Turning up to venue uninvited…Why?

The kid’s first birthday party will be like the Sahara.

It sounds like there was room at the venue where this Christening after party was held. If there was a head limit, then others could still book themselves as smaller groups to the venue capacity.

how peculiar to host the celebration of a christening and not make it a family event - as in wider families, including partners.
Did it not occur to her that most families do things together as a unit a weekends?

Have the non-invitees shown they are not believers? If so, totally appropriate to not invite them. They won't be supporting the baby in his/her faith journey. That is the reason fora Christening.
In my experience, people who never host events don't appreciate the effort/cost involved.

I am so genuinely confused that the majority appear to think it's okay to turn up uninvited to events.

Perhaps it's the Christening context that I'm misunderstanding, I'm not Christian so maybe I don't see a particular cultural angle.

In my opinion, it would be incredibly rude and selfish to turn up to an event that you haven't been invited to. That event has been arranged by the host for their own particular reasons in that way and it isn't about you so why feel the need to be there?

The spouses are also aunts and uncles. It is spectacularly rude to not invite them.

Must admit, i do wonder at the people replying here saying she was in the wrong.

Would you all honestly turn up to a family party at a hotel that you had not been invited to?

Batshit, and so bloody rude.

If your friend actively excluded anyone who wasn't a blood relative from a christening I'm struggling to understand why she had one in the first place.

Obviously the excluded family members were being very passive aggressive, they are obviously very angry about the situation.

There have got to be easier ways to go no contact with your whole family in one go.

But they didn't want to, they obviously wanted to go to the event or just be around.
I wouldn't do it myself as yes I'd be mortified but the older I get the more I learn how different we all are.. so many people have got balls of steel and potential embarrassment just washes over them!

She doesn't sound rude or like a drama queen as posters above have stated. It is her event and she gets to decide who is invited. The family members who showed up without an invite were rude, they put themselves above the child being celebrated. It's clear why they weren't invited in the first place.

I had a small christening, I invited some of our best friends and DH’s family (mine live abroad). I had to keep it small because of economy, I could only afford to feed a certain number of people near my church, which only had a few very expensive venues and the one I could afford had a headcount of 30 max. That completely dictated the invitees to the christening.

Your friend is entitled to have a small christening and it sounds like the people that ‘gatecrashed’ have zero class. You can disagree but you certainly don’t turn up uninvited whether a ‘public’ venue or not. It really just shows that your friend was right not to invite them, they are toxic drama queens.

I feel for your friend, my daughter’s christening by my b*%#h of a MIL who made a vicious comment about my appearance as she walked into the church.

Church Christenings are public, but this sounds more like the party afterwards.

It's entirely batshit to just show up to a meal/party in a hotel that you aren't invited to.

I've also attended a standard morning service, at the end of which, a christening was held.

I assumed @SweetSouberry was talking about the dreaded baby shower. But still, an event which is usually a way of introducing a new child to the family (and the congregation) and welcoming her to the world, to become this exclusionary weird thing ...

Not quite in the spirit is it?

It's her choice of course to only invite blood relatives and friends but fucking hell lol she sounds like a bloody drama queen and although I do think it is usually quite rude to turn up to somewhere uninvited I'm feeling quite satisfied inside that all of the uninvited turned up hahaha hope she got the photos she wanted for her Instagram because let's be honest this is what was on her mind when excluding so many people who wouldn't fit into her aesthetic. All about her when in fact it's about the child and who is important to the child. I love it when some people get what they deserve

Not sure why she made a christening an exclusive event and excluded half her family and people's spouses and kids?!! Weird - christenings are usually child friendly events seeing as they are about celebrating a child!

Another poster who refuses to see anyone else’s point of view!

She clearly did it to make a point, so no they couldn't. Do you not see the point we're all making, that excluding such close family from a family occasion is really rude, terrible for longer term family relations and completely at odds with a christening?

The family were cheeky as to show up, but they were obviously making a show of unity and putting "your friend" in her place. I admire their balls!

Or simply went home after the Christening service.

Power of playing God at a Christening 😆
She’s not much of a Christian, is she….

If your friend couldn’t have afforded to invite her siblings partners/spouses, then she should have invited grandparents and godparents/their families only.

Yes, there were local church goers at the last Christening I attended.

She went about it all the wrong way. If she wanted a small, intimate gathering it should have been grand parents, witnesses and spouse and their kids. That's the way one of my relatives did it and there was no falling out.

There’s a big back story here.

Good on them, to be honest

If she was so keen to exclude her child's close family from her child's christening, she shouldn't have held it in a public space.

She made it awkward. Sounds like they gave her a taste of her own medicine.

There's a small chance that they thought if they turned up and paid for their own meals and didn't put her to the hassle of "arranging" anything, she might invite them to join in with the family child's special day.

Did she actually just pretend they didn't exist they were there?

Her actions in cutting off family from a family occasion have been very rude. And now she's learned that rudeness has consequences.