I wasn't invited.

[mrsmcfarland]

:rolleyes: Ok, so one of my 1st cousins on my Dad's side is getting married in a few weeks and I was not invited to the wedding. My dad got an invite and she has like 150+ things on here registry so its not a small wedding. I'm getting married in October. Should I still invite her and new hubby to my wedding or not? Should I send a gift even though I wasn't invited? I think I should invite them because #1, I planned on inviting them anyway and #2, I want them to feel guilty for not inviting me :p . Wouldn't they feel even more guilty if I was sweet enough to buy a gift too?

My grandmother on my mom's side says I should send an invite but no gift. What do you guys think?

By the way....this situation is all the more annoying because this cousin and her siblings are like gold to my dad's side of the family and i know everyone else on that side of the family will be running to get to her wedding and have some excuse why they can't come to mine.

[Sare79]

I can definitely relate. My first cousin is totally favoured by my dad's side of the family and although I was invited to his wedding, I know that a lot of my family will be coming out for his wedding in the beginning of September and not for mine in October. They misspelled my name and FH's name on our invites, didn't invite us to the shower, haven't rsvp'd to our invite for our wedding...
I really feel like my cousin does these things just to spite me, but they probably aren't. Sometimes people just don't know what they are doing or if they are hurting you.
I think you should send them an invite, but don't send a gift. If they didn't invite you to the wedding, you don't need to send a gift. If they really wanted a gift from you they would have invited you to the wedding.

[tlew12778]

Part of me thinks that she had to make cuts somewhere right? I was not invited to one of my first cousin's wedding (but she is a cousin by marriage not blood) and she will not be invited to mine. But I'm not not inviting her she didn't invite me. Both of us chose destination weddings and it just wasn't practical for either of us to invite the other. My mom, on the other hand, thought it was a bit odd she was not invited but she understood and sent a gift anyway.

I would not send a gift, but I would invite her to your wedding if that was your original intent.

[babylove]

Hmmm...I *wish* I had an easy out to kick some of my cousins off the invite list! :D

I have a different opinion on your situation...I would send a small token gift (or even a donation in her and her hubby's name to a favorite charity), but not invite them to your wedding. While I totally see the draw in wanting to lay on the guilt by inviting them to your wedding (I would feel the same way!), I also wouldn't want to include someone in my special day who didn't think enough of me to include me in her special day. Does that make sense? Good luck! I am sure whatever you decide will be the right choice for you.

[Sabrina]

If you were already planning to invite them to your own wedding, I would keep them on your guestlist. You don't really know why they left you off their list.

However, I would not send them a gift...maybe just a card, if I was feeling generous;)

[SusieQ]

A similar thing happened to me. My cousin (a male) got married last year and during that time his father (my uncle) and mother were getting a divorce. My cousin did not take part in the planning at all, it was all planned by his mom (who was very bitter), the bride and her mom. Well it turns out that during the chopping of their guestlist his mother and fiance (now wife) ended up cutting myself and my other cousin off even though they still invited our parents. His father (who was footing a big chunk of the bill) never knew that my cousin and I had been cut off the guest list so he was extremely upset. By the time he found out it was much too late and I was insulted enough that I was not going to go either way. After the fact my cousin apologized to me stating that he had no idea that we had been cut off the list b/c he wasn't involved in the planning, his wife never mentioned it in the few times that I've seen her since. Anyways, to make a long story short, although I originally had them on my guestlist I have since went from planning a large hometown wedding to much smaller destination wedding and have chopped them off the list without a blink. Even if i had still been planning a 250 guest wedding I still probably would not have invited them. I guess I felt like, if out of the 150 friends and family that they invited we weren't important enough to share in their special day then why would I want them at mine. My mother and aunts etc attended and told me that about 50% of their guests were friends, which to me was even more of an insult to know that they chose to keep friends on the list and cut off family who had grown up alongside my cousin.
my opinion in your situation is that if you still feel like inviting them to ther wedding do that but I would not send a gift.

[Asha]

if you were already planning on inviting her, invite her.

also, i would not send a gift. a card would suffice.

the same thing happened to us. barely any of my dh's relatives made any effort to go to our wedding. than a few months later his cousin had a baby shower, and every single one of his relative made the effort to go to that. i still feel insulted by it two years later. now, i only go to his family's occassions if i have nothing else planned. for example, his cousin was getting married on the same day as one of my friends. i went to my friend's wedding.

[Happy1]

Have you talked with any of your other cousins? Were they invited? If they were, I would contact your aunt. Sometimes the invites get lost in the mail. If no other first cousins were invited, they probably had to cut the list somewhere. Just because there are a ton of things on the registery does not mean it's a huge wedding. It's just giving the guests a lot of variety to choose from. I know once we got that registery gun we went sort of nutso with it ourselves.;)

I would keep your cousin on your guest list since that was your original intent and you don't know their reasons for having to cut the guest list where they did. Send a card and if you want, send a small gift. If you don't want to then just send the card. I'm sure you'll find out the situation somewhere down the road and this way, you won't have any regrets. Especially if their reasons for not inviting first cousins are good ones.

Nikki :D

[reeny]

I would still invite them since you were going to orginally, honestly they may not come since they did cut you off the list to begin with.
but
I would not send a gift. I would go by a cheap card and mail it. to me if you don't get an invite you don't have to send a gift.

good luck with your descision

ohhh and if you need to trim your list they would be the first to go :D

[Larissa]

Everyone has to cut the list somewhere, maybe first cousins was it for them.

We are inviting 100 people to our shindig, but my family is HUGE so 100 people got us nowhere. We are inviting my mother's family including all first cousins, aunts, and uncles. On my dad's side we are inviting aunts and uncles, but not cousins. I don't feel close to them, most are married with children and I can't name their partners or their children. Adding them to the guest list would have added another 25-30 people!! For his family we are inviting aunts, uncles, cousins on his dad's side, but only aunts and uncles on his mother's side (once again, it would have added about 25-30 people to the list). Not fair, but everyone has to make a cut somewhere!!

[IrisHope]

I would not invite them to my wedding if I was not invited to theirs.

[tenofcups]

I have two questions that would determine how I'd respond:

- Were other first cousins invited to this wedding? If not, then it wouldn't appear to be a slight, just a cutting-off point. If yes, well, then it's personal.

- Are YOU planning on inviting other first cousins? If yes, then I'd invite them either way (whether they invited other first cousins or not); if not, then I probably wouldn't invite them.

Whether or not I'd send a gift or card or nothing would depend a lot on the answer to the first question.

[LeslieR]

I believe that you invite people to functions because you would like for them to be there. Period. No other circumstances matter (they can't come, they probably won't come, they didn't invite you to this function or that function, whatever). That being said, if you would like for them to be there, then you should send them an invitation.

[KrissyCat7]

I think you should invite them to your wedding. You were planning on it before this happened so I say go for it. Who knows why they didnt invite you to theirs....but maybe there was a good reason. Maybe they had a limited # to invite.....

If you want them at your wedding invite them. As far as a gift, I dont think you need to send one, but if you really want to, then send one. :)

I definetly think you are the bigger person for still inviting them and even thinking about sending a gift. ;) ;)

[kemaji]

I would keep them on your guest list if you were planning on inviting them, however I would not feel obligated to send a gift and probably not even a card.

[BethElena]

I would keep her on the guest list if you're close to her. If not, the ax should fall.

FYI - i was invited to a first cousins wedding last year (with my FH) but my younger brother was not??? (he's 2 years younger than me). I think it would be more appropriate if all cousins were invited or none. Because I know that event left a bitter taste in my mouth - i felt guilty going while brother sat at home!!!

[mrsmcfarland]

Wow, thanks for all of the opinons. There were some questions that some of you had....I'll try to answer them.

Yes, Other cousins were invited but, they are all teenagers or younger and would be considered as coming with their parents (aunts and uncles). The older cousins are myself, the cousin getting married, and her siblings.

Yes, I plan to invite all my first cousins.

I don't think I'll even mention this to my aunt because she is the type of person who would be very involved and she knows 100% if I was left of the list or not. Also, she was asking my dad every time she saw him about my plans so I know she didn't just forget.

Oh, and I know it didn't get lost in the mail. They do not know my address and they did not ask my mom or dad for it.

Decision: I guess I will just invite them and not send a gift. I doubt they would appreciate it. I sent a gift for her baby shower ( I live out of town) and didn't even get a thank you note.

[Asha]

that's stupid of them to invite the kid cousins and not the adult cousins. by inviting the kid cousins they won't get anymore gifts out of it. by inviting the adult cousins, they will get some more gifts out of it. plus, i find it more pleasurable to spend time with adults than with pre-teens and teens who rarely enjoy that kinda of family event anyway.

[Kinetic]

I would continue to invite them to your own wedding.

But skip on the gift to them. I could understand if they were trying to keep it to a small wedding, but not inviting your 1st cousins seems kinda rude to me.

I actually went through this same thing. DH's cousin got married and didn't even tell or announce it to his parents or him. It appeared to be so sneaky. I think if I had a really small wedding, I would still want to share my joy with my own family. So, no mention of it was made, we didn't send them a gift. When it was our turn to mail out our wedding invites, we included her and her husband (as we felt we should.) They declined, no surprise there.