding and then that relative is then invited to the bridal shower, you can’t see how that relative, the OP, could be upset?

There are ALL forms of snarkiness going on with this whole bridal party, from the bride, to whom ever gave the hostess the guest list for the bridal shower. Its extremely tacky to invite someone to a bridal shower that was excluded specifically from the wedding guest list. Your situation is not the same as the OP’s. I would be extremely hurt if I knew I had been lied to about why I wasn’t invited to the wedding and than get invited to the shower along with the other guests that are invited to the wedding.
 
PatriceA said:
Sorry to upset you by my paring down your paragraph to one quote.

If you give a bold face lie to a relative why they aren’t invited to a wedding and then that relative is then invited to the bridal shower, you can’t see how that relative, the OP, could be upset?
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Of course lying is wrong. We didn’t have to lie to anyone, since we didn’t invite any of them.

But if you do invite some and not others, what do you say to the aunt/uncle/cousin that doesn’t get invited? Do you tell them the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? 🤷

Sorry, Uncle Joe, you didn’t get invited because you drink too much. Sorry Aunt Sara, I didn’t invite you because I blame you for my parents marriage breaking up. Sorry Cousin John, you picked on me too much while we were growing up.

Or do you say, “sorry, we had to limit the guest list?”

Much more information has come out during the thread. It sounds like the aunt here, has many issues with the bride. I am surprised if the aunt feels this way about the bride, she would even want an invitation. If I felt that way about the bride, I would be glad I didn’t have to come up with an excuse not to attend the wedding.
 
maryjk said:
Of course lying is wrong. We didn’t have to lie to anyone, since we didn’t invite any of them.

But if you do invite some and not others, what do you say to the aunt/uncle/cousin that doesn’t get invited? Do you tell them the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? 🤷

Sorry, Uncle Joe, you didn’t get invited because you drink too much. Sorry Aunt Sara, I didn’t invite you because I blame you for my parents marriage breaking up. Sorry Cousin John, you picked on me too much while we were growing up.

Or do you say, “sorry, we had to limit the guest list?”

Much more information has come out during the thread. It sounds like the aunt here, has many issues with the bride. I am surprised if the aunt feels this way about the bride, she would even want an invitation. If I felt that way about the bride, I would be glad I didn’t have to come up with an excuse not to attend the wedding.
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Yes,one should tell them the guest list is limited, best way to handle the situation if it comes up. But then those same relatives shouldn’t be invited to a bridal shower.

The OP is close to her brother, the father of the bride, I can certainly understand why she would want to be there given that reason alone. I had to invite relatives I wouldn’t say I was close to, but they were close to my parents and same with my husband’s family. We didn’t make up our own guest list, the parents contributed as well.
 
agnes_therese said:
You are not required to send any gift you don’t choose to give. That goes for the wedding itself, and even more so for the shower.

And frankly, sending a shower invitation to someone who has been told they are not invited to the wedding, and topping it off by specifying what gift you are to send, is the absolute height of gall, tackiness, rudeness . . .

I’d send her a very nice card congratulating her on her marriage. And that’s all.
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I’d do the same thing. It’s so tacky to really request ANY gift. I know a lot of brides too “register” at a department store and “choose” what gifts they want. i think that is also tacky although my niece did just that. I ended up getting the cheapest gift I could find. I would also not give a big monetary gift. When we got married about 47 years ago, I was thankful for anything! And if I got “two” of anything I either exchanged it or “saved” it. Its also interesting that some of these marriages end up in divorce a few years later, Your presence should be enough of a gift.
 
PatriceA said:
Yes,one should tell them the guest list is limited, best way to handle the situation if it comes up. But then those same relatives shouldn’t be invited to a bridal shower.
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I had no idea who was invited to my bridal showers. I send invites to the wedding, the hostess sent invites to the shower.
The OP is close to her brother, the father of the bride, I can certainly understand why she would want to be there given that reason alone. I had to invite relatives I wouldn’t say I was close to, but they were close to my parents and same with my husband’s family. We didn’t make up our own guest list, the parents contributed as well.
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Maybe that is the difference. My future husband and I made our guest list. If we would have invited everyone on the parent’s list, we would have had 300 people, rather than 30.
 
maryjk said:
I had no idea who was invited to my bridal showers. I send invites to the wedding, the hostess sent invites to the shower.
Maybe that is the difference. My future husband and I made our guest list. If we would have invited everyone on the parent’s list, we would have had 300 people, rather than 30.
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The shower hostess, I’m assuming one of the 30 you were inviting to the wedding, would/should have known how many you were having at the wedding and only invited the women to the shower. The shower hostess is usually the witness, or realtive of the bride or groom. I don’t know how she would not have known the wedding was really small.
 
aicirt said:
The shower hostess, I’m assuming one of the 30 you were inviting to the wedding, would/should have known how many you were having at the wedding and only invited the women to the shower. The shower hostess is usually the witness, or relative of the bride or groom. I don’t know how she would not have known the wedding was really small.
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The shower hostess was my future MIL. (Don’t even start with how bad that is, trust me, I wasn’t consulted.) And yes, she knew the size of the wedding.

But, back to the OP. She was upset that she wasn’t invited to the wedding. It didn’t seem that she was upset that she got an invite to the shower. Just how the invite was worded.

I still go back to, the OP isn’t particularly fond of her niece. Why would she want to go to the wedding? And if I knew what she thought of me, I certainly wouldn’t want her at my wedding. 🤷

How many people would you invite to a wedding that you knew didn’t like you and you weren’t too fond of them?
 
Thank you all once again for your posts…they are very instructive…the closeness with my brother is the main reason I try to attend the weddings because they are hard on me in many cases for various reasons…there’s the travel (health issues)…I am also very sensitive to loud noise (migraines) and my first niece’s wedding had a really, really loud band reception but I was so happy to be there where my brother and I really sat next to each other for most of the night…we are very close because my wonderful mother was unfortunately ill during much of her life and my good father had to work hard at his job…he is also one of my few remaining relatives and it is always so good to get to be around him for a little while…of course I want to wish the bride and groom well but mainly I try to go because it makes my brother very happy and he has had a lot of tragedy in his life (found his oldest son hanging from a closet rod in a hotel near his home…committed suicide I believe because of newly subscribed but unsupervised psychiatric medicine)…I don’t really have a lot of issues with my niece…I am always cordial and friendly to her and I attended every party I was invited to for her since she was a little girl when I lived near her and her family and I always bought an appropriate gift—be it graduation, birthday or whatever…so we all do the best we can…

Please MaryJ know that no one is criticizing you for the choices you had to make as a bride…the cost of even a simple wedding these days is outlandish to me and I really do not know how people do it…indeed when one of my close friends at work invited me to her daughter’s wedding or I got the invitation for it I declined because I knew the bride really only allowed her mom to invite me because we are so close…I knew she had a budget and really would have preferred that her mom not invite me…nothing personal but you do have to draw limits…I think it is nice if one is excluding people because of past hurts from them if the bride can in this happy occasion forgive because I doubt any of these people (unless they are knock down drunks at such occasions) are going to spoil all of her glorious day…I hope you had a wonderful wedding and that you will have many beautiful memories from that wedding to cherish for years to come…and no regrets!!
 
Maryj,

I want you to know that I have never criticized my niece to anyone anywhere near her…on the contrary I try to complement her on how she looks or something else…I have always been very nice to her…she is very materialistic…that is just a fact of life and this is a statement of a fact…she would throw fits from early childhood when the family went out to say an art gallery and she felt she did not get as much “stuff” as everyone else…this is just a fact…but I have never criticized her about it…and it is also a fact that you have to take whatever she or her mom tell you with a grain of salt because it is a fact that they do not always tell the truth and that this situation can and has caused harm to other people…so the value judgment of “how much she is thought of” is one that did not come from me…I am simply stating facts of how people behave…other people can draw their own conclusions from these facts…

Best wishes and thanks again for presenting the other side of the story…
 
maryjk said:
The shower hostess was my future MIL. (Don’t even start with how bad that is, trust me, I wasn’t consulted.) And yes, she knew the size of the wedding.

But, back to the OP. She was upset that she wasn’t invited to the wedding. It didn’t seem that she was upset that she got an invite to the shower. Just how the invite was worded.

I still go back to, the OP isn’t particularly fond of her niece. Why would she want to go to the wedding? And if I knew what she thought of me, I certainly wouldn’t want her at my wedding. 🤷

How many people would you invite to a wedding that you knew didn’t like you and you weren’t too fond of them?
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As many as my parents wanted at the wedding or my inlaws wanted at the wedding. Wedding guest lists are not all about just the bride and the groom in some families. Its about honoring the family relationships amongst the older relatives as well. I didn’t like everyone that was invited to my own wedding, but I understood the family dynamics involved and why certain family members where included on the guest list. When my dad insisted certain family members be on the guest list, I honored his request, no matter how much I may not have liked that particular guest.
 
Just take the money that you would have spent on their shower/wedding gift and put it towards your doggies vet bill and then buy your pooch a big burger and fries and a big hug and kiss.

It seems you have plenty going on without worrying about all this wedding stuff.

Blessings to you.
 
PatriceA said:
As many as my parents wanted at the wedding or my inlaws wanted at the wedding. **Wedding guest lists are not all about just the bride and the groom in some families. ** Its about honoring the family relationships amongst the older relatives as well. I didn’t like everyone that was invited to my own wedding, but I understood the family dynamics involved and why certain family members where included on the guest list. When my dad insisted certain family members be on the guest list,I honored his request, no matter how much I may not have liked that particular guest.
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I am guessing that you didn’t mean the bold statements to sound so passive aggressive. Please don’t try to insinuate that I was somehow a bridezilla because I would question inviting someone to a wedding that obviously doesn’t think very well of the bride. 🤷

My family supported my guest list. My in-laws thought they had to invite anyone they ever knew, all of the aunts, uncles and cousins. My parents paid for the wedding. My in-laws, weren’t worried about the cost, just whom they felt they needed to impress. My parents allowed my future husband and I to put together the guess list. My in-laws came to realize that their son was an adult, living in his own house and living his life.

I don’t have an Uncle Joe, Aunt Sara or Cousin whoever. Those were examples. It was easy not to invite most of the extended family. We just weren’t that close to them. It was more difficult to not invite the family members that we really liked and did stuff with. There ended up being a number of phone calls to those people explaining how we came to the list. We explained that to invite them we would have to invite all of the uncles, aunts and cousins. That didn’t make sense to anyone, but my future in-laws.

BUT I still go back to, the OP doesn’t even like this girl. And it doesn’t sound like the girl likes the OP. What is the problem? If the OP wants to spend time with her brother, then go and visit with him. That way you don’t have to worry about the timing of the visit, the loud music or the materialistic daughter.
 
maryjk said:
I am guessing that you didn’t mean the bold statements to sound so passive aggressive. Please don’t try to insinuate that I was somehow a bridezilla because I would question inviting someone to a wedding that obviously doesn’t think very well of the bride. 🤷

My family supported my guest list. My in-laws thought they had to invite anyone they ever knew, all of the aunts, uncles and cousins. My parents paid for the wedding. My in-laws, weren’t worried about the cost, just whom they felt they needed to impress. My parents allowed my future husband and I to put together the guess list. My in-laws came to realize that their son was an adult, living in his own house and living his life.

I don’t have an Uncle Joe, Aunt Sara or Cousin whoever. Those were examples. It was easy not to invite most of the extended family. We just weren’t that close to them. It was more difficult to not invite the family members that we really liked and did stuff with. There ended up being a number of phone calls to those people explaining how we came to the list. We explained that to invite them we would have to invite all of the uncles, aunts and cousins. That didn’t make sense to anyone, but my future in-laws.

BUT I still go back to, the OP doesn’t even like this girl. And it doesn’t sound like the girl likes the OP. What is the problem? If the OP wants to spend time with her brother, then go and visit with him. That way you don’t have to worry about the timing of the visit, the loud music or the materialistic daughter.
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I believe you are somehow reading too much of yourself into any comments that I post. I told you my experience with my own wedding guest list. How you came to think I was being passive agressive towards you is a mystery to me. I have been very careful NOT to comment on how you arrived on your final guest list. I told you I can understand why the OP feels slighted, but somehow you still took that to mean I was commenting on how you handled your own guest list. My comments are NOT about your guest list. Its about my experience, my family’s expectations, and how I can understand how the OP feels slighted for not being invited to the wedding, because the extended members of my family would feel similarly as the OP.

Again, my comments are NOT about YOU specifically. I don’t take any of YOUR comments as being passive agressive towards me. You handled it differently, you have different family circumstances. It seems to me the OP and my family dynamics might be more similar. Doesn’t mean one is more superior than the other, just that I can relate to the OP’s situation.

Just spending time with the brother is not the same thing as being at a family milestone occasion. There is quite a bit of difference between the two.
 
Patrice,

Thank you once again for your understanding of my situation and I am sorry that the conversation is somehow veering into personal statements…since none of us know each other that seems rather silly…

Probably best for us to move on I guess but I will add one thing…my brother is practically impossible to get together with…his life has become a whirlwind of activity since his son died…this is one way he copes with an unbearable loss…so you get to see him when you get to see him…we all do the best we can…
 
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