AITA for not inviting my aunts and uncles to my wedding and my cousins going no contact afterward?
Hi Charlotte and lovely potatoes!! I’m really grateful to be able to share this story here because I’ve been watching Charlotte for years and am ready to share this story. Literally can’t believe this was my life.
I (29F) have been married to my incredible husband (29M) for a few years now, and I am so glad I can finally air out this family drama. I didn’t invite my aunts and uncles to my wedding, and my cousins went no-contact because of it.
FOR CONTEXT: My cousins and I were always close growing up. I was the youngest of 9 cousins on my mom’s side, and my older cousins were more like siblings since I was an only child. Our parents (5 siblings total plus their spouses) did NOT get along, many of them struggled with addiction, and my cousins and I kind of trauma bonded because our family was such a hot mess. Honestly some of my best memories from childhood were because of my cousins and how we got through so much together.
Outside of the relationship with my cousins, I’ve always been the black sheep of the family. My mom’s family is white middle-class and my dad is brown and grew up in poverty. My dad and I were the only non-white people in my mom’s family. They made it a point to bring it up often and reminded us that we would never be good enough for them. One of my aunts (we’ll call her “Rachel”) even told my dad to his face that she would never like him because he’s brown. I am also the only person in the family who is openly part of the LGBTQ+ community. Some of the fights my mom and her siblings had with each other were because they wouldn’t accept my dad and me, and eventually my mom’s sister began doing some awful things to me to the extent that I landed in the ER. My mom had a heart attack around the time I graduated from college, and the only person who went to go see her was my dad (and they had been divorced for over a year at that point). He essentially begged my mom’s siblings to come visit her in the hospital, and they all refused. After seeing (and living) how my mom’s siblings treated all three of us, I began to limit my contact with all of them.
My then-fiance (who for context is Asian and also part of the LGBTQ+ community) proposed in 2021 after getting both of my parents’ blessings, which was really important to all three of us. Sadly, my mom passed away less than a year later, and we had a small but meaningful funeral service limited to her family, a few select friends, my dad, my fiance, and me. I planned the entire funeral by myself, and my dad fronted the money for it because I was about to start medical school and was pretty broke. Remember that at that point, my parents had been divorced for several years, and my dad was the only one who helped me with my mom’s funeral. Her own family didn’t chip in (not like they had ever though). My mom was very covid-conscious during the pandemic, and I specifically planned her funeral without a party afterwards, mostly because I didn’t think she would want one when the risk of getting covid was still so high and my grandmother was elderly and frail. My mom’s sister Rachel planned a party at my grandmother’s house and chose not to invite me, my dad, or my fiance. The only reason I found out was because I went to go see my grandmother after the funeral to make sure she was okay and to spend some time remembering my mom together, and my mom’s siblings were all living it up at a brunch buffet in my grandma’s backyard. They wouldn’t speak to the three of us. From that day on, we’ve been no contact and my life has been better than ever.
Now for the wedding drama: here’s where things get interesting. My then-fiance and I live in the Midwest and most of my family is on the coast. My fiancé’s family is much smaller than mine and is scattered across the globe, so we decided to have our wedding near my family to make things easier for them, especially for my cousins and their spouses and kids. This also meant we planned our entire wedding remotely and had to fit our outfits, favors, decorations, etc. into a suitcase. We could have just as easily had the wedding closer to where we live, but we chose not to because it was important for as much of our families to be there as possible. My mom’s siblings were not invited to the wedding, as we were already no-contact at that point. We sent our save-the-dates as early as we could, which was about 11 months before the wedding.
Five of my eight cousins replied relatively early on and were very excited to attend. I asked one of those five, we’ll call him “Evan” to be my man of honor, and he was so excited to accept. Evan is a few years older than me and we are the two youngest cousins. He is like my older brother and has supported me through absolutely everything, and it only made sense for him to be by my side. As the RSVP deadline approached, the only three I had yet to hear from were the three oldest, aunt Rachel’s kids (we’ll call them “Brittney”, “Michelle”, and “Steve”) along with their spouses and kids. They all lived no more than an hour from our wedding venue, and we had a kid-friendly wedding specifically so they wouldn’t need to find childcare. We even got a special allergen-free wedding cake because one of Brittney’s kids was allergic to eggs and dairy. Another important detail here is that Steve and Evan were very close growing up because they were the only two boys of the nine cousins.
The first of the three oldest to RSVP was Michelle. She RSVP’d “No” with no explanation, no apology, no conversation. It was kind of odd, but I didn’t think anything of it. That is, until Brittney RSVP’d the next day. She RSVP’d “No” with an elaborate email message explaining how she had a vacation planned for the same weekend as our wedding that she couldn’t reschedule. Mind you, our save-the-dates had gone out almost a year in advance and I’ve never known Brittney to plan a vacation that far ahead.
The RSVP that hurt the most though was Steve’s. Steve and I were pretty close growing up and I always felt like I could count on him and look up to him. He didn’t like how his mom Rachel treated the people in our family (including trying to kidnap our grandma!!) and did his best to stand up to her, which is more than I can say for Brittney and Michelle. So when he RSVP’d “No” and told me that he had just started a new job and had a “big project” to work on during my wedding day, that broke me a little bit. That was when I realized that Rachel had likely coerced her kids into not going to my wedding (and honestly had probably threatened them with something). This was later confirmed by Evan. I was so hurt, and I decided that if I didn’t mean enough to my cousins for them to show up for one of the most important days of my life, that maybe they shouldn’t mean as much to me as I was giving them credit for. I cut contact with them, and my wedding party, including Evan, made a hilarious and beautiful plan to protect me from any family drama that could get in the way of our wedding day. The wedding itself was beautiful and exactly what we wanted, no drama, just fun, love, and lots of rainbows.
A few months later, I had a break from med school and went to visit Evan and his girlfriend for a night. Evan and I got breakfast the next morning and he filled me in on all the family drama that had transpired since the wedding. Basically, the family fell apart. I don’t remember too much about the details of this, but the one thing I do remember hearing was that Steve and Evan had stopped talking to each other after my wedding. Evan was really upset with Steve for not only choosing not to go to my wedding but for lying to me about why, and Evan told me he didn’t want a relationship with someone who would treat his (effectively) little sister that way. To this day I still feel bad that Evan and Steve went no contact because of me, but it meant a lot that Evan stood up for me, especially since Steve wouldn’t.
Long story short, I’ve now graduated from medical school and became a doctor, I’m married to my best friend, and we are preparing to start our family soon. I’m living the life I had always dreamed of, and it’s even more beautiful knowing my mom’s racist and homophobic family won’t be part of it. I feel like I’ve finally found peace away from them.
As much as my life is great at this point, I still feel guilty for not inviting my mom’s family and that Steve and Evan stopped talking. AITA?