Lets face it, the brother is not fussed if his immediate family attends, he is more interested in the extended family or the image of marrying abroad, or perhaps into getting away from his family for the wedding.
You don’t have weddings in expensive and difficult to get to places if you have any true desire for your immediate friends and family to be able to be there, unless the people concerned are all very well off and you know the cost / travel to obscure places / inconvenience will not hit them in any way. The fact he has chosen somewhere in the middle of nowhere in addition to being abroad underlines his disinterest in people being able to attend the wedding even more.
Seems to me the problem is not your wife’s dilemma on whether to go but the fact that her brother does not care if she is there at all, or what penalty she and her family have to make to please a brother who is indifferent to her and her financial/family situation. If he is well off, has he offered to financially help anyone get there? Has he chosen a location where there are plenty of places to stay and therefore people can get at least good room rates and easy transport to the area.
Seems to me its a bit of a kick in the face to your wife and anyone else who is not well heeled in his family and I would not bother going just due to his clear indifference to her and others in her position.
If he was close to her, why would he do this? If he is not emotionally close, why bother to go?
