If it were just the bride's family who were affected, you're right, they are free to make that choice. But one assumes that the groom's family wasn't alerted at all to the, uh, unconventional views of Aunt K, or consulted as to whether she should be invited to the second wedding she has ever attended as a guest. Perhaps a significant share of the responsibility (I initially typed blame, but deleted it since I don't think blame is the right concept here) rests with the bride's family not making things clear to the groom's family up front, and asking how important it was to them that the wedding fit the full social norms, or whether they were willing to be flexible about Aunt K's eccentricities.
Whatever, I don't think it was fair, frankly, to face the groom's mother with this situation on the spot, as it were, when she had presumably (as mothers of the bride and groom do) spent many months planning and waiting for this special day and done all in her power to try to make it perfect and then find that this, uh, apparition appears to put a serious dent in all her Emily Post perfection. |
