agonyaunt | (no subject)

Our wedding is approaching. My future husband has four siblings, one of whom is single. As we finalized our guest list, it was obvious to me that his single sister would not get a plus one for the wedding. But my fiancé objected. His sister occasionally brings a male friend to family events, and they engage in public displays of affection that are awkward for everyone. Also, our wedding is taking place across the country, and including this man in wedding events over several days doesn’t sit right with me. Am I being old-fashioned?

This is your wedding. You are allowed to be as old-fashioned as you and your fiancé agree to be. Keep in mind, though, that his sister may be very important to him. And since you are asking people to fly across the country to spend several days celebrating your wedding, he may want to offer his sister the courtesy of a companion.

Still, you have an equal vote here. I’m not exactly clear whether your objection to the plus one is that his sister is unmarried, her P.D.A. with her boyfriend makes you uncomfortable or you just don’t want to see this guy at your wedding. (Maybe it’s all three!) Be straight with your fiancé and talk this through. Sadly, it will not be the last compromise you two have to reach.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/03/style/airplane-seat-etiquette-social-qs.html

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LW may believe her reasons are obvious, but they're not obvious to me. It's also not obvious to me why LW insists her fiance's sister is single.

What is obvious to me is that you cannot be a bitch to your future sister-in-law and her boyfriend. And the fact that LW thinks she does not need to defend or even state her reasons for denying this woman a plus-one, against her fiance's objections - well, if she had a good reason I guess she would have told us what it is, right?

I sure hope she said more to her fiance than "It's obvious" and "Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but it's obvious", but we can't be sure of that. If she hasn't been able to have an open conversation with him about it, that's a big problem.

LW needs to stop being petty. She also needs to spend a little bit of money on premarital counseling - this is a ridiculous problem, and it does not bode well for the marriage that she is holding firm on this and does not appear to see her future husband's point of view. You cannot cover up relationship problems by having a big fancy wedding. Counseling now is cheaper than divorce later. Even if counseling reveals that they should not get married it will be cheaper to eat the cost of whatever they can't refund than to get divorced later.

Maybe it's just the stress of the upcoming wedding making her absolutely controlling.

I had to read this twice to figure out that the "single" sister is bringing the same male friend to multiple family events, as opposed to a different short-term fling each time. Whether this man is the sister's partner or a friend with benefits, it sounds like he's been around for long enough to get the same invite as the other siblings' partners.

Maybe the fiancé can talk to the sister and get minimal PDA as a compromise. It's not clear whether the LW has unusually strict standards for PDA or whether sister and friend like to practice their best octopus-hands acrobatics while leaving scattered clothing items on the picnic table.

I wonder if the 'public displays of affection' would be entirely unexceptionable if sister and male friend were actually married? Just running that up the flagpole....

(Though my counter-narrative on this is that sister and male-pal are both gay, in circles which would not approve - I think we get this vibe? - so are being Very Performatively Het on public occasions, bearding for one another.)

I got the same vibe.

Although maybe they're just both un-married by choice in circles that don't approve of *that*, and are Very Performatively PDA on public occasions on purpose, in which case I approve.

My BFF is straight; I'm not (both women) Sometimes we're huggy/touchy/pda in public to the point that people think we're dating. They could be each other's beards, or they could be physically affectionate platonic friends whose position askew of allosexual heteronormativity is wigging the LW out.

"It was obvious to me that his single sister would not get a plus one for the wedding" -- sounds almost like the married siblings are getting "SiblingName plus one" invitations rather than "SiblingName and TheirSpouseName" invitations. Or do the married couples get to bring the thirds in their triads but the single sister gets shut out?

Anyway, I'm somewhat old-fashioned on this topic, and you know what? The fact that the male friend has been the sister's guest at multiple family events indicates that he is a major prescence in her life. I might not *explicitly* invite him if they've only been seeing each other for a few months (if this is a multi-year relationship, that's another story), but I would certainly tell the sister that she is welcome to bring a plus-one.

And going back to the weird wording -- is anyone else getting a plus-one invitation? If so, then obviously the sister should too.

If the event is strictly for relatives, including married partners of the relatives, and this is a long-term relationship and the guy has been to most of the family events, I would have a brief chat with the sister that included "hey, so you and Bob are still together? Great, I will send the invitation for both of you," in case there had been a breakup. But ... eesh, I do not like the vibe this bride is sending.

I do not like the vibe this bride is sending
Yeah. At my wedding, we had to keep the guest list down. One thing we decided to do along these lines was to not invide first cousins to bring dates (although spouses were invited). One of my uncles asked if I could let their son invite a girlfriend anyhow. You know what? We did. You know what else? I'm really glad we did -- at that point, her family was against their relationship, and it made her feel accepted by ours. And they ended up getting married and that worked out, too.

It just sounds like this bride is trying to gatekeep membership in her husband's family somehow.

I do not like the vibe this bride is sending.

This sums the letter up for me.