Do i Invite all Grandparents?

Have you asked your mom's opinion. She might be able to guide you.

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She did not get to plan her wedding so she has really let me make all my decisions. She said that she will be happy with whatever decision I make. Although I know she would probably be unhappy if her mom was there, without getting into it she was not the best parent to my mom.

I do not know the full story of your relationship with your maternal grandmother nor why she fell out from the rest of the family.

It's one thing that you don't invite friends who you aren't in contact with, but when it comes to family, my rule is that unless you are 100% cut off from them and have absolutely no relationship with them whatsoever, then in my books you still invite them, but, it all depends on your circumstances.

I have zero contact with my biological father and he and I have not spoken to each other for years and he is effectively dead to me - he is the only 'family' member who has not been invited to our wedding, but everyone else, whether we are in direct contact with them or otherwise has been invited. If they choose not to attend then we don't mind in the slightest.

View Quoted Comment Since it sounds like none of you have a close relationship with her anymore I wouldn't invite her. I also have three sets of grandparents because my mom's parents divorced and remarried. My grandfather and step-grandmother have been estranged from our family for almost two years so they weren't invited to our wedding. I am incredibly close with my grandmother and step-grandfather so they were definitely invited. My dad is also pretty much estranged from his father. His parents divorced when he was young. His father was never a part of his life. About fifteen years ago, his parents reconnected and got remarried. My dad tried having a relationship with him for his mom's sake, but he has been horrible towards our entire family to the point it is so uncomfortable. Out of respect for my grandmother I still invited him, but thankfully he decided not to attend because he wanted to stay home with their dog. It was honestly a blessing because it would've been super awkward.

Unless there is an obvious rift between you, I would make an effort to reach out to her. Invite whomever you can't imagine the day without. At the end of the day, only you can decide who to invite.


I would love to invite my grandfather but it won't happen no matter how close I was to him while growing up. He remarried a toxic woman a number of years ago who essentially cut him off from his own family. I'm closer to extended family anyway even if we only see other for special occasions.

If I were in your position, I would invite her. She was offended that you didn't tell her when you got engaged, although that's not a reason to invite her. The reasons to invite her are that you care (you might not feel like you care, but it affected you enough to tell us about it) that she was offended and that at least part of you wants to invite her. You don't have to invite her to get ready with you be involved in any pre-wedding events, and if she's still treating you badly, you can treat her like any other guest and only speak to her briefly at the wedding. Not inviting her would almost certainly end your relationship with her, and if you're even a little bit torn about it now, there's a real possibility that you'll wish you'd spent more time with her after she's gone. If she comes and she's awful, you can choose to end the relationship at that point, but I think in that situation you would feel confident that you had done what you could to make things better.

If it were me, I would invite them all. That gives them the option to decline, and still allows you to extend an olive branch. Best of luck

I would definitely invite her.

I recommend you invite her. It's all or no one to me.

My personal opinion, I say invite her... I have always lived my life by "two wrongs don't make a right". So just because you don't hear from her, doesn't mean you should be the same and not include her in things. Maybe once you graduated high school she considered you an adult and expected you to reach out to her. Maybe she assumed because you were starting your life as an adult you were busy and would reach out when you could. I don't know the dynamics of your specific relationship or her in particular. But I say you'll feel much better about inviting her than not. I invited relatives to my wedding that I hadn't spoken to in years because I felt like it was the right thing to do. They didn't show up, and I was kind of glad for that, but i still say you should invite her. She could be old fashioned and be upset you didn't tell her you got engaged because even though you don't talk much, she's still your Grandmother and remember how close you were when you were younger. I only ever had 1 Grandma myself, my mom's mother passed when she was young so I never met her. I wish I was fortunate enough to have had more or still have the only 1 I ever knew. I say invite her because you may regret it down the road if you don't.

I have decided to reach out to her and will be inviting them

You keep saying she hasn’t contacted you, she hasn’t reached out to you, if she reaches out to you on your birthday.... have you made the effort to reach out to her? She was hurt you didn’t call to her you were engaged. I understand why she was hurt. She is your grandmother. I’d bet most people don’t talk to their grandparents weekly but that doesn’t mean they don’t care about them. If you haven’t made any effort to reach out to her then you can’t really blame her for the rift in your relationship. It’s a two way street and sounds like you stopped going down it too.
Invite her and don’t make it contingent on getting a birthday card.

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I agree with this! Unfortunately none of our grandparents were alive for our wedding, but it would have been amazing to have any of them there. So I'd just invite them so you don't regret it in the future.