Reply to Son only cousin excluded from nephew's wedding

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I traveled from Seattle to Princeton NJ for my first cousin's wedding. We actually lived together as kids for a few years. My mother had money, his did not, so we took them in so we were more like brothers than cousins

I only learned we werent invited to the rehearsal dinner about 3 hours before it started.

So, my wife and I traveled 2386 miles, and three time zones, to literally sit in our hotel room while the dinner went on.

We went to the wedding the next day and took the first flight back the next morning. I sent them some towels and never spoke to them again. That was 2000.

They did reach out about 6 or 7 years ago asking if their son could stay with us while touring UW. I never answered him.[/quote]

This is incredibly sad to me.  You ended a relationship with a cousin that you used to be close with just because their traditions around rehearsal dinners are different than yours?

In some families, the rehearsal dinner is for literally just the people in the wedding party.  In other families, it includes specific categories of people, like siblings of the parents of the couple but not cousins or friends beyond the wedding party.  In some families the expectation is you feed anyone who comes from out of town.

It seems like the couple just didn’t have the kind of rehearsal that included everyone from out of town.  I can see how that would be a surprise if you expected it or a disappointment if you thought you’d be more appreciated for traveling that far…but to never speak to them again?????

I think back to mt first cousin’s wedding when I was in my 20s.  She was really into wedding magazines and wedding etiquette and she had a huge gaggle of bridesmaids, not including me, which hurt my feelings a bit because one of her maternal first cousins was included.  Their rehearsal dinner only included the bridal party and parents of the couple.  But more than 10 of my uncles and aunts had flown in from out of the country, and then my dad heard that they weren’t all invited to the rehearsal, he was appalled that his brother (my uncle) had been so rude.  My uncle, who was just going a long with what his wife and daughter said to do, which was what the bridal magazines said to do, only invited the people who were IN the rehearsal.  So my dad ended up hosting a big dinner at another restaurant that night for all his siblings who had flown in from out of town.

It wasn’t a personal slight…it just was different expectations.  Imagine if family stopped speaking over that!!!!  As it was, we had a blast and I have great memories of our alt-rehearsal dinner.  But if we had all taken it personally, we’d have missed out on decades of good memories at other big family occasions since then.

I hope you can reconcile with your cousin.  That’s really sad.  [/quote]

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