So last year I was in my fiance's sister's wedding... We don't really talk at all.. Unless she is coloring my hair, which is usually maybe once every 3 months? It's not that I don't like her we just don't necessarily click. But when her wedding came around, her maid of honor (who was an off and on friend to begin with..) was kicked out of the wedding.. She had mentioned me being in the wedding before... but after this she really asked me to be in it.

So now I am beginning the long process of planning our wedding and my question is... Since I was in her wedding.. am I obligated to ask her to be in mine?? Like I said before, we're not really friends.. But I don't want to put her off or offend his family if I don't include her in the wedding party...

What would you do??

I didn't have bridesmaids because I just didn't want to figure this sort of thing out.

I guess it really depends on your family and the type of wedding you're having. As much as we'd all like to say, "It's your wedding, do what you want.", it's not. It's everyone's wedding and it's sort of all about family. I've been to plenty of weddings that included their future in-laws in the wedding party just because they were future in-laws, close-ness aside. I guess I'd include her, because it's the family thing to do, unless you've got some other reasons you don't want to.

Etiquette-wise, you never have to reciprocate an invitation to be a wedding attendant - particularly in this situation, where you knew that you barely made it into hers.

HOWEVER, because she is your fiance's sister, I say it's his call. It's totally reasonable for some families to expect siblings to be attendants no matter how distant the relationship. (My brother was a groomsman in my wedding despite close to zero relationship with my husband.) Just tell your fiance that based on your friendship if she wasn't his sister you wouldn't ask her to be in it, but that it's his decision because it's his family.

I would ask her. If you don't you may hear about it forever how you didn't ask her to be in your wedding.

Etiquette says you don't have to, but if you think the family would give you grief it might be the easier choice. I agree with ERHR that it's definitely worth asking your fiance if you haven't... I know it's YOUR half of the wedding party but it's still his wedding too, and it might matter to him whether you ask her.

zoodoo: I thought about having no wedding party too haha. But there are a couple close friends I have had for years that I want to include so I decided to go ahead and do it haha.

ERHR: That's a great idea! But I really don't think he cares at all.. hahaha! He really hasn't been involved in any of the planning so far.. and I don't think he has any idea who he wants to be his groomsmen either..

bargoo: Yeah that's what I'm afraid of... I really don't care if she likes me or not (she gets offended easily and she's not the greatest to people, so she doesn't have a lot of friends... and the ones she does have she gets into fights with all the time and then just kicks them out of her life for a while) But it's his parents I don't want to offend :/ plus I don't know if he will be including his brother in his side.. and I have a part of the ceremony that will include our parents.. so I don't want her to be the only one left out ://

ugh idk haha!!

It's all in the interest of family harmony.

If you ask them to be in the party do they have to be included in all of the planning and everything?? I wasn't included in any of hers.. just set up the night before.. But she's not really the helpful type...

And she has sort of job now..but I doubt it will still be there next year.. and I don't want to obligate her to buy a dress if she can't.. but I can't afford to buy everyone's dresses either.. so idk...

Well, if your fiance hasn't decided on his groomsmen yet - especially regarding his brother - put off the decision. Even if he doesn't care whether or not his sister is in the wedding, he knows best about how his family will react to her not being included. I agree that family harmony is a major important factor in these decisions.

As for including others in your planning process, it's totally up to you. My husband and I wanted to pretty much do all the planning but my parents were feeling left out so we gave them some stuff to do even though we could have managed it ourselves. My bridesmaids did barely anything aside from choosing their dresses until they actually flew in a couple days before the wedding. I encourage you to get your fiance involved - planning our wedding together was a great bonding experience for me and my husband and helped to show both of our parents that he and I were now a unit and no longer primarily a part of our parents' families.

Do you think the family would be pacified if you included her in the ceremony in some other way? The default way to include someone you don't really want in your ceremony is to have them do a reading. If they screw it up, only THEY look bad, it doesn't really affect your whole wedding like having an unhelpful or unpleasant bridesmaid would.

She's family, so ask her to be in the wedding. Your not obligated to have her as a maid of honner, cause you weren't her first choice and you only got it cause she booted her friend from her wedding.
If she would make a stink about not being the MOH...than make her the Matron of Honner since she's married. She'll get the title, but your MOH, will be whoever you chose, and who will help you with the wedding.

ERHR: Yeah I guess we will wait until its closer to that time to pick the wedding party.. Who knows we may have completely different friends by then lol!
And I say he isn't interested.. but I guess he has been for a guy.. haha! We've gone to look at venues together and such.. but as far as color schemes and flowers and everything he isn't interested lol! So at least we're doing some things together!
But you know like putting together wedding favors and having a nice bachelorette party and dress shopping.. I would like to enjoy everything and have fun doing all of it! And I'm afraid she would bring everyone else down :// And if she got mad I would be so afraid she would just say forget it.. But I guess then I at least tried?? But she's really overweight and has all sorts of medical issues and always feels bad... I'm also so afraid she would bail the day of and everything would be off..

Mayness: That would be a great idea... but I've heard her read out loud before.. and she would 100% mess up.. a lot.. and then we would all be embarrassed.. lol. But I think that may work for someone else that I have been trying to place! Thanks!

oh she won't be my maid of honor or anything haha.
I think I'm going to be stuck in drama either way ://

Hmm. Well, my brother was in my wedding, but my husband's brother and sisters were not in the wedding party. His step-brothers, father, and best friend were.

I had one of his sister's do the readings. She really wanted one of her son's to be the ring bearer. She hinted several times. But, I didn't do it because then it would have started a bunch of stupid junk with my brother's wife. I had to have my brother's wife in the wedding because she is a first class b*tch from h*ll, and I would have never heard the end of it if I didn't. Of course, we have not been on speaking terms for the last several years, so it doesn't matter now anyway.

I say, if your fiance doesn't have an opinion, then choose who you want to be in the wedding.

i agree, it's your wedding and your husband's wedding...you two can decide who and what you want in your own special day...unless someone else is footing the bill for it, do what you want...relatives who make a big drama out of things like that aren't people you really want to interact with anyhow....and like someone else said, they're not on speaking terms now anyhow so it wouldn't have mattered

when DH and i married, we did it at home with just our closest friends around and didnt' tell anyone else ahead of time...got a marriage commissioner and it was just us, our sons, and our BIL , his wife and their 3 children....alot of our friends were surprised and (probably) offended that they weren't included/invited but we didn't really choose to get into conversations about all that and the issue never progressed to full-out drama