Fiance's family are not coming to the wedding......

My FH has 2 family members coming and a few friends. His family is much smaller than mine. We paid for his sister to come to the wedding. She is flying over from Germany and staying for a while. He hasn't seen her in a decade. His niece who also lives in Germany can't afford to make it. We completely understand.

The bottom line is - no one is going to be as excited about your wedding as you are. No one is trying to "ruin" your wedding. When you travel, don't you make sure you actually have money in your bank account to cover expenses? It doesn't matter to me if someone covers my airfare and hotel if I cannot afford to buy myself something to eat while I am there. Don't take it personally and don't let your feeling about it drag FH down. You're family is better off than his. DO NOT MAKE COMPARISONS. Just move on and keep planning you wedding. Good luck!

It could be that they couldn't afford to take the time off work? Lost hours are also expensive. I'd be disappointed too- hopefully they change their minds.

Unfortunately, when you have your wedding that requires a lot of people to travel, this is just what may happen.

None of my husband's family aside from his mother, father, brother, and nephew came to our wedding. None of them are very close, fight a lot, some have disowned others - there's a lot of deep-seeded issues on both sides of his family. You just have to take it with a grain of salt and move on.

I have a feeling the reason why they're not wanting to come is because they don't know you and have never met you. It's an awkward situation for them. On top of it, I'm sure it feels even more awkward you offering to pay for them to come. I know I would feel awkward flying across country to meet my son's wife for the first time... at his wedding. I can't imagine marrying someone when I've never met or spent a lot of time with his parents.

Curious.... what makes it sound that her FH is embarrassed by his family? - NEVERMIND!

OP - you've never met your FH's family??

Maybe you two could find some time to go for even a weekend trip to meet them before the wedding. Maybe meeting you will make it "real" for them and they will try harder to comes. Even if they don't at least you'll have met his family before you marry him and you might be more understanding of their situation if you talk with them face-to-face.

I am sorry. I agree with poster that said they may not be able to get time off of work. I would offer to spend the money on a trip out there and take family out to nice dinner.

The first thing that came to my mind is that maybe they are ashamed that they don't have sufficient funds to travel to the wedding, but it's also very likely that they simply cannot afford to miss work as well. So sorry

I agree with a lot of the sentiment stated above. Try not to make assumption or let it get to you. There are many reasons that can make the trip awkward or just unfeasible. Here are just a few: a vacation (even with travel and board paid) is expensive, time off work can be impossible for some, a close family feeling disconnected, other responsibilities that make them unable to come, pride at having someone pay their way (especially if they don't know the person!), etc.

My extended family is in a similar situation. They had never met my FH until last month- because of a funeral. They're a lot of good reasons for it. But because of that, I decided not to make them feel pressured. Luckily, they were on the same wavelength as me. My aunt pulled me aside and said, "even if we were invited, we wouldn't be able to make it, so feel free to talk to me about anything with the wedding." She wanted happy news.

My plan is to send her a professional wedding photo thanking her for her loving support and letting her know that both Mike and myself would love to make it up and visit them more regularly than once every decade!