Deleted due to change of opinion. 

I think it really sucks that you have such a bad relationship with your dad and SM and hope that some day your dad will stand up for you.

I do think it's rude to expect your dad to go without her though. As much as it's traditional to have a father daughter moment it's also wedding ettiquette to invite married couples together. 

Look this isn't ideal. But you already know that. And yes, it's rude...let me explain why in a minute, but first...

If you don't want her there, don't have her there. If she really is that bad, I'm not sure why you'd want your dad there as he is the one who shafted your mother and carried on an affair openly, etc etc and FAILED to protect you from a bad experience. Parents can be awful people, too. They probably needed to moan about your mother to assuage guilt (at the same time, your mother is human and therefore she will have some genuine flaws). 

What is rude and regrettable is inviting your dad solo - you are deliberately putting him in an awkward situation - one you WANT him to experience, if you're being honest. You want him to choose between you and her. You want him to snub his wife, his absolutley ironclad +1 as a condition of attending your wedding. Or maybe you want to put him in the position of refusing the invitation so you can draw a line in the sand "He wouldn't even come to his only daughter's wedding!!" Or being most generous you don't want to be placed in the position of saying "Dad, I don't want you there."

Look, I'm a stepdaughter and a stepmother. So I get it. My stepmother is awful and I haven't seen or spoken to her in almost two decades. I'm getting re-married and guess what...she's invited. Screw it. I doubt she'll come but if she does, so what. She can't ruin my day because I don't care. But I am probably close to double your age (just guessing!).

I do understand the awkward nature of this and the dilemma. You already know that Miss Manners would dictate that you do invite them, especially if this is a formal wedding. 

If you still want to make your feelings known you can write your dad a letter explaining that you didn't want your stepmother there and you didn't want to put him in the awkward position of choosing so therefore you're not inviting him. You wish he could be there, blah, blah, blah but you understand why it isn't possible to invite only him. 

that a wedding invite should include couples.  As it is, all you can do is accept whatever decision he makes.

Why did you live with your father post-divorce instead of your mother?

Well, as so many SM's talk about on here, she probably feels unfairly treated by you, may believe your mother alienated you against her, and is upset that you don't care about your half-brothers (and frankly, how you write what you feel sounds like some of that is true- why would you not want anything to do with "her children", who are your brothers, and not responsible for anything she said and did?)

And like many SM's on here want their DH to do, he is standing up for their marriage and refusing to allow her to be excluded.

I would urge you to get some therapy, because it sounds like your anger at your SM, deserved or not, keeps you from having a relationship with your father.  It could be true that they were all of the things you say they were, or your mother could have turned you against them - worth sorting out.

Don't worry about being rude.  Your father's wife cheated and helped to break up a marriage.  She then treated you like crap.  She wrote the RUDE manual.  

She deserves the same level if respect that she gave you.  Stand firm on your stance not have her at your wedding.  Invite your father, but understand that he will not be there.  

Enjoy your day and your life.  Karma will take care of your dad's wife soon enough.  Hell, Karma should pay him a visit as well for allowing you to be treated in such an awful manner.

It's great that he is standing up FOR his wife.  But why didn't he stand up TO her when she was mistreating his child?

I would exclude both of them.  Your stepmother could only be cruel to you if your father allowed it.  He was not a good father if he did not protect you.  He was not a good father if he refused to buy you pads (because really, he's the parent so it's his responsibility).  He was not a good father if he permitted you to go to your mother only if she wouldn't require child support.  He was not a good husband if he carried on an affair openly.  He was not a good person if he denigrated your mother for only producing one child.  Married couples should be invited to weddings together.  If you want your father there, you invite his wife.  If it's most important to you to not have his wife there, you exclude your father.  In your shoes, I'd exclude dad.  JMO.

Maybe your wedding is the time to take a look back. Is your SM really that bad or is the situation that she came into what your angry at?

Was it your dad's responsibility to provide for you including essentials and she was just abiding by his wishes?

Was your mom the aggressor in their relationship and your dad and SM were simply deflecting her anger? Not putting her down?

I am playing devils advocate here but you might just find your perception to be wrong in this process. 

Sit down with your dad. Ask the hard questions. And really get to know their relationship. You might be surprised.

If in the end it is the same then leave them both out of your wedding. The relationship with your dad and SM would be insalvagable if you feel the same and having him there would be purely for selfish reasons of tradition. That isn't fair to their relationship for you to divide them in that case. 

My personal thought is that it is your father who failed you, and instead of being equally angry at him, you're heaping it all on your SM.

I'm going to believe what you wrote is exactly what happened. It was never your SM's job to buy you pads - that was your dad's job. It wasn't your SM's job to preserve the mareiage between your mom and dad - that was your dad's job. Your dad should have protected you from her vitriol about your weight, looks, and mother. If you were out of line with your SM and brought on additional vitriol due to your behavior, he should have checked you.

Ultimately, your father failed you, yet you are only punishing your SM while giving your father the privilege of blessing your union. That, to me, seems odd.

Is it rude, in an etiquette sense, to only invite one half of a married pair? Yes. Is it rude for your father to decline your invitation? No. He has made a choice to stand by his wife, as it sounds like he has always done. I would advise you to modify your wedding plans to exclude your father.

As far as the future is concerned, I do think therapy would be a good idea to bring you peace with your father's decision.

I’m not reading the other replies, sorry sisters! (And brothers, my bad, Rags.)

I understand you being angry but your anger is a bit misplaced. Your dad facilitated ALL the mistreatment from your SM. He cheated on your mom OPENLY, allowed his wife to deny you basic human decency then continued to punish you and your mother for existing by strong arming her out of money that would have helped you have a better life. And you want to invite this bully to your wedding to have special daddy daughter time at the expense of your mother having to play nice with him? Are you warped?

Also, his 3 sons are also your brothers. Why do you hate them? By trying to pretend they don’t exist simply because you don’t want them to or because you don’t like their mother, you are following in your father’s footsteps of neglect and abuse. Girl, thems your brothers, the only ones in the world who live life from your perspective. You got to escape their mother’s abuse. They didn’t have that option.

edit- why not start trying to mend fences with your brothers by inviting them to the wedding and dancing with them?

Go back and reread Elkclans response. She is spot on.

The other thing is that the Father Daughter moment you want won't be what you expect it to be. You know who your father is and who he will always be. The fantasy you have in your head is just that, a fantasy. It won't be the reality of the day. You know this.

Let go of the pain of your childhood and build a new good life with your soon to be husband. Don't repeat the mistakes of the past and be a forgiving loving person who takes care of herself and her family without laying down and being a doormat.

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. I hope it's beautiful and joyful.

Perhaps every single word of this is true, but I have problems believing it. By saying your SM refused you pads, are you saying she let you bleed all over yourself and your clothes when you had your period? I'm trying to wrap my mind around that. Not trying to be crude here, but if so, I would think this also meant the house looked like something out of a crime scene everytime it happened, such that there was blood all over the house--everywhere you sat or laid, such as the sofa, chairs, the bed, it ran all over the floor and carpet, down your legs, into your socks and shoes, all of which would be visible when you wore shorts in the summer. And on the seats of the vehicle if you went anywhere, and seats of restaurants, movie theatres you went to.  Am I missing something here? When you returned home, did your mom ever inquire about you being covered in blood? If my teenager returned home with blood-soaked clothing/footwear, I'd certainly demand answers, call the authorities and CPS and not allow my child back at that home unless and until a court ordered me to do so, and then I'd ask for supervised visitation. Did any of this happen? If not, how was this situation allowed to go on? While I grant you there are people in the world who are pure evil, some SMs included, the vast majority of SMs are villainized unfairly. So, I'd be very curious to know if this SM agrees with your representation of the facts. Unless she was extraordinarily evil (and extraordinarily stupid, as she'd be the one with blood stains all over her house), if this is true, then if I were you, I'd never speak to my father again. Regardless of whose "job" it was to buy you maxi pads (I mean, why was it the SM's responsibility--what if your father were single?) the results would have been evident to your father in all of the ways I described above. He should have been criminally charged. And he'd be the LAST person I'd want at my wedding. In fact, I'd be making sure the security guard had his picture, too!

I have a relative who invited her estranged father to her wedding, solely for tradition, and walked away from him the second his duties had ended.

Parents divorced when she was a young adult (and out of the house).  Father was living with family to make ends meet after the recession so her mom could remain a kept woman.  He divorced her after a couple years of such an arrangement when he discovered financial infidelity on the mom's part.

Older child kept dad in their life despite mother's protests.  Younger child became mom's best friend.  She shut her dad out, ignored his visits to the area, emails, phone calls, letters.  He always kept the door open.  Older child shared life with dad, even attended his very small wedding that was years and years down the line.  Younger never forgave dad for remarrying, despite having already cut him out of her life years earlier.

Her wedding came up and she called to tell him (at future husband's insistence).  It was the first time she acknowledged him in over 5 years.  She was immediately insulted that he congratulated her and then said he wasn't in a position to help financially.  How dare he think that's why she called.  Pfft.

Dad is invited, from across the country.  Is not allowed to bring his wife.  Is not invited to the reception.  Mommy dearest acts like a child and causes a scene during photos after the ceremony.  Dad was super polite and kind while clearly struggling throughout the entire charade.  The man left after photos and younger child has not uttered a word of acknowledgment in the several years since.

The reception went on, the mother continued to share her misery (and insanity).  The bride never missed a beat.  She didn't want to share any part of her life or the precious meaning of the event with her dad - who up until mother's anger over the divorce was by all accounts a great father and decent human being.  She was not interested in mending fences, getting closure, bringing together family.  She wasn't even interested in the photo opportunity (no photos of/with dad were ordered). 

She just wanted the correctly labeled person to walk her down the aisle.  Based on whatever preconceived notion that it was his duty to fill the slot for no reason beyond image.

It changed the way I saw her, forever.  She suddenly became the most disgusting human being I'd ever personally known.  I cut her out of my life, no regrets.  Even though it meant estrangement from my own blood in order to do so.

That man caved to every unreasonable, selfish demand she made of him.  Because his daughter pretended to throw him a bone.  I got a front row seat to the damage she inflicted that day and it was no misunderstanding.

Do not invite your father to your wedding for tradition or photo ops.  If he has had no place in your life for years he has no place in your life for appearances at such an event.

If you want to heal old hurts do it outside of the context of a wedding.  Your wedding day is not the day to break hearts.

I find it odd you want to invite your father. The man who stood back allowing his wife to call you fat and ugly. The man who dragged you over to visit his mistress while still very much married to your mother (who does that?)

Their was nothing traditional about your childhood with this man, why pretend just for your wedding?

You're putting an awful lot of hate towards this woman and her children but giving your father a pass. You can invite whoever you please to your wedding, but the man has already told you he will not attend without his wife. so if you want your father there,invite his wife. If not, don't.

Seems pretty silly to me to have security guards at your wedding in case the SM tries to attend. Why not just leave the two of them alone and enjoy your wedding day? No, you won't have your fairytale dream of Daddy walking you down the aisle, but you don't get to have it both ways. 

Really doesn't matter if it's rude/disrespectful to not invite his wife or not.  He's not coming without her. That's his choice, just like rejecting his wife with an invite is your choice. Manners seems to be the least of the issue. 

We had a similar scenario play out in our family in 2015:

My husband's former stepdaughter got married. His ex wife had been married twice prior to him and had two older children before she squeezed out SS 24 and SD 20. My husband essentially raised the bride from age 5 to adulthood.

Although I had only met the bride at a handful of holiday family gatherings and never had any issues or incidents with her, she made it a point to only invite my husband to her wedding. When he rsvp'd for a plus one, he was told that there was no room for him to bring me, his wife of 8 years, yet the casual dates of at and SD were invited.

He politely let her know that he would not be attending without me, promptly called his father, the family patriarch, who called all the rest of his children and their spouses and told them not to attend and why...

Apparently , my husband's ex wife still struggles with the fact that he moved on and remarried instead of pining away over her after she cheated on him multiple times with his friends and colleagues and has married yet again, in fact and told her daughter to exclude me. 

The day of the wedding, only her mother, SS and SD showed up. Not a single person from my husband's very large close knit and very generous family of which she was once very much a part of attended and in the three years since she has been essentially removed and forgotten. I heard from the SD that the bride was very hurt because nobody showed up and I was essentially blamed for calling relatives and telling them not to go until I let her know that Grandpa actually did.

I know that I will never welcome her into our home for any reason. Funny thing, if I was invited, I honestly wouldn't have gone anyway. I work all week and had no intention of wasting a perfectly good day off getting up at the crack of dawn to celebrate an event indirectly made possible by BMs overactive vagina.

She lost so much more that day than she gained by being a bitch. Nobody will remember if the SM attends but everyone will remember if she wasn't invited.

Take the high road. It's less traveled and the view is amazing.

Yes, it is very rude - the way you are planning your wedding by purposely excluding your father's wife. Who does that? Let me guess: adult skids who cannot get past the first family; that daddy loves someone more than your mother, adult skids who cannot stand to see daddy happy around someone else in public, who is not the orginal mommy. 

It appears you are blaming and taking out all your hatred of your father's new and happy life on your stepmother. The fact is your father finally had a "real wedding" with someone he loves. You would not of mentioned that if it didn't bother you I bet. Not sure why you even want a relationship with your father if he is so bad. 

No, your SM shouldn't of called you names, and your father should of said something to her. Maybe he did. were you a perfect angel and never, ever talked back or called your SM any names? I doubt it.  My adult skids called me every name under the sun and I never called them names - at least to their faces.

back to your wedding - hiring a security guard to keep her away, seriously? by not inviting the woman you father loves, it is going to come back to bite you. How can you expect your father to "respect tradition" if you cannot respect his new life and new wife. Suck it up buttercup, it works both ways. The adult skids who did this to my DH at their weddings no longer have a relationship with my DH. 

I agree with another reply here that suggests you should try counseling to deal with your anger. 

Curious as to why you would post this on a place where stepparents come to vent; but to each his own. Your father has appeared to make it already very clear he will not attend your wedding if your do not invite his bride. Not sure what the dilemma is. It's either you invite her or you don't. If you don't, he is not going to attend. 

down by making you invite him and his wife. I vote screw them both, start your new life in a new place and that is living for today and not in the past. Also you need to get to know your brothers, not their fault.

The wedding is merely a side issue with your relationship with your father. Have you had any counselling to help you address your feelings? Sometimes it takes numerous attempts to learn how to handle these feelings. 

Marriage aside, when a couple have been together for a long time, they often find it difficult to separate for some events. 

We cannot make demands of our parents when we are grown adults, we can only ask nicely and leave the ball in their court. Traditions are overrated, they are just societal norms. Make your own traditions, and enjoy them. 

Dont let them spoil your wedding.