Only one not invited to wedding

Very disappointing and hurtfulfor you. Try not to dwell on this, nothing good will come out of it.

Have you socialized with this couple outside of church?

This can be very hurtful, but like ellendi says, don't dwell on it. When it comes to weddings I've had some very disappointing and hurtful things happen over the years so I think I've become immune to feeling bad about these things. There isn't a darn thing you can do about it anyway. An old neighbor of mine whom I've known for 20+ years didn't invite me to her daughter's shower or wedding 2 years ago, but posted pics on FB and even sent me the link to the wedding pics. I saw a few other neighbors in some of the pics so it was hurtful and confusing to me, especially since I invite her to everything that has to do with my kids and she always comes. We also had lunch just a couple months before the wedding and talked about all the details. Early this year we had a wedding reception for my daughter and I would have normally invited her and her family but I decided not to. Was it the right thing to do? I don't know, i don't like to be revengeful and try to even the score, I usually don't do that, but i have to say it felt good in this case. I haven't heard from her and I was told that she's a little angry about it, as if she doesn't even realize what she did to me. I wouldn't try to make sense of what your church friends did, who knows what they were thinking at the time. I would just smile and be cordial and try to be the bigger person. Sorry this happened to you.

I would try to act like it didn't happen...one possibility is that your name was overlooked. It happens! Also, could there be a reason they would think you would not want to attend?

Or they may have sent you an invitation and it got lost in the mail. This just happened with DD's invitations; fortunately she found out through mutual friends that they "hadn't been invited" and was able to send a new invitation and assure them that they had been invited originally.
Karen, we had friends of 20+ years not invite us to their DD's wedding; they explained beforehand that their finances were tight and the groom had a large family and that as much as they regretted not being able to invite us, they simply couldn't afford it. They are invited to our DD's wedding. Perhaps your neighbour was in a similar position and too embarrassed to say so. Or her daughter had some issue and they're too embarrassed to explain.

Karen10125 - reading your post made me want to speak up - it's quite possible that your neighbor didn't invite you to her daughters shower or wedding because it "wasn't her place".

We had a small wedding, and I did not offer my parents a chance to invite anyone. If my parents had wanted to add a person, they did not ask, and I wouldn't have invited them anyways, as we wanted to keep the ceremony intimate and close-friends and family only.

So please don't be harsh on your neighbor - she may have had no say in the matter.

Colleenoz and Naween, just to be clear, my neighbor did have input to the wedding and shower invites. At first I was ok with not being invited, for the reasons cited above, maybe she didn't have any say and/or maybe they couldn't afford it. But then I saw other mutual friends and neighbors in the wedding pics. And I was just as close to her daughter and they were. And $ was not an issue at all. Colleen, your neighbors told you that finances were an issue so I think that's great, my neighbor said nothing. She could have made up a reason I wasn't going to be invited and that would have been fine. I had every reason to believe I would be invited and then just like the poster, I ended up being the only one of the neighbors not invited. Not being invited to an event is ok with me, but when it seems as if you're singled out, that's when it's hurtful. In the past I've NEVER kept that from inviting someone to a future event of mine, but this time it just felt right and I felt good about it. I tend to be a pushover in these situations, so it seemed to give me some satisfaction and confidence. I have no regrets.

There is a woman in our community who has been complaining and badmouthing us for not inviting her to our daughter's recent wedding.

It wasn't a small wedding, but it wasn't huge, either, and it was mostly out of town family. As our son-in-law's family live overseas, none of their family friends could come, so our daughter asked us to keep our list as small as possible. There were maybe 20 local couples.

But that meant that there were several more that we really would have liked to include, people who were right on that "rather awkward not to invite but I guess they will just have to understand" line. Like I think you are in your situation, Karen.

But all of those others have been totally lovely about it. They congratulate us and say that they hear it was beautiful and fun, without any implication that they should've been included. In the very few instances where it would've been more awkward than not to avoid saying something like, "We really wish we could've invited more of our friends, but Daughter asked us not to as her in-laws' friends couldn't come" -- they don't even usually let us finish before assuring us, "Of course! Don't worry at all. Everyone has the same problem, so everyone understands." Anyone who has ever had to make a guest list really does understand that there are always going to be some you would love to invite, but you just can't.

Except for this one immature woman. She has been giving me the cold shoulder publicly and even made a point of calling our best friends and complaining about it to them. Best Friend said, "They really had very few local guests," and Immature replied, "Bull! What about the Smiths?" BF, who was really getting angry about this, resisted the temptation to point out the the Smiths were not only among our closest friends, they had hosted a shower for Daughter in their home, and instead just said, "I didn't realize you were that close with the Gellchoms."

We like Immature and her husband just fine, but we aren't especially close with them and Daughter certainly isn't. Other than 4 couples that Daughter specifically requested because she loves them, the only locals included were the officiants and people who hosted parties, housed out of town guests, made hospitality bags, baked, decorated, or helped in some other way. But although we like the Immatures enough that they were in that would-love-to-invite group, they neither offered to help nor are close with Daughter, so that was that. (They were invited to, and did attend, Son's wedding 3 years ago; you'd think that would tell them something!)

The point here is that even though Immature thinks that EVERYONE but her was both invited and similarly situated to her, she's wrong. The criteria for the guest list seems as obvious to her as this one does to you, but you really don't know. I mean, it was the daughter's wedding, not hers; that bride, too, may well have said "Only the neighbors I have a relationship with" or something.

And the even more important point is that even if she were correct, she is making a real fool of herself over it.

You are entitled to your feelings, and you may in fact have been slighted -- how would I know? But I am confident that I am giving you good advice when I tell you to be a lady about it and not complain or criticize to anyone, because right or wrong, you will be the one who looks petty and childish.

I totally agree Gellchom, and I haven't complained to her or anyone about this. As I said in my original post to the OP, "smile, be cordial and try to be the bigger person". My neighbor has no idea that I felt slighted, she sent me wedding pics, I talked to her about how beautiful they were, we're still in contact via email, an occasional lunch, etc. I just wanted the OP to know that I understand because when something like this happens, you feel slighted and have no idea why. When I decided not to include her in my daughter's celebration, it just happened at a time where I was tired of always thinking about everyone else's feelings. I'm the type who even though my house holds 100 people, I will squeeze 150 in because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I just felt I needed to make a change and only invite those people that I truly wanted there. These people were "in addition to" my daughter's guests by the way, I wasn't dictating who she invite. And this woman wasn't close to my daughter at all or someone she would invite, she just gave me the option to invite some of my friends. So I just wanted to be clear about that. I would never give my neighbor the cold shoulder, we're still friends. That said, I do think that sometimes people need to get a taste of their own medicine. I don't think that's totally unfair.

**That said, I do think that sometimes people need to get a taste of their own medicine. I don't think that's totally unfair.**

Agreed. I think you did the right thing.

I can relate. And I do try to put it behind me but sometimes, especially at funerals when they show all the biggest family occasions. The last was the funeral if my father. As we sat there my neice's wedding photos lingered in the screen. Everyone smiling, my parents,my sister's, brother, neice's, nephews. There were only 2 missing, my deceased younger brother and myself. Its not that I don't get along with these people, it's that were quite civil, polite but I lived outside of the state and many times overseas so over the past 20 years I did connect briefly with them. There was never an incident in our adult lives that I could account for it. I have asked my husband if he could be objective and think was it something I said or did. He said no, they're all a bit odd. Unfortunately a week before the wedding I made my routine call to my parents and my poor old dad blurted out that they would be arriving in my state (1200 KMs away) next week. I was very thrilled to hear this but just before I could start a response my mother (bless her) responded from the background it's just a fly in fly out visit, then my dad be said it was for the wedding. I was naturally taken back and said I would meet them at the airport and at least have an embrace and catch up there but they said no time and seemed him a hurry to end the conversation. On the day of their arrival I asked my husband if I could at least park at the airport and see them, give them a wave but he said too many planes. On the way home we passed a wedding procession of cars and we along with others, parked aside the road, that's when I saw all my relatives pass us by in the procession. I didn't want to show any hurt so week later I phoned. Mum commented how lovely it was, that she would send photos (didn't happen) but the ended up staying 2 nights and Deere only 20kms in a motel dow the road. I think that was the most hurtful, that I didn't get a call even to meet up with my mum and dad. I understand they went had had a look at all the big attractions the next day and then all flew back. Can I tell you I cried on and off for 24 hours because I loved mum and dad and had a very good relationship with my other 2 siblings. Not one explanation. Not one of them went into bat for me to say ok she wasn't invited to the wedding but we can at least meet up and have a get together for an hour. I never mentioned it again. My parents are now gone and I wonder if they ever thought about it as time passed. Anyway my heart goes out to you.