AIBU to feel this was odd and dismissive?

The car situation is normal. There was obviously space in the funeral cars so they went too. I'd assume they would have kept a pew free for you guys tho.

This kind of nonsense is why I don’t want a funeral for my remains.

OP wasn’t trying to ‘bag a better place’, there was nowhere for her to sit, she had to stand at the back.

OP should have been warned there would be no seats for her (or kept for her) so she could decide to stay home.

It’s not her ‘job’ to do anything.

Like I said, everyone is different 🤷‍♀️

Perfectly normal.

Every funeral I have been to the undertaker reserved enough chairs for the whole family. The aunt couldn't have informed the undertaker about you and your sil plus children.
That's not grief that's in my book dismissal of you.

I find it odd it's something you think about?

My younger brother died this year and in the car were my parents, me and 2 aunts and an uncle ( all widowed). When we got to the Crematorium we mixed with the guests for a few minutes and then my parents, me, my 4dc, dh, aunts, uncle, godparents etc filed in after the coffin. It wasn't a big funeral but I don't think anyone was trying to bag a better place. Everyone is there to pay their respects! I remember at my nana's funeral my mum and her sisters sat on the front row with my nana's sisters. No spouses.

Unless I’ve missed something, I feel like the real issue is being missed here, and that’s that you found out you were being separated when you got to the house. Did your husband know prior that he was going in the car and not communicate that to you? Or was it a surprise to him? Either way that’s inconsiderate (especially if he know beforehand). Even if he found out when he arrived, he should have said “no, we didn’t know that was the expectation, I’m traveling with my family now”. OK maybe he really just did get in a situation where he had to do what a grieving woman wanted but he could have at least tried to bow out. If seems as though this diversion may have also resulted in you not getting there at the right time to get the sort of seat you’d feel more comfortable occupying. Yes it’s not about you but being valued to a certain degree seems reasonable.

I agree with others there should be no expectation of you to be in funeral car / have special treatment re seating. However I’d also like to add that unless your husband was particularly close to said uncle and needs moral support that can’t be offered by his family, there should also be no obligation at all for you and your children to attend the funeral full stop.

I’ve had both an auntie and uncle die since my DH and I have been together and he has been to neither of their funerals. A cousin took his girlfriend who had never met anyone (including dead uncle) to one of them, so odd 😂

I think I would be more taken aback if you, your children, your sister in law and her children went in the funeral cars.

At all of the funerals I have been to the family sit near the front. Nobody reserves seats. People just tend to know how to behave.

Fair enough but I stand by what I said. It doesn’t hurt in specific conditions to only put other people ahead of yourself. A funeral is one of them.

I think it's more that there's been a miscommunication than deliberately dismissive.

If you'd been aware of the plan for the nephews to go in the cars then you and SIL could have gone to the funeral venue earlier, rather than following a cortège.

Likelihood that's what your DH's aunt expected, and would be entirely normal.

Usually seating arrangements aren't top of the agenda during the shock and grief of a death. From my experience that whole period of time is a strange blur with lots of decisions needing to be made. I'm sure no offence would have been meant.

Sounds completely normal to me!

I don’t think partners and spouses ever go in the funeral car?

It’s sounds like most funerals that I’ve been to.

I think we do, but many of our services are in churches so there's usually tons of room. For a v large funeral eg for a young person in-laws arriving later to the ceremony might well find themselves seated away from direct family or standing

If you were close to the uncle; threw family parties he came to, called him occasionally, and were grieving... then you would have been thinking about the loss of the man himself rather than about seats. It was a funeral, it was about your DH's uncle not you.

This. If the husbands were treated as family and sat at the the front, the wives and children should have sat with them.

I have never heard of friends being seated ahead of family, unless there was a very close connection and they were sat in the family rows, among the family - with siblings and spouses for best friends and with nephews/nieces if it was an intergenerational friendship.

They are likely their to support their parent whose sibling it was.

Why on earth should a random person who barely knew the deceased and is 'family' purely by being married to a more distant family member be given a front row seat over his actual friends and those who where an active part of his life who are actually morning this person... now thats disrespectful.

OP doesn't care about this man at all, she only went because DH was going and turned it into a song and a dance all about herself being the victim in her head.

Their going in the funeral cars was normal, but IME people sit with their partners and kids and yes, space is normally saved for them. Though I have only been to one funeral where the church was packed out and that was sadly the one of my cousin who died young.

Personally I wouldn't make an issue of it, OP.

I guess I might have thought we’d sit within a row or two of DH, but also I wouldn’t have thought that the windowed aunt would have thought about it. She’s just lost her husband, she doesn’t need a row about etiquette.

You drove across the country with your kids which is admirable. We wouldn’t have expected that in my family.

Overall I’d just be pleased that there was such a great turnout and my priority would be not to create any work or difficulty and be there for the family.