Okay here's the situation. There is a family friend, let's call her Jane. Jane is the mother of my brother's and sister's very best friend of over 20 years - he is family to us. Obviously he (let's call him Joe) is invited along with his GF.
Jane was also good friends with my mom for years. We (as a family) went to both of her weddings probably over 10 years ago. My mom was there when she gave birth to her second child after her first husband tragically passed during her pregnancy (this was I think 15 years ago).
Obviously there's a lot of history there and you've heard the pros. But there's the not so pretty too. Jane is a crazy and extremely mean, and truly cruel, ruthless person. She's gossipy, has said some nasty, unwarranted things about us, and has done things like call Joe an F*&%&ing pig when we all went to the beach when he was like 10, running around in the sand (that's just an example of how she is, just in general verbally abusive). She is also hot and cold - whenever she would invite my mom to family events, the whole family would speak only to each other and exclude my mom and even my brother and sister as well, to the point where they just said "yikes" and left (Joe and my brother and sister would play downstairs).
This (exclusion and cliquey-ness) happened when there was a Welcome Home from the Military get-together for Joe. Obviously we love Joe and he invited us to the party, along with FH and FH's Dad (he came to my hometown with us). We go to support Joe, and Jane and her very cliquey family were incredibly unwelcoming. I mean so much so that FH and FFIL were appalled and asked to leave - this coming from the two most relaxed guys I've ever ever known. Unfortunately we were stuck in the parking lot and were in the unfortunate position of having to ask people to shuffle cars. We were late to the party originally and thought it was a small gathering based on our late arrival and lack of cars - we asked Joe where we should park and where all the other cars were - he said everyone else parked in the other driveway (very large fancy house), so we figured we were okay. We weren't. Everyone was shuffling and Jane is like "what kind of f^$#^g idiots park this close to the house if they're leaving after two minutes" to FH, not realizing that we were the ones trying to leave. The only reason we wanted to leave was because it was painfully awkward and unwelcoming (and almost hateful towards us or anyone that wasn't good enough to be part of the family), that we couldn't stand to be there another moment.
Oh, she also hired my Dad (a contractor) to do some work for her years ago and never paid him (even though she very much has the means to).
Jane is the ONLY person FH has asked not be invited; however, he has so much bloat on his list of unnecessary and rowdy people we haven't seen or spoken to in over 8 years that basically, I get a freebie (I kept my list intimate. If it matters, I'm paying for most of it and my parents are contributing. He's thankfully contributed each month, but I'll definitely have paid for most of this - my parents have offered to cover the cost of dinner. Basically, I get a freebie on the list if I really wanted to.
Soooo, do we invite Jane?? As a friend of my moms/extension of Joe/family friend???? (Remember, they are contributing financially too). I already sent out Save the Dates, but not yet invitations. I'm sure she heard that Joe received a STD. She hadn't reached out to my mom in a couple years, but asked her to come over the other day. She didn't outright ask her about the wedding, but said "your kids are my kids (my brother and sister), I've had them for over 20 years" and so forth - my mom got sort of grooming vibes from her. She also said "you're hard to read, I can't always tell if you're upset, whereas, "you know how I am"", perhaps explaining her nasty past behavior. She also said that their schedules is the reason they haven't hung out (for a couple years even though they live like 15 minutes from each other).
What would you do personally??? I don't have a very close relationship with her, though outside of her extreme unwelcoming-ness and occasionally non-personal "cutting words", she's been kind to me. I don't know!!!
