Invite help! (sorry for the rant, but i need opinions!)

Can you talk to your uncle in private about how to approach this? He has to know how his wife is, there is no way he doesn't know.

I think you know the answer to this. We all have family members that we would rather not invite. No one can tell you what to do, but you already said not inviting her will be drama. Also what if your uncle doesn't come because you didn't invite his wife? I don't think its worth the drama. You can't invite her husband and thirteen kids without inviting her and expect no drama.

No you can’t invite your uncle and not his wife. Also lots of people don’t allow their children to live with them once they turn 18. No one owes you birthday presents or graduation presents simply because they’re related to you either so that’s a weird reason to not like her.

You should definitely invite the aunt. Her parenting style has absolutely no affect on your wedding.

There's no nice way you can invite your uncle and cousins without inviting his wife....

I think you can invite them all or not.

In this situation you have to invite her because she is his wife and it could be rude to invite one and not the other. Are you having other kids there? If so, it would come off wrong to invite some kids and not others. You could say due to budget or venue sizing only those two are invited.

I met my husband at church in middle school. There was a situation that arose within the church that made us leave. It was really bad...we approached the elders and pastors and reported it to them and they did nothing so we had to call the police. We kept quiet about it so as not to have people lose their faith but we quietly left after letting the police deal with it. My husband and his family stayed at that church and his family still attends.


A month before our engagement my husbands father passed. The pastor and elders paid for 10 months rent for my mother in law.
I tell this because when we made our guest list, we had to decide if we should invite them. We did, because it is polite. I hate them, but it would’ve definitely caused drama if we didn’t. I just accepted it and didn’t think twice about it. Just invite your aunt...don’t overthink it.

Yeah, in this situation, just invite your aunt. She may not even attend, who knows. But just to keep the peace and because no matter how you flip it, it's his wife regardless. It's very harsh to invite a person without their spouse unless they did something so darn vile that it would cause more harm than good for them to be there. But it doesn't seem like this is the situation. There's a few people on my guest list that are married and truthfully, I cannot stand their spouses but what am I to do? Invite them without their spouses while telling them come and celebrate my union? Just doesn't work that way. I'm sorry to hear about your troubles, but for this situation I'd say just invite the aunt solely because they are a unit and two of them are together in a union. You have to honour it.

Invite the aunt but all those kids???? Not sure if I could do that.

Nope. You can invite the aunt & uncle (no kids if you’re having a kid-free wedding). But you can’t separate a couple by inviting half of them. It’s rude. And would definitely cause family drama.

I say this is 100% a question for your uncle. he would know his wife better than anyone else!

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There's a lot of not okay things she's done that make me not like her. For example, Trigger warning, my cousin tried to commit suicide but luckily my mom found her and took her to the hospital and my aunt was called and her response was "well she's an idiot. She should've known that wasn't enough pills." Also for the 18 thing, she literally will put their things in the yard and tell them to leave. But thanks for the feed back, and I agree... I'll have to invite her if I want my uncle there.

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Thank you for your feedback and suggestion. It would be best for me to invite her and not give her a reason to stir more drama.

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Thank you so much for this. My aunt has done some things I don't feel as comfortable sharing on here for the sake of my family, so It will be hard for me to invite her. You're right that I shouldn't overthink it. Thank you.

I have an aunt that I hate too and I invited her for the sake of my uncle attending, but she screwed it up and caused a LOT drama for herself, and I ended up uninviting her. She apologized for what she did so I told her that she is still welcome to come, but she decided not to attend in the end (most likely she’s too embarrassed now because she caused a big stink with the whole family). Maybe this awful woman that you have to deal with will end up not even coming if she doesn’t make her family a priority in the first place. It sounds like she doesn’t value any of you. I’m so sorry that you have someone like that in your life, it is so annoying and disappointing to have a kind uncle marry someone like that and having her in your life by force, not blood. Saying “her parenting style has no effect on your wedding” is absurd because the way that she is and all of the history that lies there could effect your mood when you see her on the day. If she does end up attending, just do not pay any attention to her and focus on your big day ❤️

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Thank you so much for this. This has really helped me. I think I'm going to go ahead and invite her. My uncle being there means too much to me not to. If she ends up doing something between the invite and the wedding that is major drama like what happened to you then I'll withdrawal that invite, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt first. I won't let her ruin my day.

View Quoted Comment Of course! I was actually more relieved while reading your post because it is comforting to know that someone else is dealing with something similar. I think that they way you’re handing it is mature (no matter how hard it is, I struggled a lot with handling it the right way too) and if anything happens with her past this point and you need to put your foot down about her being involved, it will be her fault, not your fault for not inviting off the bat. And if she is there in the end then you can just pretend like she isn’t! Haha. I wish you the best of luck!

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Haha thank you! This forum has really helped me figure out what to do! Thank you guys for being helpful and supportive!

Are you inviting other aunts? I'm sorry, but personally I think your only option is inviting her.

We had an issue with inviting second cousins (we decided we would only invite first cousins) and got a lot of flack for that. Aunts and uncles and first cousins, but no children of cousins or 2nd cousins (or 3rd, or once or twice removed, etc etc). My aunt refuses to talk to us now because her granddaughters weren't invited (even though we explained that no 2nd cousins were invited), my cousin hasn't talked to me in months (her kids) and it's just a whole stupid thing.

Sometimes keeping the peace is worth it. I'm glad I didn't back down, but the rule we made was we invite this whole group of people or none. I get it's your wedding day, but your aunt would have a right to be irritated if you didn't invite her but you invited other aunts, her husband and her children. She's just one person.

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Thank you for the advice and for sharing your story! Everyone on here has been a great help.