Not inviting my brother's girlfriend to my wedding

No. Couples are one social unit and it's disrespectful to invite one and not the other. He hasn't chosen the family in 4 years, so don't think he'll do so now even for your wedding. If she chooses to decline, she can provide her hateful reasons to him. But, you have time to demonstrate your good manners as Save the Dates go out 6-8 months ahead, invites 6-8 weeks ahead for local weddings (not destination). Who knows what will happen between now and next year.

Nah, that's pretty crappy. Invite her by name, and if they breakup - fine. He doesn't need a plus one in that case. But if not, she's his partner so you need to invite her.

Invite her by name or don’t invite brother. You cannot invite brother alone, and it’s disrespectful to ask them to celebrate your relationship while you discount theirs as not valid by judging them. You don’t get to say they are not a social unit because you don’t consider them to be a couple regardless of the amount of time they have been together and have established themselves as such. A plus one is a random stranger invited to entertain an unattached single.


If you don’t know her, is there a reason? Have you never met her or do you not spend time with her or does she live far away? Being rude to a stranger for no reason doesn’t make sense nor does it happen as often as people say.
If brother does break up before the wedding, a plus one is not necessary.

Not so long ago it was only considered necessary to invite couples who are married, engaged or living together. Now, it is considered obligatory to invite any committed couple in a long term relationship who function as a social unit.

But every rule has an exception. If they are having major issues, and she's been blatantly rude and disrespectful to you, I personally would not invite her. If they were married or engaged, it would be a different story. In that case, I would expect your brother to insist that she be civil to you or else both of them would be off the list.

Thanks all this is very helpful. I don't want to hurt my brother but his girlfriend has caused our family a lot of pain and he is aware of how we all feel. She hasn't done much to make things better between us. I know my brother will come to our wedding regardless of whether she is invited since we are close and our parents would probably throw a fit if he even considered not attending. But who knows...

The answers to some questions: they individualy live less than an hour from us but my brother usually comes to things alone because she is busy or at least claims to be. She doesn't put in effort with us really. We have done a few things together but she often has at least one very rude thing to contribute which is how these problems arose. I also don't know why she treats our family like this when we usually take her rude comments and general lack of care in stride.

I know people say etiquette requires certain things and Plus 1s.. however I firmly believe that it’s your and your fiancé’s wedding day & truly it is always your choice about what makes you happiest and most comfortable on that day/who you invite, regardless of what others may think or say. I’d suggest having a conversation with your brother about why you don’t want to invite her, see where he is- if he understands the pain it causes you/your family & that you don’t want that weighing down your day, he might be on board and agree it doesn’t make sense to invite her. He may have an issue with it though & if he does, I think it’s still your call- and maybe that means he doesn’t come. Definitely communicate as a first step. It sounds like you’re concerned about your family too- did you ask them? Parents are funny like that- sometimes they don’t like someone but will give a Pass related to a wedding or big event just because it’s the normal etiquette.
Maybe your brother can address these issues with his GF & if she sees the error of her ways/starts being kind, she can come and celebrate with you all. Best wishes.

Have you established a plus-one rule? My wedding is also small and we had to make a rule if they aren’t married, engaged, or living together they do not get a plus-one.

They've been together four years, so yes, you have to. The nice thing is that you'll be so busy on the day of that you won't have to interact with her.

You need to invite her. You can’t invite your brother to honour your u ion while disrespecting hos

View Quoted Comment What about people in a committed relationship but not meeting your criteria?

Thank you again for all the advice. I had a very long chat, like hours and hours, with my brother and we both agreed that although its hurtful for him to not have her there, he gets that it's my once in a lifetime big day so nobody should cause me unneccesarry stress. Our parents don't have a stand on the matter or if they do they aren't telling either of us. Me and my man decided to leave her off the list for now. She doesn't interact with us anyways so she can't even be rude to us about it. We're doing this for our sanity. Our friends and family won't even notice her missing since she's never around or met any of them anyways