'You're invited to our wedding! Oh, never mind...' 'I DON'T understand.' UPDATED 2X

“You’re invited to our wedding! Oh, never mind…”

My husband’s niece, whom I will call “Jennifer“, announced her engagement about 14 months before her wedding was to take place. It was to be a destination wedding, and the guests were advised to make all reservations early, as hotels, etc. at the locale would fill up quickly. So we went ahead and reserved our hotel room, bought plane tickets, etc.

About seven months before the scheduled wedding, we received a “Save The Date” card regarding the wedding; it reiterated the importance of booking everything ASAP, which we had already done anyway.

Then, about a month before the scheduled wedding, the father of the bride mentioned, in a VERY offhand manner, that Jennifer had gotten married during the previous weekend, albeit in a new destination and with a very scaled-down number of guests present.

Until this point, we had never been apprised of any new developments or changes to the original plans! No card, no email, NOTHING! And because we only learned the news after the fact, it was too late to cancel our reservations and/or change our flight. Consequently, we were out quite a bit of money!

The thing is, I understand that that life happens, and sometimes plans change. In this case, Jennifer and her beau actually had a valid reason(it’s a long story) for doing what they did.

But I DON’T understand why we weren’t told about the change in plans before the actual new wedding took place! I think even letting us and the other dis-invited know via a mass email would have been better than NO communication at all. Breach of etiquette, inconsiderate, and yes, Tacky!

FIRST UPDATE:

Ok…I was remiss in not explaining the reason for the change in Jennifer’s wedding plans. This all had happened about four years ago, when Covid was running rampant and many places had crowd restrictions. The wedding had been planned before Covid was a thing. The scaled-back wedding, along with the moved-up date and location, was because of the pandemic.

As I had said before, I totally understand why they changed everything re: their wedding. My gripe is with the fact that they couldn’t be bothered to notify us about it, and that we only “happened to “ hear about it from my BIL. To me, their behavior is beyond rude.

To answer other question/comments: No, I have seen Jennifer (or met her now-husband) since before the wedding. Jennifer has lived across the country for some time and seldom, if ever, comes to town to visit, even though both her parents are still here. If for some reason I ever had occasion to see her, I wouldn’t feel like being very nice!

Yes, we could have just taken a trip to the OG destination as scheduled anyway. We didn’t do that because the trip we had planned was so short we wouldn’t have had much time to enjoy ourselves anyway. We had just planned to be there for the wedding and come back home right after that.

The OG destination was a nice one! It was here in the U.S. as opposed to a different country, but it was definitely a place where most people would like to go, especially during the fall and winter.

For the record, we hadn’t yet gotten them a gift and still haven’t, as we only give wedding presents to people whose weddings we ARE invited to. I’m blown away by the level of interest and responses that this thread has generated! And I thank you all for all your feedback and comments. I hope the questions that I’ve just answered have cleared up some things. Thanks again!

SECOND UPDATE:

Just another quick update, for the hell of it: It turns out that Jennifer, her husband, and their new baby are in town for a visit right now! They’re staying with her dad/my husband’s brother.

Hubby told me yesterday that he’s going out there for dinner this evening, and since Jennifer et al. will be there, would I like to come along? I just kind of laughed and said, “Hard pass!” As I mentioned before, I really would find it difficult to even pretend to be nice to her. Therefore, I’m staying away…far away!

Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:

TootsNYC said:

I got a save-the-date card for a cousin’s daughter’s wedding. I wrote it on the calendar, and at about 10 weeks before, I was talking to my mom and said I was trying to decide if I could afford to rent a car, and maybe I’d see if someone could pick me up at the airport and give me a lift. And that this would affect how many days off I requested.

My mom said, “You should call your cousin; I think that wedding has been canceled.” So I pinged her, and indeed it had. Like…you put yourself on my calendar. But your situation is infinitely worse. Did you go on vacation anyway? How many people did she sting with that? Did she ever apologize?

Obrina98 said:

Since the trip is non-refundable, just go for vacation. It'll probably be more fun without the wedding BS.

rumbusiness said:

This is awful and is a reminder to everyone to never, ever, ever say yes to a "destination wedding."

EtonRd said:

I would send them an invoice for the money you are out. That’s absolutely insane.

Tricky-Pumpkin8146 said:

That is BEYOND tacky. The only legitimate reason from them to DRASTICALLY change those wedding plans WITHOUT telling you would be if the groom was DYING of a TERMINAL illness and wanted to get married before doing so.

Even THEN she should have given you a heads up about it so you wouldn't be out of all that money. My unsolicited advice? Use it as a vacation for you and your husband and PARTY HARD! It's your money make use of it!

devildoggie73 said:

Total sleazeball behavior. I’d seriously limit any interaction with this niece. Christmas presents? Naaahhhh