AIBU - friend wants hotel for wedding guests only but my mum will be looking after my newborn

If you accept her madness now you know there will be no end to it. She will complain if you go and feed or settle your baby and/or she will complain that even if you are not with your baby that you are distracted by your baby.

You have gone from friend to doormat, it’s time to push back!

You are going to be taking another risk booking flights before the baby is born. Flight bookings require details for all passengers. You may already know the sex and have a name for baby, but even then, it's a risk and you will have to be certain you can get a passport in time. You'll need to be ready to go with the passport photos etc very quickly as especially in the summer, passports can take a few weeks to arrive.
If it was a UK wedding, I wouldn't be worried as 3 month olds are at least portable but stay where you put them!

Your recovery from c section and your newborn are what's most important here .
You shouldn't be stressed at this time you should feel excited for meeting your new baby.
I understand you feeling this way but your friend should be understanding that you are in late pregnancy and this absolutely comes first.
Priorities change friendships change dynamics change its life .. take a step back and look after you and baby with no stress of upset.
Honestly your friends decisions and mess ups are not yours to make right this is on her and her husband to be.

Bear in mind too, all the hassle of getting a passport for the baby. Also baby won’t have had all the first vaccines and airplanes can be a hive of germs. People fly when ill as they don’t want to lose the money. Before you have a baby you never realise how protective you will be. Especially with their health. I honestly would give it a miss. People who opt for destination weddings need to realise how inconvenient it can be.

It’s enough of a mission going to the supermarket with a baby let alone flights, transfers, hotels - all sounds like a right pain in the bum to me! If it was me I’d bow out and send a nice card and present on their return. Obviously your friend doesn’t have kids yet or she would know the massive headache what she is asking would cause. Just saw the update - what a fiasco! Your hubby is fab hope the plan works out (still sounds like a pain the bum though)

You've done the right thing, I would release the room now for her sister and say you will find a hotel close by if you can come, then at least that's one less stress for her because another family member can have the room.

Good point @IdylicDay

If your friend is so bothered about people attending her wedding why the hell has she decided to have it abroad and in a small hotel where half the rooms are already booked up?

I think most brides and grooms who have an overseas wedding are pragmatic in that they know some friends/ family won't be able to attend eg. They can't afford it, they can't take the time off, they are heavily pregnant or just had a baby.

TBH if all the guests can't stay in the same venue it will completely change the logistics and dynamics of the day. It sounds shite TBH

Sounds like even more of a pain in the hole than ever tbh.Best do luck to you OP. When your baby arrives you will discover the very sharp realisation all FTMs do around priorities, suiting yourself and that babies don’t really tend to slot in in the way we all dream of.

She may be your best friend but you categorically are not hers. You are an after thought and your banned baby an inconvenience.

can t you get a double room?
two beds?

WHY has she chosen another country to get married in? Why? Did you ask why? Did she say why? You obviously don't know her as well as your thought you did. Your updates make her sound even more selfish. You say you've been 'best friends' since 4. Maybe from your side, but most certainly not from her side! If she genuinely cared about you being there, she wouldn't have even chosen to get married in another country, let alone make you pay all the costs, let alone choose a tiny hotel where your own mum who saw her grow into a woman isn't even allowed to have a room at. Just think about it. She's not bending over backwards to have you there, is she? Well, is she? I think you really need to bin her. She is garbage. She is not worth any of this. And deep down you know it.

Just sounds even more of a ball ache TBH. It means that none of you will have a great time.

This is all on your friend and her lack of planning. She's a complete prat for 'organising' her overseas wedding at this venue and not sorting out the rooms beforehand. She knows she's fucked up.

If she genuinely wants people to attend her wedding she should look at different hotels. I am assuming this wedding is in an area with lots of hotels - Spain/ Greece ..........

Just to offer a different perspective, I would have enjoyed attending a wedding when my baby was 3 months old, because I'm a sociable person and was going mad stuck indoors all the time. But I wouldnt have gone without my Mum's extra pair of hands to help out - no way I'd have wanted to be there without my husband being at the wedding too. And in any case I think a childfree wedding abroad can only work if you book an onsite hotel for all your guests, and that includes rooms for children being babysat onsite... sounds like the bride is extremely chaotic and clueless and if I were her sister I'd be really upset and probably wouldnt go.
Also the bride cant dictate who stays in a public hotel and has no right to say you cant book a room for your Mum.
If she has time she should probably find a different venue with more rooms.

I think the difference here is that you already had DC. Becoming a parent for the first time is a whole different ball game. It's a massive life change and you are finding your way, particularly in the first year. I remember how hard I found it travelling with PFB. I worried about everything, it takes time to build confidence in yourself.

It's a whole different kind of stress travelling with the 4 children I have now but not nearly the same amount of worries as I know what to expect.

If you choose to breastfeed, at 3 months they'll be clamped on a lot of the time. It's not feasible to be apart from the baby for too long, and it's unpredictable when they'll need you. Even childfree weddings often allow babies under 6 months for that reason.

How far away actually is this wedding?

You won't be able to book flights before your baby is actually born, and there's a risk that you won't be able to get a passport for them in time.

Honestly, you and your husband are being so nice trying to accommodate bridezilla but I think it is all going to end in tears and probably a lot of wasted money for you.

If I've understood your posts correctly, the couple have decided to get married in a location which is super inconvenient for everyone, involving international travel for all their friends and family, and not invite anyone's children. (Or are her sister's children invited? In which case there is absolutely no reason why your baby couldn't go too.) Did no one tell her that this is actually a really bad idea and that half her guests probably won't come?

I would almost feel sorry for her except for the fact that you've explained to her how difficult this is going to be for you to pull off and instead of giving her head a wobble and realising that it's already a huge thing that you're going to all this effort to try to attend her silly destination wedding and she should just let you bring your baby, she's doubling down.

That's on her. No one else.

You don't have to attend this wedding. You really, really, don't.

It doesn't matter if you've been friends since you were 4. She doesn't appreciate the Herculean efforts you are willing to go to to make this work, she won't even make the tiniest concession to make it more doable for you.

If she cared that much about your attendance she wouldn't be making it so difficult for you to attend.

So bugger her.

When she's spent an exorbitant sum of money on a fancy wedding which some of her nearest and dearest decline to go to because they just can't make it work financially, or because they can't find anyone to look after their children, maybe she'll reflect on what's really important in life. Or maybe she won't.

Either way, she's not as good a friend as you think she is.

Personally I think you'd be doing her a favour by saying no now, rather than saying no a month before the wedding when she'll be even more stressed than she is now. Give her time to get over it before the baby comes. You don't want to ruin your time with your brand new baby worrying about a silly wedding. That time goes so quickly and you don't want to waste it either running around like a blue arsed fly trying to get your baby a passport and organise this insanely complicated trip, or feeling sad because your friend isn't speaking to you because you're not going to her wedding.

Call her back and say, "I've decided that the baby and I come as a package. I don't want to spend thousands for DH and I to fly out to your wedding only to waste a dinner and have an empty seat next to me all day because my baby is banished from the wedding and DH is holed up in the hotel room. Getting over there with a tiny baby will already be a massive expense and a Herculean effort which you don't seem to appreciate, and I'm done bending over backwards trying to find solutions. Either DH, baby and I are all invited for the whole thing, or none of us are coming. Let me know what you decide."

I can almost guarantee at 3 months postpartum you will not want to do this. Whether you give birth vag or C-section you will be recovering and exhausted.

Use what the bride has said, as a grand excuse to bow out with an excellent excuse.

OP, just to counteract all the scaremongering about travelling with a baby. We took our youngest abroad when he was 12 weeks old (for a big family holiday that was booked before he was even conceived). Having travelled with both my kids at various ages from 12 weeks up to 4 years I can honestly say that 12 weeks was the easiest age to take a child. It’s a whole other level once they get to 18 months! Take a carrier so you can baby wear if needed, get a snoozeshade for the pram, if you’re going somewhere hot don’t worry about taking loads of clothes (my boy was pretty much just in his nappy most of the time).

I was also post c-section and we’d massively struggled with breast feeding due to a tongue tie but it was all fine and I was ready to get away for a week….oh and we also had a 2.5 year old to contend with too!

It is most likely that you will have an uneventful birth and a healthy baby. At three months you will know her routines quite well.
You will have a great time. Invest in a baby carrier and have her used to travelling in it with both your husband and yourself wearing it. Husband can wear baby and she'll be happy.

So you’ll be paying for flights and hotel that you potentially can’t use.

Plus have this hanging over you for months.

'Worship at the alter of childtren'? I dont even know what you mean by that. It was actually mostly about recognising the needs of my friends as parents. But once there, I didn't expect the kids 'to be fussed' by my wedding - that's why they were specifically catered for, rather than simply having to fit in. I generally can't stand the whole Bridezilla thing; it's just a party at the end of the day and surely you want your friends and family to be happy and relaxed if you are entertaining them.

Honestly once you have a baby all other priorities seem to melt away. You are in daze for the first 3 months with bleary eyed sleep deprivation, you will learn to not be bothered about dry sick on your jumper 😂 You'll be so immersed, the last thing you will want to do is go abroad with the baby.
You'll either want to go alone for a real break or not go at all. It's definitely a game changer and won't be business as usual. Good luck in whatever decision you make.

Reading your updates. Honestly, this is so much hassle. Future you will be so grateful to now you if you just release room.

Why would you even bother contemplate going? Hence the difficulties you are now experiencing.
Attending a wedding abroad is not a high priority when you have small children..obvious, no?