Do you think the groom's sister should be in the wedding party?

[BriarfoxinWA]

Oh man can I relate to this. When I got married my future SIL - who was 17 at the time threw a fit because we had her watching the guest book and she wanted to be "in the wedding". DH and I had 2 attendants each - his cousin was Best Man and a family friend was a groomsman. I had my best friend as Maid of Honor and had asked one of DH's cousins (we were good friends) to be a bridesmaid. Well my bridesmaid couldn't make it and MIL asked if I would put SIL in as her replacement. I had off the shoulder bridesmaids dresses and SIL went out the day before the wedding and sunburned herself in a tank top, lovely

Personally I think the sister needs to back off. This day is not about her.

 

[browneyes106]

It does sound like the bride is excluding his family for some reason. Has anyone hurt her in the past? Has anyone said anything about her starting to have kids at 16yo w/ different men, and it got back to her??? That's my guess.

As far as the neices/nephews and her kids... they are all considered the *children* in a family, no matter their real age. A sibling is considered a pier (is that the right spelling?) of the bride and groom, so is on a different level than the *children* of the family, no matter the actual age of the siblings. So it sounds like the bride is having all the attendants be *children* for whatever reason. Is the bride an only child? If she is, she may be jealous of the groom/sister relationship, or she may not understand the relationship, or she may not care. Or she may think if it were a brother, it would be a different story and the groom would have him in the wedding party, but since it's a sister and not her sister, it's not a big deal. And if she's not an only child, she's also not including her own siblings, right?

The sister should keep quiet - I don't think expressing her feelings at this point is going to make anything better, and will probably only make it worse. It will make her seem very immature - the bride will probably think "i already have 4 kids... I don't need another *kid* in my family. this is a sister, not a child"... and the bride will once again be questioned on her choices... and if I were the sister, I wouldn't want to be in the wedding party because the bride felt forced to have me. no thanks.

after the wedding, the sister can try to slowly develop a relationship w/ the bride if she wants. she can also keep her relationship w/ her brother if it doesn't work out w/ the bride. she can call bro on his cell phone occasionally to say HI. She can meet him at his work for lunch occasionally. Of course it's better to have a relationship w/ both of them, but if it turns out this bride is an evil person and looking to separate her groom from his family, the sis does have a few options.

The relationship between the bride and groom is weird in a lot of ways. They have known each other for about three years but the groom has been in other relationships. They live three hours apart and the family didn't meet the bride until March after the brother announced he was engaged in December 2007. About six months before that the brother was in a relationship with another woman. The bride's siblings are involved more than my friend. Her two brothers are going to be ushers. Her sisters are going to be taking up the communion gifts. My friend has no involvement at all in the ceremonies. The bride isn't really nice to any of the aunts, uncles and cousins on the groom's side. She has never really had any conversations with them. Back in May a cousin had invited her to the first Holy Communion party for her daughter and the bride only showed up to pick up the groom. She didn't even go inside the reception hall. The bride has been nice to my friend at times but since the planning of the wedding she never offered my friend a way to participate in the wedding.

 

[Wishing on a star]

I think your friend is getting off easy. This is not going to end up well and the further she is from this the better.
...
Browneyes, do your friend a favor and help her to step back from this. The girl wants nothing to do with his family, he brother is participating in this nonsense and anything that his family does to show their displeasure is going to backfire.


If the bride to be sensed that there was some kind of distaste for her or her children she may have been angry or hurt enough to give the brother an ultimatum and she got the short stick. I say that because the brother is no prize her, he has not stood up for his family and I bet he never stood up for her if there was a problem. He just slinks into the background and lets someone else handle the details. Now he can blame the bride if things go badly. He can blame his family if they don't play nice with the bride. And he is just a poor victim stick in the middle.

Well said....

I did not read all of the responses here before posting...
But the above post bears re-reading.
Excellent advice.

And, I agree with this comment as well.

Personally I think the sister needs to back off. This day is not about her.