I think it may have been customary when people didn’t tend to move as much, and families knew each other, so your brother married into a family that was nearby, and you knew his fiance.
Now, when people are so spread out, and it’s possible you don’t even meet your new spouses siblings until the wedding, it’s a custom that has fallen away.
Why on earth people would cling to an impractical custom like this, while insisting that very practical, and meaningful customs, like sending thank you notes, are outdated, is beyond me.
It is - or at least was when I read bridal etiquette books for my first wedding - which was in the dark recesses of the 20th century (1989). Its appropriate if you are the bride and the groom has sisters - or a female cousin - or a close female friend - to ask one of them (you don’t need all four of his sisters, its a token representation of combining your lives). And likewise, if you are the groom, and the bride has a brother, or male cousin she is close to, or a close male friend (that isn’t an ex boyfriend), its appropriate to ask them.
There are exceptions - when the wedding party is very small is one (my wedding party was my maid of honor - my sister, and his best man - his brother) - when the grooms female relatives/friends all don’t give a damn or beg off (you don’t need to find his second cousin twice removed that he hasn’t seen in twelve years when everyone else turns you down), when he (or she) isn’t particularly close to anyone of the opposite sex (once again, you don’t need to ask his coworker he sort of knows…)
But if the groom has a sister he is particularly close to, and you have four bridesmaids already - including your freshman roommate from college who you only are facebook friends with at this point and two years from now you’ll block because she only posts about her baby - don’t be shocked when his sister is a little hurt she wasn’t even asked. If you are going on the dozen bridesmaid thing, and you don’t ask his little sister who is dying to be a bridesmaid because she is just that age and mentality, you are a bitch.
(The flip side of this is if you are asked and you don’t want to - say “I’m honored, and I’ll support you on your big day…but I’d rather not be in the wedding party unless you are in a jam and need me.”)
There was a kerfuffle when my uncle got married - my aunt (my uncle’s bride) had SIX bridesmaids - but no one from his side of the family or his friends. He needed to come up with six groomsmen - her two brothers, and neither of his brothers, and four of the boyfriends or husbands of her bridesmaids. Guess how much his family saw of them after the wedding? We shouldn’t have bothered going.
My husband is (1) almost 12 years older than me and (2) the youngest of seven children. One sister is dead, one is a hot mess that he avoids as much as possible, and one is a very shy, borderline hermit. His three brothers are the three oldest, ranging from ten to twenty years older than him, and their wives are of similar age. Again, he does not talk to one brother because of personality conflict. His parents were dead and most of his siblings have grandkids of their own, so it’s not like there are big family gatherings for every holiday. Each sib has their own as far as I know (if at all).
The pickin’s were pretty slim from his side, and it’s not like any of these women and I were going to be besties. Good thing we got married at the courthouse with a best man and matron of honor (who was a friend and NOT my only sister).
People need to mind their own business about who is asked to be part of other people’s weddings.
I’ve never heard of siblings crossing aisles like that. I wouldn’t complain if someone did it, especially if there was a gap, but it sort of destroys the symbology of two families coming together if you also do something that symbolizes that they’re already mixed. Recent custom may support the idea, but tradition is against it.
I wouldn’t pretend to be up on wedding trends, but I’ve never seen in-laws as bridesmaids.
I’ve seen weddings where the bride and groom concentrated on friends rather than relatives, but I’ve also seen the opposite, where the wedding party talked among themselves while the bride and groom concentrated on family. If the wedding party is seated in state, the family tables should be very close and the family should be a significant part of the reception.
I have only brothers and my wife has only sisters, so the OP situation didn’t apply. However, neither of us had our own siblings in our wedding parties. We got a bit of grief for it, but dammit it’s MY wedding party.
I’ve seen it enough times over the years, it’s not particularly uncommon. In our case we used our nieces and nephews for bridesmaids and ushers, so they were all mixed. We chose the people that we were most happy to have stand with us.
The tradition and symbology are only useful in my opinion if they serve a purpose to the people involved. In our case we used some traditional roles and we chose to go our own way with others since it was our wedding, no one else’s.
In a Jewish wedding, your parents walk down the aisle with you. My father is deceased, so I asked my brother to walk down the aisle with me. I could have asked my uncle, who spent as much time raising me as my father did, and was my father’s brother, but then it would have seemed weird not to ask my aunt, his wife, who did more raising of me than my mother did. I also could have asked my stepfather, but my mother had just married him recently, and even though I liked him a lot (and still do), he wasn’t in any sense a father to me. He also isn’t Jewish.
For various reasons, not only is my fiance’s sister not going to be in our wedding party, we’re not having any bridesmaids and groomsmen. Odds are pretty good that our parents will never meet, either. I’d love to see how that makes wedding traditionalists’ heads explode.
It never occurred to me that my now-SIL would (should?) have asked me to be a bridesmaid. At the time of their wedding, my brother and I were living in different cities and I’d met her maybe twice. All of the people in their wedding knew them well as a couple and had been in on the relationship from the beginning, so they were appropriate choices to be in the wedding party.
Only DH’s parents came to ours (they live halfway across the country from us), so asking any of his siblings was a moot point anyway. Not that I would have asked, because they’re all a pretty loathsome bunch (we could have lived without his parents being there, too), but it was nice to just have it as a given without causing any drama.
It’s entirely possible that I’ve seen it and just didn’t know the people well enough to have everyone sorted out. I’m not opposing the practice and I’m not saying that any wedding has to be traditional. I just don’t buy “but it’s traditional!” as an excuse to get upset, or expect other people to get upset, when it isn’t done.
I wasn’t asked to be a bridesmaid for my sister-in-law, and my brother wasn’t asked to be a groomsman for my husband. My brother and I are close, and all four of us get on great, but my sister-in-law had her sisters for bridesmaids and the rest of us went with best friends.
As far as I know, no one was one bit bothered by any of it.
I’d say it’s weirder to be married to your sister in law.
Seriously though, unless you’re mixing genders across the aisle, typically the groom would ask you. I assume that didn’t happen. Are you close to him?
No he didnt ask. We are pretty close, we lived right next to each other in college. My sister said she like him so much when they started dating because he talked so highly of me. I guess maybe I was wrong.
It feels like a slap in the face. I know it sounds silly and I need to get over it, but for some reason this one stings a bit.
You shouldn’t automatically take this personally. There are lots of factors that come into play when deciding on a wedding party. Are they trying to keep the wedding party small? Does the groom have brothers or other close friends?
Perhaps they will ask you to play some other role in the wedding, such as an usher or reader. At any rate, be glad that you won’t have to rent a tux or any of the other expenses and headaches that come with being a groomsman.
I’ve never been asked to be in anybody’s wedding and for that I am grateful.
My sister told me that if I wanted to be a bridesmaid in her wedding I had to lose 40 pounds. Like that was going to be some kind of motivation for me to lose weight. :rolleyes:
I never thought about asking my ex’s sisters to be in my wedding, but they lived in another state and both of them were struggling financially.
