guestzilla!!

I meant their child and also please excuse my bad spelling and grammar , that is from rush typing!

Oh dear :-/ I mean I could perhaps understand her being a little upset just because she might feel that she is family and is being excluded but I understand your reasons (and if I was in the same situation would just quietly accept it) but wow that is what you might call a slight over-reaction!!!!

How is splitting family up going to help or change things?! WOW JUST WOW!!!!

I hope she calms down soon, for your bil's sake :-( xx

I also understand why she is a little bit upset, but you would think at some point I thought she might actually try and understand where I am coming from, there are other people that cant come to the ceremony too and in my opinion family members that I am a lot closer too than her and they are not kicking up a fuss. I am really finding it hard biting my tongue and telling her to grow up a bit, she is being ridiculous. I shouldn t expect anything less really though she is the woman who ruined her own husbands stag do and made him come home 2 hours into it!

I understand how tight you are for space but I would've tried to make space for her at the ceremony. My sister is the only other sibling that is married in my family and I wouldn't dream of not inviting my brother in law. I can understand why she is upset. I don't agree with the overly dramatic way she has reacted (I suspect there's more going on here).... It's nice that you have invited her to the reception and paid for her room but as she is the wife of your husband's brother, I do think she should be at the ceremony. I think if you were able to make space for her at the ceremony, a lot of all this drama will stop...

Totally agree with HundredMonkeys. She is close family and yet she is being excluded from the key element of the day. On face value, I think you need to try and make room for her too. But I also think there's more to this.

Are any of your brothers/sisters bringing their other halves? Step parents are invited? I think you need to ensure fairness and consistency across the board. Blood relatives only or not. It's not fair to single out one individual. If you are being totally fair across the whole family, then that puts a different perspective on things and perhaps she just needs things explaning to her. But from what you've said, I'd be upset too in her position. The extreme reaction can't just be around this though. There must be more; and likely stuff you don't know.

I do have step parents coming to the ceremony but they have been together since I was about 2 years old. but I have no other brother or sisters husbands/wives/girlfriends etc. coming. I am really not trying to be mean and this is what I have been trying to explain to her , I am not even having 2 of my nephews there (they are babies) as even a baby is classed as 1 space taken. Like I said I have 28( 30 including us) spaces available,9 spaces are just on brothers and sisters, 8 spaces on parents 4 spaces on grandparents, 2 spaces for our children, My uncle and aunty who I am close to and they are paying for the photographer and H2B ushers and my niece. There is no room at all. I am really not doing this to leave her out but there is no way for us to have her at the ceremony.

Where are you getting married? I've never heard such restrictions for a ceremony. I agree that I would be most upset if I hasn't been invited to my bil wedding. We aren't inviting cousins children due to the space at the reception venue, but I wouldn't have dreamt at having something so small I couldn't invite all my family.

We are on a very limited budget and we are getting married at a registry office and that is the largest room they have, we can not afford to get married in the hotel where we are having a reception. I assumed people who were meant to care about us would appreciate the fact that its a budget wedding and not act like a child when they are told they can not do something. The fact is she is not concerned about not being at the ceremony but that fact she will be separated from her husband for about 45 min. I can not cater for everyone, we were originally going to get married abroad. maybe that's what we should of done.

I can see your problem and I do understand why you can't invite her so it seems to me that the problem is much deeper than your wedding. However, I think calling her pathetic is a little harsh - there are obviously much deeper underlying problems within their marriage and blaming your wedding is just the excuse. I would be tempted to call her and find out what is really going on and see if there is anything you can do to help.

I have phoned her but she doesn't answer my calls, I have sent her messages apologising about the wedding situation, asking if there is any other way I can help if she is having problems, like me looking after her child, I have even suggested that she stays with me while h2b and her husband go away on the stag do so she isn't alone, I said I would get my friend over to give us pedicures and we can have Chinese etc. I have tried so hard with her but I get nothing back. I don't know what else to do

In that case, I think there is far more going on. You reckon it's because she doesn't want to be separated from her husband for less than an hour, in which case there is something very wrong with and she needs help. Perhaps your h2b could chat to his brother and see if he can speak to his wife - she doesn't sound well (in my opinion). Yes, some people can be very controlling (My OHs mum is) but it's usually down to some deep rooted issues. Not your problem, I know, but maybe cut her some slack...

I do think that you should've expected a few "fall-outs" if you aren't able to invite all the family.

I really don't think it's to do with your wedding - not being invited/stag do/etc, I think there is much more going on.

My h2b knows that there are more issues with her especially since his brothers stag do where she made him come home after 2 hours of being away from him this was before they had their child. I did expect a fall out but we spoke to her face to face about 2 months ago and would of thought she would of calmed down by now. The other issue is the night before the wedding she has said that h2b brother is not staying with h2b. I just don't understand how she can dictate what her husband can do. Thanks for your advice I can see I got a bit worked up but its so frustrating! Back to normal me again

There's clearly something fairly serious going on in their world for her to be so insecure about her OH being away. Hope you get things sorted out though. Not good for anyone.

It must be very difficult having someone using your wedding as an excuse to further damage their own marriage.

It sounds to me like you have done everything you can and if you could have afforded to get married somewhere bigger where everyone can attend then you would have. None of your brothers and sisters OHs are there either, so its not like she is the only in-law not being included.

I agree with everyone else, she has serious issues she needs counselling for. That is not normal behaviour and shows some deep seated trust issues which are clearly getting worst. Trust is often linked to low self esteem which is why she is probably taking this very personally.

Just a thought - are you allowed anyone with a facetime or other camera at your ceremony? Maybe stream the service to a TV set up somewhere for the rest of the family to sit and watch? Its fairly easy to set up a link from an ipad to a tv. You would just need someone with an ipad/tablet in the ceremony.

That's a really good idea about trying to stream the wedding so everyone can see it, I am not very technically minded so I will speak to h2b and see if he thinks that would work. She definitely does need some sort of help with her issues but not sure how to go about that without offending her more than what I already have. Thank for understanding my situation.

This must be a really difficult situation. I can totally understand that the spaces are limited and your reasoning behind not inviting her to the ceremony. Do you need her husband to stay with your H2B the night before? I think if I were her I would feel excluded anyway and this would feel like salt in the wound.