Wedding Aftermath

They were rude not to invite your children (sure, they can invite whomever they wish etc etc, but come on - inviting just some of the kids in any given family setup is not generous in my opinion) but once there you should have been able to manage with the seating arrangements you describe.

He didn't have to call he chose too not everything is the OPs fault

I agree
honestly why bother
we spent a fortune on partners we didn’t know and children we’ve never met before or since.

Inviting work colleagues was a waste of money too. Once we moved offices we never saw the majority ever again.
We Should have stuck to very close friends and family we knew would stick around because we already had a close relationship with

From the 80 seated and
200 evening guests
we could have cut that number to about 30. We’d have had more desert to share around and a bigger deposit for a house

You live and learn but I do hope my sons don’t fall into the same financial trap.

< blimey, how negative I sound >

And yet the advice on here is she should have not gone as per her original plan if she had come on here asking for advice she would have been told not to ask for her children to be included but to send dh and his kids alone and protests would have been met with are you insecure? Not everything is about you let them go to their family event ffs

But why lie? It is the reason she wouldn’t attend? Am sure this will of course be reciprocated and ops kids won’t attend anything with their step sibs now?

But she didn’t decline the invitation, did she? She said she won’t go so her poor husband had to call and ask the groom to invite extra people that hadn’t been invited in the first place. That’s not politely declining an invitation. That’s putting the bride and groom in a difficult spot. If that’s not a strop, I don’t know what is…

I can see the whole thing was awkward for everyone, including you Op.

This is why I don't know why weddings don't go back to being a dance for all in the village hall with a cup of mulled wine and some wedding cake. It's not as though the meal - cooked to be ready for all at the same moment, usually in a makeshift kitchen - is ever worth the angst over who can come, who can't.

But to make any more comment on who was right, who was wrong, I would be wondering, does your DD often get her own way - which might explain the annoyance of the SS - and what WAS the sarcastic comment from SIL?

I think if the DH lives with and treats the younger kids as his step children it's actually rather rude to invite the blood-related kids and not his steps!
Staying home with younger children would have been fine. Once they were invited it should have been expected that at least one of the parents would need to sit with them.

...Oh I hate weddings

I see it differently. The whole family should have been invited and seated together. The bride and groom are the problem here, they caused the situation.

Does your husband go anywhere without his children. You shouldn’t have asked for an invite. The bride and groom should either upheld their lack of invite of move the children to your table.

How long have you been together? If relatively short time, then maybe that’s why they weren’t invited?

The problem here is you. As you yourself say it is illogical that you felt weird that your kids were not invited to a wedding on your DH's side...it really is not weird and they should and need not have been there. You caused this situation yourself.

OP certainly didn’t ask her husband to contact the groom’

We don't know this to be fair.

And I think if she didn't know he was going to, the decent response would've been to tell the bride and groom she's embarrassed he went behind her back and that of course they're not to put themselves out by inviting her kids.

Then wish them a great wedding day and leave it at that.

If you're a fully grown adult it's not embarrassing if your DW/DH doesn't attend a wedding with you. Other adults are allowed to have prior commitments, no need to say it was because her kids weren't invited.

How odd that they didn’t just put you all on a table together.

Op, I think you are overthinking it - it’s done.

The thing I do think you need to think about is - what would you do differently if a similar situation arises in the future?

I think your DH was wrong to request an invitation for your dc, and I think the bride and groom were gracious to invite them.

But next time may be different, so be prepared to discuss that with your DH ahead of accepting or rejecting the invitations.

I would have let DH and his kids go. It's a wedding on their side, not sure if you even knew the bride and groom very well. Asking for two extra guests to be added is SO rude. Weddings are expensive and asking for them to pay for a 9 and 12 yo they didn't know is very CF territory.

Why on earth would you want to go to a wedding which sounds like it was full of folks you didn't know particularly well?

I mean, it’s not a tantrum, OP certainly didn’t ask her husband to contact the groom’

she was not obligated to go to the wedding. Although I would have accepted the invite and been glad I had trusted people to look after the children.

As you are married the whole family should have been invited as your children are your DH’s step children. When your children were invited you should have all been sat on the same table, it was strange to separate the children, this was a thoughtless error on behalf on whoever did the table plan.

I think you were right to say that you didn’t want to go in the first place. Your DH was right to stand up for you and your DC and speak to the groom about it. The groom should have warned you about the table plans in advance although maybe he didn’t know as these things are usually done by the Mother of the Bride and the Bride. It was nothing to do with the step children and they had no right to comment.

It’s done now, I would let it go and move on.

Well we can agree to disagree 😊 and I've already said it wouldn't have bothered me that they weren't invited.

It's an invitation not a summons, she's free to prefer not to attend. I wouldn't expect anyone to invite my son to a wedding but I'd consider not attending if it meant spending most of the weekend without him. It's not a strip, it's just preferring his company.

It’s mean to seat your DC away from you. I definitely can’t be bothered to make polite conversation with strangers at a wedding and I certainly wouldn’t expect children to be put in that position.

It's embarrassing when your spouse refuses to attend a family wedding with you so I expect her DH was trying to avoid looking like a chump because his wife wouldn't attend the wedding with him.

Yes. I see that. I think I would still have declined the invite for the kids though for fear of looing grabby. Now the OP has the worst of both worlds.