‘Child-free’ wedding

Why the hell did your fiance invite him? He needs to message back immediately and say sorry no can do, he said yes under pressure but on reflection realises it takes the piss out of everyone who arranged childcare plus it was always going to be a child free wedding.

Is your fiance scared of his brother?

It's either child free or it's not. I'd be really pissed off if I was bridesmaid and didn't bring mine just to find out the grooms party had different rules.

What exactly did you expect to happen? If you tell someone they can't bring their children you are forcing them to make a choice between:

• Get childcare sorted (expensive and unfeasible in many circumstances)
• One or two of the members of the couple can't attend

Well, there you go. Your brother in law is upset because you are making his wife to stay at home with their children. Well done you.

Also, you seem extremely judgemental to call a 10 year old a pain in the arse. Get off your high horse, princess.

It’s his nephew not a random child.

I think excluding neices and nephews is a bit too far.
These kids will be calling you Auntie / Uncle and will probably be part of your lives forever.
Friends kids might drift away but Neices and Nephews will be the folk who turn up at your funeral to support their cousins ie your kids.

In our circles most people don’t have children or were keen to have a day away from them to have a relaxing time!

Seems like they only told you this because you’ve also said:

I also feel bad because I know my bridesmaids would have loved to have their kids there and have bent over backwards to sort out childcare.

It is pretty normal to have an exception for close family to childfree weddings. You don’t need to allow your bridesmaids to have their kids now because they aren’t family.

You’re perfectly entitled to have a childfree wedding. Your guests are perfectly entitled to decide not to attend the wedding. If those guests are important to you and you want them there (like a sibling), then you accommodate them. If you stick to childfree and exclude your nephew, it will drive a wedge between your finance and his brother so I think it’s his call.

ETA - after seeing your update, the brother is best man, so obviously him and your fiancé are close. It’s odd that your fiancé has his brother as best man but neither of you are particularly interested in his son, your nephew and you refer to him as ‘this child’.

You should totally put your foot down HARD and specify exactly why (10yo is a pain in the arse)....<grabs popcorn>

Seriously, don't do this^^! You're marrying into this family and there will be times you may need to assert boundaries. I don't honestly think this is one of those times, but I had loads of kids at my wedding despite not having any myself at the time.

I think the real issue is your DF making this decision without consulting you and now throwing you under the bus regarding retracting the child's invite.
Your DF should go back to his brother, reiterate the wedding is child free with no exceptions and take responsibility for that.
If his nephew attends the wedding be prepared for some comments from parents who organised and paid for childcare to respect your wishes.

I think child free weddings are rubbish, it's a family event some of my favourite memories as a child are at family weddings, and I loved all the children dancing and playing at mine, they really upped the vibe!
Just let children come and I'm sure you won't notice on the day because you'll just be all happy with getting married.

Well your fiancé gets a say, it’s his brother after all and he really wants him there. I think in this case it’s fine. He’s family, your bridesmaids aren’t and will be too busy to watch their kids.

This is tricky OP. I have no problem with child free weddings (in fact I had one myself) but if you have very close family members like a nephew then I do think an exception can be made.