Scoff at third weddings, and you might find yourself uninvited

Dear Carolyn: My brother, “Tim,” got married for the third time last month. When he and “Abby” were discussing their wedding, I advised them to do what my husband and I did: Go to the courthouse and then throw a party to celebrate. My husband even joked that he’d already been Tim’s best man twice and that was enough. And even though Abby was a first-time bride, she’s 45 and past the pretty-pretty-princess stage.

Later they announced that Abby’s uncle, who’s a judge, would be marrying them when they visited Abby’s family, and Abby’s sister was throwing a small party for them. Our family could celebrate at Thanksgiving.

This week, we saw pictures of the wedding and it was a much bigger deal than Tim had let on. There were at least 30 or 40 guests, all from Abby’s side, I guess.

I’m really hurt we were excluded, I guess as punishment for speaking our minds. Can I ask Tim why he hid their wedding from us, or do I just need to let this go?

Anonymous

Anonymous: You weren’t “speaking our minds.” You were, by your own description, talking more than you listened, ridiculing your brother in front of his fiancée, diminishing her by extension, and making judgy, sexist and ageist assumptions about what constitutes an appropriate amount of wedding fuss for a middle-aged bride – and all this when the number and type of weddings either of them has is neither your business nor of significant consequence to you.

So, no, you do not ask Tim to spell out what you already know.

Instead, you congratulate Tim and Abby for what looks to have been a beautiful wedding, and apologize for getting so caught up in having opinions at their expense that you forgot your only job was to shut up and be happy for them.

Dear Carolyn: I started a gift tradition that now causes everyone stress, and I don’t know what to do. When my kids were little and the only grandchildren, I started making a calendar for my motherin-law. As the extended family grew, I would ask for pics to include all the grandchildren. “C” and her husband would require multiple reminders, and finally submit pictures late or in the wrong format to make more work for me.

Finally, I had had enough and asked “E” to take it on. He is only willing to engage so far with what we all see as crazy behavior by C. One year, I asked her to just send the damn pictures to him. She blew up at me and said just do the calendar without her family.

E is now asking for someone else to take a turn with the calendar “because I need a break.”

The constant refrain is, “Just don’t make C mad.” We take a family vacation every summer, and, without fail, someone does something that makes her mad and she has a blowup. Any ideas how to deal with this Christmas present?

About to Blow Up

About to Blow Up: Either stop making the calendar, or stop asking each parent for photo submissions and just use whatever pics you take of all the grandkids during the family summer vacation.

Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com.