As noted, the Confirmation sponsor is (typically) different than the Baptismal godparent, but that is not a rule. (When adults are initiated into the church at the Easter Vigil, they are usually both baptized and confirmed and they generally have a single sponsor.)
With the emphasis you have placed on the necessity of their presence, I suspect that we may be looking at a cultural mandate, not a religious mandate. Is your spouse’s still pretty involved in their ethnic community? There may be “requirements” there that have nothing to do with Canon Law. If it is not possible for the in-laws to attend, the church (as noted multiple times on this thread) will have no problem with it, (although it might cause a family rift that will not be healed in the next four generations).
Seconded. I stood as Christian witness at the baptism of my niece (was raised Catholic but currently practice a different religion). The priest used the “godparent” terminology throughout the ceremony, but I assume that was just to avoid confusion and/or awkwardness.
My godfather missed my first communion because he was a bit dead at the time. My godmother attended, but there is no actual role to the godparents. I actually felt more “blanketed” by my father’s siblings and mother (all of them practicing Catholics) than by my grandma/godmom, who only goes to church in order to piss her anti-theist husband. Oh yes, and for Saint Lucy because it’s her patron saint. My mother often says that she’s Daily Mass because with parents like those it’s the most rebellious thing she could ever have done.
Grandma was made my godmom because of Tradition, not Religion. Since the groom’s Mom and the bride’s Dad are the married couple’s own marriage godparents, the firstborn’s godparents are traditionally the father’s Dad and the mother’s Mom. Tradition can be such a huge force in Navarra that sometimes I think God would have problems going against it. leaves singing Fiddler on the Roof
The words used in Spanish are the same for baptism and wedding godparents. They do not have to be the witnesses, either in the Church’s registry or in a civilian wedding (which, logically, shouldn’t have godparents, but try and convince a Spanish mother that she can’t be the madrina simply because her son is a godless heathen). The witnesses are just people signing the paperwork to say “yeah, I was there and I paid attention to the vows”; the godparents are supposed to help the newlyweds in their marriage.
