WIBTA for not asking one of my sister’s to be my bridesmaid?
This may get a little long and convoluted so apologies in advance! I tried my best to put years by events, since it’s a bit of a jumbled timeline to explain the relationship with my sisters.
I (25f) and my Fiancé (26m) got engaged a few months ago and are in the midst of wedding planning. My Fiancé and I met in late 2021 through a mutual friend, stayed just friends for a bit, started dating in late 2023, moved in together mid 2025, and he popped the question in early 2026. Our relationship has honestly been amazing, after only a few weeks of dating it was obvious to both of us and all of our friends that it would be forever. After only a few dates our mutual best friend who introduced us asked if she could officiate our wedding and we replied “No sorry it’ll have to be a priest because we would marry in the church” and she was dumbfounded because yes, we were already that in sync (But don’t worry she’ll be my MOH and we’re planning a surprise at the wedding to thank her for being our matchmaker)
Anyways, on to the story.
I was talking to my parents (Mid 60s) on the phone the other day,. We were chatting on how wedding planning is going and life in general. My parents decided to broach the topic of my bridesmaids, and asked me if I was going to have my sisters in my bridal party. For a little context, I have my eldest sister, Kelly (33f) and lives about an hour away from me in the Midwest with her husband and kids. Then there’s my middle but still older sister, Lacey (28f) who moved to the Pacific Northwest in 2021.
I told my parents that Kelly would 100% be a bridesmaid, that decision was a no brainer. Kelly and I are close, and she asked me to live with her during the pandemic when her husband got relocated for work. Kelly also has two young daughters, my amazing and adorable nieces, who will be our flower girls. I’ll admit I look up a lot to Kelly, we weren’t close as children due to our age gap, but she helped me through my first heartbreak at 17 and has been there for me since.
However, Lacey was a different story. I had to break it to them that I was considering not having Lacey as a bridesmaid. Lacey and I are closer in age and growing up we had a typical but tense sister relationship. Without going into too much detail, Lacey was the sibling with the knife, and I was the one being chased. If altercations were physical my parents almost always took my side since I rarely started it. However, Lacey’s seemingly favorite thing to do was constantly berate me, insult me, and gossip about me to her friends when I was a freshman and she was a senior. In those instances I was told by my parents “you know how your Lacey is, just be the bigger person”. And that’s how it was. At holidays our Aunts, Uncles, cousins, etc. would make comments to me about Lacey being a bit difficult, which honestly helped a lot. It made me feel better knowing even family that only saw her a handful of times a year could tell what kind of person she was. Now, I know I may be making Lacey sound like a devil child, but she was still well loved and celebrated by all family, immediate and extended. Our parents loved us all, and they did their best to be equitable among their children. Though Lacey often instigated fights with our mom, causing our mom to unleash some occasional menopausal wrath upon us while we were teens.
Before I get into this next part I want to add some context from Kelly’s wedding, which happened about ten years ago. It was the day I really realized just how narcissistic Lacey can be. Leading up to the wedding she complained constantly, gave her opinions when she wasn’t asked nor warranted to give them. She hated the bridesmaid dresses Kelly picked out for us and paid for, and made it very obvious to everyone. Lacey has always been a huge tom boy (important for later) so just about anything girly she had to do she complained about (hair, makeup, shoes). Lacey had also gained 30 lbs in the six months leading up to the wedding, and so her dress barely fit (Her own choices to “get big and strong” with questionable supplements and bad exercise caused her to develop a hormonal imbalance, took multiple doctors telling her to stop before she did), and she made it everyone else’s problem.
Luckily I was able to keep Kelly from hearing too much of it the day of. I did feel for Lacey as she had to face our entire family and all of our family friends not feeling or looking her best, and looking a bit squished in her bridesmaid dress, but it wasn’t her day and she should’ve kept her complaints to herself. I get being unhappy, but Lacey didn’t even pay for the dress so it’s not like she had to spend money on a dress she hated.
During a visit back home in 2023, Lacey asked to stayed with me instead of our parents. I was so happy I planned some things for us to do and invited some of my friends along as well per her request. The distance between us from her moving had honestly been helping our relationship and the last few times we had seen each-other went pretty well, so I was excited to have stay with me.
We ended up going out one night to drag bingo and then hit clubs. She insulted me, multiple times, right infront of my friends. And not just insults, but insults where she puts me down and lifts herself up. One in particular that stuck with me was her saying how I didn’t look nearly as good as her even though she only took five minutes to get ready and an hour for me to (respectfully, she didn’t, but I guess that’s subjective). Guess she didn’t understand the girlhood of the slow getting-ready while drinking and blasting music things my friends and I were doing, so she kinda insulted them too. Lacey also took multiple digs at my now Fiancé, who she STILL has never even met. There were a few other similar incidents that weekend, and I was so over it. After she left I called my parents and told them she was never staying with me again, and she would have to stay with them, Kelly, or get a hotel. Kelly doesn’t seem to apt to have Lacey to stay with her either, though that may trace back to some issues between Kelly’s Husband and Lacey. Let’s just say my brother-in-law is NOT afraid to call out Lacey’s BS.
Now, for the final bit of context: Lacey is a Masc Lesbian. She came out to our parents in 2020, with the support of Kelly and I (even went viral on tiktok for it) Our parents have always been more conservative, Fox News was on often at our house when I was younger (Luckily they’ve moved to getting their news from independent reporters). However, we all knew our parents well enough to know that they’d love us regardless. You wouldn’t catch our parents at Pride, but they’re accepting of the lifestyle. So overall that all went well. There’s no big, sad, devastating coming out story for her. She came out, my parents had some questions but were accepting, and life went on. She moved to the PNW shortly after and basically completely rebuilt her life and personality around what’s popular within the LGBTQIA+ community. Honestly other than her narcissistic tendencies, her ability to tear me down, and our shared love of Star Wars, I don’t recognize her much. I do try to visit every other year, and she visits the midwest the other years, and we occasionally plan visits to our parents (now retired to florida) at the same time.
So, back to being on the phone with my parents. All the context I just said above is stuff I have discussed with a therapist. I have a good handle on how my sister’s actions and words have affected me throughout my life. Because of that, I was already on the fence of having Lacey as a bridesmaid since I have a really hard time picturing her NOT doing something that will upset me the day of. My parents understood my hesitation without me having to explain, but still wanted me to consider my sister.
So I told my parents “Look, (Fiancé) and I want a fairly traditional wedding. I will ask her how she feels about wearing a dress to the ceremony, given that she can change after into a suit for the reception if she wants. Her response is going to heavily dictate which way I leaned in my decision.” My parents felt this was fair - it was basically a test to see how Lacey responded. If she was willing to compromise a bit, then I’d consider it.
Guess what? She immediately said no and started complaining saying she isn’t going to look good in a dress with her big shoulders and short hair (half of my bridesmaids have big shoulders, and so do I so that’s a stupid excuse). Then she started cracking jokes about it. I am thinking now of having my Fiancé’s sister as a bridesmaid instead. I am decently close with her and she has been a huge supporter of our relationship since the my Fiancé set his eyes on me.
I say Lacey is probably expecting to be in the bridal party simply because she is my sister, and because Kelly had both of us in hers. It’s possible I may have made a comment or two about her being a bridesmaid for me at a younger age, but at this point that was way before my Fiancé and I started dating.
To me it’s two-fold:
- She refuses to compromise, she’s been like that her entire life, and I’ve been the one who got the brunt of that before she moved away. I know she prefers to dress masculine, however I’ve always wanted a fairly traditional wedding with my bridesmaids in dresses and at least SOME makeup like mascara and lip gloss. In my opinion, most bridesmaids don’t like their dresses, it’s part of life.
Lacey
- hasn’t even met my Fiancé nor has she expressed any interest in doing so, yet continues to put down him and our relationship. She holds on to a few comments I made about my Fiancé to her before we started dating (He came on a bit too strong originally right after I went through a breakup) and now tries to throw them back at me to insult my Fiancé. Lac
ey
- even tried to tell ME that “You are not really in love with (Fiancé), you just want to be in a relationship”. That comment didn’t hurt, because I know how in love I am with my Fiancé, but I am glad she made it. She hadn’t even asked me about my Fiancé once in any of our phone calls, she knew nothing about our relationship, yet she still tried to tear it down.
But in the end, she is still my sister. I do love her and want her to be successful and happy in life. I keep up with how she’s doing in her career, as she has to pass many exams to move up positions in her field. I know Lacey has some issues in her personal life, and that dating has always been hard for her. She’s had nothing but bad relationships these last few years. She’s the type of person who makes impulsive decisions, and it seems like every year she wants to move somewhere new and start over (NY, England, LA) though these ideas are always half baked and end up falling flat once you start asking her the logistics of everything (job, visa, moving, pets, etc). I am honestly concerned for her mental health a lot, she’s very much so the type of person that sees “signs of Autism you didn’t know” on TikTok and self-diagnosed herself. She does get therapy, and for some reason when she started she texted our mother “I hope you know you’re the reason I need therapy”. I do have concerns of her having NPD, Bipolar Disorder, depression, etc. because to her it really is “my happiness above all else even if im hurting people i claim to love”. Lacey’s first GF broke up with her because she was battling depression and was thinking of moving home. Lacey instead claimed “she’s just pushing me away because she’s scared.” and ended up mildly stalking her after the breakup, even contacting family members to try to get to her ex. Luckily some mutual friends sat her down and told her to stop, but I don’t believe those friends hang out with my sister at all anymore.
I guess my reason for that context and my indecision is the concern for her. I worry that cutting her out of my bridal party may damage our relationship significantly and for a while. I also worry about how it’ll affect her mental health - especially having to see all of our family at my wedding as just a guest when her sister is the bride. Most family and family friends haven’t seen Lacey since she moved in 2021. Lacey also obviously loves attention, so I worry what she would do if she isn’t getting the extra attention she would’ve in the bridal party.
I have discussed this with some friends and my other sister Kelly to get their input and I gotten mostly “That’s a hard situation I don’t know if there’s a right answer.” But to be fair, these are all friends that WILL be in my wedding party so I’m conscious of the fact that they could be just holding in their true opinions as to not interfere or stress me out.
So here I am asking reddit - WIBTA if I didn’t have her as my bridesmaid even though she may be expecting to get asked?
My Fiancé wants to have the same number of groomsmen as bridesmaids, and he’s got his 7 locked down. I’ve got 6 of my 7, with the last spot potentially being for Lacey or my future SIL.