Wedding Invitation Snub

[conuly]

Dear Annie: My youngest daughter, "Marta," is beautiful and caring but intellectually challenged. I have always encouraged all my kids to do what makes them happy, and she is no different. A couple of years ago, she met a wonderful man through mutual friends, "Brian." After dating for almost a year, they married last fall. We could not ask for anyone more caring and giving. Brian makes Marta his first priority as a spouse, partner and friend in his life.

The reason I'm writing: My second-youngest daughter, "Elle," who is 27, is getting married this fall and wants to invite Marta but not Brian.

Elle and her fiance would have preferred to skip this whole ordeal altogether and just get married at the courthouse. But they are doing the wedding his parents want (spending money that is supposed to be saved for a down payment on a house, but I digress). Elle has been really stressed out about it from the outset.

They said that they are only inviting people they talk to regularly and that Brian isn't someone they talk to regularly.

Brian and Marta were already saving up money for both of them to go. Additionally, Marta is not capable of getting there herself because of her aforementioned disability. I said all this to Elle, but she still said Brian can't come. I said, "Then maybe we won't come, either, because it's not fair that you're treating your sister this way." Now Elle is not talking to me or Marta and blocked my number and my messages online.

Am I wrong here? I do understand that they haven't wanted the wedding from the beginning. But now that they're having one, I think it would be wrong to exclude her brother-in-law. Family is family, whether you talk every day or not. -- Wedding Woes

Dear Wedding Woes: You're not wrong, but you can't force them to do what's right. Though it does strike me as odd to exclude a brother-in-law, this isn't my wedding -- and it's not yours, either. If Elle and her fiance don't want to invite Brian, that's their mistake to make.

Were I to squint hard to try to see a halfway decent rationale for their actions, I suppose I might focus on the fact that they didn't want a ceremony or reception to begin with. They may not see this as a big deal or understand how hurtful such a snub can be. As for how they expect Marta to get there when she needs Brian's assistance while traveling -- well, I have no idea what they're thinking. You and Marta might contact airlines to see what assistance is available for travelers with disabilities, if she'd still like to go. But it would be perfectly OK for her to stay home, too. That would be the bride and groom's fault and, most of all, their loss.

https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/dearannie/s-2464710

Comments

[conuly]

I have no idea what's going on here. Does Elle have some sort of serious complaint against Brian that either she hasn't told LW or LW refuses to believe? Is this wedding like a child's birthday party that only allows 15 guests, and Brian would be guest number 16? Is it Elle's fiance or his parents that don't like Brian? (Should they tell his parents to fuck off? Yes to that last one. I already don't like them, and they barely show up in this letter at all.)

I'd normally say a. you can invite whomever you like to your wedding and b. skipping your own child's wedding when she wants you to be there is an enormous affront unless you've got some really good reason - but in this case, unless we're missing a whole ton of explanation (always a possibility!), I think LW is in the right to skip the wedding that Elle has tacitly maneuvered to exclude her sister from, along with her sister's husband.

(Has LW been badgering Elle about this and is this why she got blocked? Wow, so many questions about what's going on.)

[azurelunatic]

Since covid restrictions have put a lid on large gatherings in many places, that's what I would look at first.

I also don't like Elle's fiance's parents. If there was ever a time for a courthouse ceremony in the moment and maybe a larger party when things are better situated, this is it.

[starfleetbrat]

I think there is more going on that is what in this letter. Elle's reactions seem over the top for the situation. And LW's description of Brian had fire alarms going off in my suspicious overly paranoid brain. Feels like one of those Midday Movies where it turns out the Super Nice Caring and Sharing Brother In Law has shown his true colours to the sister and no one believes her.

[conuly]

I suppose it depends on exactly how disabled her daughter really is.

[oursin]

Or the famous Victorian case of Harriet Staunton, which was the subject of a 1934 novel by Elizabeth Jenkins.

[jadelennox]

Heh. I went in the opposite direction with the missing info; I read that as Elle being the type who thinks "what kind of jerk would marry my disabled sister??? he obviously can't be trusted, because marrying someone intellectually disabled is something only gross people do."

But then I've known real life examples of both your take and my take, and honestly they're both equally likely given the available story.

[naath]

Every guest at a wedding costs money (and Covid risk), maybe they can't afford to feed Brian. Maybe they don't like Brian. Maybe the just don't want a fucking wedding and are taking out their annoyance at being forced to have one on a convenient target. If Marta can't get ther without Brian (I couldn't make a trip like that alone either) they are effectively uninviting her too; perhaps they don't like Marta and don't want here there but have been pressured into inviting her "because fambly".

Maybe Wedding Woes should stop assuming this is even a shred of her business, and get over it. If they don't want to go, don't.

[azdak]

I would want to know a lot more about Brian, a man who married a woman who is beautiful but so "intellectually challenged" that she can't fly on a plane without him, before deciding that his sister-in-law had no good reason not to talk to him and to refuse to have him at her wedding. He might be a great guy who loves his wife for her caring nature and other (unmentioned) virtues, or he might - not. There's no way of knowing from this letter.

Edited because I had in my head that the LW calls her daughter "intellectually disabled" but in fact she says "intellectually challenged" and only refers later to "the aforementioned disability".

[conuly]

If she really has an intellectual disability, my guess is that he does too. He's perhaps a bit less impaired than she is, at least in the tricky area of "navigation in unfamiliar spaces", or perhaps she has some other disabilities. It's not like you're limited to just one, as we all know.

[oursin]

That was my guess (that 'mutual friends' might stand for 'support group' of some kind), and maybe it's something that Elle thinks (rightly or wrongly) would be disturbing/disruptive in a way her sister's would not?

[azdak]

If Elle knows her sister can't fly without him, refusing to invite Brian gives her plausible deniability for effectively not inviting her sister.

[azdak]

This is entirely possible but we just don't know. Maybe the LW thought it would make Elle look bad to mention it, or maybe she didn't mention it because he doesn't have an intellectual disability. The picture changes dramatically depending on this sort of detail.

[azdak]

On re-reading the letter, Brian also having disbalities does seem like the most likely scenario. Elle is being a bitch to Brian and Mom doesn't want to expose her to the amount of public criticism she knows she'd get if she were up-front about Elle's motivations. Which makes the unreasonable in-laws seem like a bit of a red herring.

[lilysea]

I would want to know a lot more about Brian, a man who married a woman who is beautiful but so "intellectually challenged" that she can't fly on a plane without him

I know lots of people who are capable of living independently but not of travelling by plane independently due to

- spatial navigation
- time blindness
- sensory overload
- communication issues [especially given how shit TSA staff are about interacting with Disabled people]

ADHD, Autism, Dyspraxia could all check these boxes...

[azdak]

These are all certainly possibilities and this sort of information would greatly clarify Brian's role in all this.

[delphi]

+1 Any potential elided issues about Brian aside, plane travel and navigating your way in and out of an airport can be really tricky, even without any extra challenges. I have a close family member who worked a highly skilled job all his life, raised a family, handles his own finances and legal affairs just fine, who nonetheless can't gamble on flying on his own. He has an auditory processing disorder that makes it difficult to understand loudspeaker announcements and also has dyslexia. He can read well enough to work his way through something when he can take his time, but he relies on having someone with him to read signs when he's driving somewhere new, find the right office in a new building, or to work apps or dial phone numbers on the fly. In the high-stakes time-crunch of flying, the risk of losing his way or missing an update is just too high for his comfort.

[mommy]

I have the feeling that Elle would write a completely different letter about the same series of events. The problem is that I can't really tell which details would be in that letter. And without more information, the only advice I can give is "it's not your wedding, so butt out" which doesn't solve the logistical issues of Marta travelling on her own.

[beable]

"The doing the wedding his parents want" and the having to spend their precious down payment money to do it gives me some pause.

It leaves me wondering whether Elle's in-laws idea of a "perfect wedding" does not really have room for Marta or Brian because ablist aesthetics but they have some basic recognition that they can't actually outright exclude the sister of the bride.

[ambyr]

This was my assumption, but I agree with many above that the letter is so vague as to leave possible a multitude of readings.

[heavenscalyx]

I'm guessing Elle didn't want Marta there (is she embarrassed by her sister? has Marta met fiance's parents?) and hit upon the best plausibly-deniable solution. There's a lot of missing info here.

[rosefox]

That was my thought too, but yeah, there's a lot we don't know.

[shirou]

Either Elle is excluding her BIL without explanation—beyond not speaking regularly—and expects her family to pretend this is a normal and reasonable decision, or she explained and LW is omitting the reason from her letter, suggesting it’s something LW wishes to conceal. Taking LW at face value and assuming the former, I think it’s justified for LW to stand by Marta and Brian and skip the wedding.

[xenacryst]

"All is strange and vague."

"Are we dead?"

"Or is this Ohio another advice letter with so many details left out as to be utterly devoid of context?"

[cereta]

AHAHAHA. Love that line.