‘Child-free’ wedding

Would have loved to have them there. Ergo they aren’t going. Child care so they can still attend. Without their kids.

Not having your PITA child invited to a wedding is the consequence of having a PITA child.

I have very little sympathy for parents of annoying and badly behaved children when they're not invited to weddings (family or not). If you want your child to be included in people's special (and often expensive) events, then improve your chances by ensuring you adequately parent your child so they aren't disruptive to everyone else.

Is nephew the only child that is related to the wedding party?

If so then you could suck it up, and make apologies to the bridesmaids and others who had to find childcare with a 'only because he's close family excuse'.

That protects your future relationship with your BIL and SIL, but gives you an out against grumbling from the other parents.

I don't think he'll be much bother at the wedding based on your description - will probaby find a quiet corner with a phone or tablet.

However, if you have any other nieces and nephews and they have also been excluded then I think you should suck it up the other way and tell BIL and SIL that unfortunately there's no room for all the nieces and nephews so would be unfair to have just one there.

Or they enjoy child free weddings.

I practically groan when I get an invite and my DC are invited too.

I think a lot of the reason people include immediate family is because the alternative childcare is at the wedding! So bridesmaids who are not family may have more people that can look after their children than a SIL whose family is actually at the wedding. Of course there are exceptions but most people I know would use family for childcare that was the length of a wedding.

We had a very small, child free wedding (as in no children under 10). 3 days before the wedding we inadvertently discovered that DH’s cousin was planning to bring her 3 year old son. A very difficult conversation had to happen reminding her that her son could not be accommodated at the reception. So her DH had to miss it & mind the child.
Ironically when she had got married 2 years earlier my DD was not invited & we respected that.

Tell him the kid will be bored, there are no other children, no internet, & if he misbehaves he will have to be taken home

You're perfectly entitled to have a child free wedding and your fiance shouldn't have offered an invite without consulting you.

However excluding his one nephew when he's close enough to his brother to have him as best man is going to set you on a collision course with the inlaws and you'll come off looking worse no matter how much of a pain in the arse the nephew is. I would tread carefully in these circumstances.

So one day the nephew gets married and excludes you, how would you feel

I always find these threads so alien as I’m from a family where the dc are very much part of the family. I can understand not inviting friends’ dc but excluding my brother’s dc would have been a massive deal. Thankfully my dc have always been very welcome at all family weddings. I do appreciate different families are different. I’ve never seen badly behaved dc at a wedding - badly behaved grown ups? Absolutely 😂

I know! It sounded so childish like OP was saying they don’t pay us any attention!!! Like they we’re ten!

Nothing wrong with a child free wedding but be prepared for people not to come.

It is what it is. I had this recently. Didn't want to go and leave my DS overnight. Bride threw an absolute fit about it. Hasn't spoken to me since.

I think you have to do what you and your partner want and just accept some people won't come.

If you allow one child it will put a bitter taste in people's mouths that theirs couldn't come. Or not - some might be glad for an excuse for the night off!

OP I'm late to the thread and have only read your replies but I am with you. I think you need to put your foot down and suck up looking like the bad guy. Your partner should not have agreed to anything without discussing it with you.

the fact that there are others with children who could not really be left out if you invited this child is a perfectly reasonable excuse.

I don't imagine the 10 year old especially wants to go anyway!

if you want a compromise option you could hire a babysitter and have a separate area where any kids could hang out at key moments, and then allow your friends to bring their kids on this basis too.

I agree with this.

Personally I think child free weddings are great and if you don’t want kids there that’s fine. But you have to accept some parents won’t make it due to childcare though.

So

Good!

Pretty much every wedding I’ve been to in the last 25 years ish has been child-free except children of immediate family. Everyone on mumsnet hates childfree weddings but in my experience they are absolutely the norm - except for nieces and nephews.

Which is exactly what we did too by the way.

Yeah, it's not really about the 10 year old is it?

OP, leaving your child with someone else so that you can attend a wedding isn’t relaxing, for many people it’s inconvenient, expensive and stressful.

You’re paying for the wedding so you have a perfect right to say what you want, but understand that people will come in spite of the child free rule, not because of it.

I think YABU op. I think it’s absolutely fine to limit children at weddings and not invite the children of friends or distant relatives but siblings, nieces and nephews should be included as an exception to the child free rule. They are core family and shouldn’t be excluded from a major family event

Your fiance made a decision based on his relationship with his brother, which it sounds like is very important to him. I wouldn't step in the way of that, and would let the invitation stand even though it's not what you wanted. I also wouldn't bitch about the nephew or the decision to anyone. This kid is 10 and it will always reflect badly on you.

I love a child-free wedding, it means I don't need to go. I would guess those saying they're looking forward to a child-free party either have childcare on tap or are saying it just to be polite.

OP your fiance was being a dick to sanction this without discussing it with you first.

You were both behaving like dicks for wanting to exclude his nephew.

Both things can be true.

People don’t complain because they are polite!

Yabu for calling a 10 year old a pita for not engaging with you. He's a child ffs. The day will come when you'll cringe for having said that. Would you let him come if he fawned over you?

Ask yourself, is it really worth your wedding going down in family history as the day that started the family rift?

They should be pushily inviting their child, but your husband to be really should "know" his own nephew. Of course he wants to play his switch - talk to him about that fgs!