So, barring anything changing between now and next year (and I don't think it will) I am going and let the chips fall where they may. I'll keep my distance from Father and Brother if possible, and make civil conversation if I must, and if they want to act a fool or boycott the ceremony, that's their loss.

In other news, "Smurfwad." Hee.

Then, she arranged the table seatings so that all the younger generation guests and the older generation guests sat completely apart from each other at the reception. End result, none of the antagonistic parties had to deal with each other at the reception without going out of their way to to so (and no one wanted to look like that much of a douche to cause trouble). My cousin's cousin and his girlfriend could enjoy everything in peace, and the older generation of my cousin's family didn't have to see them.

Hopefully, the niece will be able to work stand up to her family that well, and arrange things in a similar way. And hopefully, the brother and the dad will man up and let the niece have her wedding day in peace if you and your partner do decide to go.

To exclude Homophobes Suck and his partner from Niece's wedding would be to accommodate/enable the years (!) of tantrums by Father and Brother. Frankly, if Father and Brother can't refrain from acting out at the wedding, that should reflect badly on them, not anyone else.

Miss Manners says it best in a q-and-a from "Miss Manners' Guide to the Turn of the Millennium":

Dear Miss Manners: My daughter would like to invite to her wedding a friend, who happens to be homosexual, and his live-in friend. But his parents, who do not condone his lifestyle, will also attend the wedding, and I am concerned that tension may result and spoil the atmosphere. Am I wrong to suggest that my daughter invite her friend without his partner?

Gentle Reader: Let us certainly hope that no guests consider your daughter's wedding to be a proper arena for either condoning or condemning anyone's living arrangements. It is not nice for people to speculate on the bridal couple's private behavior, much less the wedding guests'. Surely the gentleman's parents have other occasions for expressing their attitude. Anyone who feels in danger of spoiling the wedding should decline the invitation. In any case, the hosts should assume that the guests will behave themselves. If your daughter otherwise sees this gentleman and his partner as a social couple, she should treat them as one on this occasion.

I'm for you AND your partner gracefully offering to bow out. Why does anyone want to go to a wedding? To wish the couple well. Can you do this if you are standing at the reception looking over your shoulder at all the people glaring at you? Can the bride accept your good wishes while awaiting the fireworks? I think you and your partner should call the bride, offer to bow out, and invite her over to your house for a lovely dinner party to take place either soon before or soon after the wedding. It'll be like a second mini-reception. You're not "letting the homophobes win," you're protecting yourselves and the bride and groom from having to deal with ugliness, and depriving the bigots of the pleasure of snubbing you in public. Your partner's presence will be missed, serving only to underline the fact that his father and brother's bigotry drove him away. And I bet your party will be better than the reception. And the bride will probably be so grateful to be relieved of the burden of having to "choose" that she will start crying in gratitude when you propose this.

You have done nothing wrong. The people who behave the worst do not deserve to get off easy because they are acting like asswipes. You and your partner both deserve to be angry at the situation created by someone you have no control over. You care a bunch for the niece/sister-in-law/future nephew-in-law and don't want to make the situation harder for them, but you haven't done anything to make it hard for them other than existing in world.

As a woman in a long term relationship with a woman whose sister won't talk to us, I have to say, stick up for yourselves and your relationship with Niece. Expect to be invited and to attend. Niece can act like an adult and probably will. All the suggestions of alternatives to attending the wedding suck. I'm sorry, but the idea that people can be hateful and get rewarded while you think you deserve something that is less is what leads to the perpetuation of the hateful attitudes.

In our case, the sister who doesn't speak to us is the one who stopped speaking to the rest of the family. And it made the rest of both of our families see how awful the attitude was.

If the idea of other people reading your innermost thoughts fills you with complete horror, burn the journals and be done with it. I would think, though, that this is the kind of stuff that your grandchildren will absolutely love to find in 50 years' time – the real meat and bones of a family member, and the context within which to place the person they know or knew.

Plus, I'm a fairly private person and don't talk about my feelings much with anybody, so I plan to pluck stuff from my journals as material for a novel I'm planning, safe in the knowledge that nobody will know it's about me!