Weddingbee boards

I found out on Sat. that my FI's sister is not planning to attend our wedding any longer. She has been a BM for the past year (long engagement here), I ordered her dress, she got to know the other girls via email and seemed excited when I last saw here about 5 months ago. We don't live close but have gotten to know each other over the past 3 years and I thought we had built up a level of trust. While visiting his family over the weekend we began talking baout hotels and FI innocently asked if his sister and her boyfriend were planning to stay in the same B&B as his parents. His mom casually replied with she is not coming at which point I joined to coversation. She had not answered my last 2 emails but since I was seeing her I planned to get on her about it that weekend. It bothered me the most that she couldn't tell me (or her brother) herself. She is 23 years old and while her family generally thinks of her as immature I don't feel this is a good excuse. It is not like she waited to see us in person as she was the one who picked us up from the airport the day before and we went out for pizza together.

At first I was upset because this presents a wedding party headache and then I broke down because beyond that, I no longer trust her. Beyond not telling me herself, her reasons are not strong and I can't believe she is willing to miss her own broother's wedding.

Her mom thinks she may be afraid to admit that being a BM together with my friends whom she does not know may be overwhelming. Needless to say I've relieved her of her duties (which so far involved giving an opinion on a few dresses and then providing her measurements so I could order said dress). I'm just hoping that she reconsiders and decides to attend the wedding as a guest.

I'm not really looking for advice, more of in a situation I would have never imagined and needing to vent. Thanks for reading. I would be happy to hear any suggestions for how to deal with her in the future though. I pretty much ignored her the rest of our visit and know this is not the right thing to do.

Wow, I'm sorry.  I don't think at 23, she can blame much on immaturity.  (Although it might be accurate.)  Can you think of something that might have happened between the two of you?  Is it really just that she'd feel uncomfortable?  Perhaps it's the money commitment.  But it doesn't make sense why she'd just skip the entire wedding.  Maybe she feels that she can't "show her face" since she backed out.

Perhaps you can talk to her, when you feel calmer about the situatuion.  Maybe you'll get to the bottom of it.  And she will at least come to the wedding.  It's hard to figure some people out.  Maybe she's just an awkward person.  If she's really shy, not very confident, particularly around others, that might explain why she feels overwhelmed being in a wedding with strangers, and doesn't feel like she could tell you she's backing out.  Some people avoid conflict at all costs, even if it makes matters worse. 

Other than that, I don't know.  But keep us posted.  Good luck.

Not a money issue, that was the first question we asked as she recently quit her job to go back to school but his parrents had already offered to pay for her flight and hotel.

I hope she decided to bring up the topic with me so we can have a calm conversation now that I'm over the shock. Moreso, I hope she reconsiders and attends.