AITA because my fiancé told his sister he won’t spend time with her at our wedding unless she’s nice to me?
Our wedding is in two weeks. Three days ago, my fiancé sent his sister a voice memo saying basically:
“I want to celebrate with you at our wedding, but I need you to be polite and kind to my fiancée. If you can’t do that, I’m not going to be able to spend time with you during the wedding weekend.”
I felt reassured, but his family is acting like we did something awful. For context: this sister has been cold and exclusionary toward me since we got engaged 1.5 years ago, and reacts badly whenever we set boundaries. I've been busy, and she has too (had her baby a year ago), so I’ve mostly avoided her until now.
Earlier this year, she wanted to hold her baby’s naming ceremony during our wedding week. We asked her not to, which caused months of tension. E.g., she complained to my fiancé “you’re taking your anger out on my baby” and “I just don’t trust you anymore.” Conflict with her is exhausting and destabilizing, personally and for our relationship. It's forced my fiancé (and I) to get a lot better at setting boundaries.
A few weeks ago, we extended an olive branch by asking if her baby would be our flower girl. Then we asked to see them while they were in town, and they said they were confused. When we said we weren’t up for a big talk right now, just trying to start small and celebrate together, they declined to see us.
At the naming ceremony (~10 adults + the rabbi at their parents' house), the sister barely acknowledged me, hugged my fiancé goodbye, told him “I love you,” then left the room before I could walk through it. It was extremely tense and uncomfortable for me. That’s what prompted the voice memo. FWIW, the other sister (and her husband) have already defended this sister's behavior, saying she's just really hurt.
Yesterday, fiancé's parents texted us refusing to see us this weekend. They later implied that the sister interpreted the message as being unwelcome at the wedding. Fiancé clarified with both parties, now his parents are willing to see us tomorrow (for better or worse), but still radio silence from the sister.
I genuinely feel like “please be kind to the bride at her wedding” is the bare minimum expectation, but the backlash has been so intense that I’m questioning myself.
AITA?