Wedding Aftermath

It's a silly fuss about not much. Sounds like you were ready to be offended.

If invites aren't mandatory neither is attendance, not going isn't throwing a strop, it's just not wanting to be somewhere.

Who invites half a family to a wedding? You either invite kids or you don't. Who on earth sits a 9 year old apart from their parents? That not only caused issue for the parebts and the kids, but also puts the people kids were sat with in a weird position of essentially babysitting. Honestly I think your husband may (inadvertantly) have caused the issue here. He should have accepted his family were othering his step-kids and agreed to at least honour your decision not to go, but probably not gone himself.

It is an odd one, you’re married into the family then I think it’s only fair for your DC to be treated the same. I think you did the right thing in the 1st place by saying you’d not go, but then you weren’t to know your DC would be sat at a separate table after it all. I’d not be happy/ sad about that. Going forward chalk it up to experience, and work on the relationship bonding between all your kids as your post seems to read that there’s a slight resentment from your DSC

Well, I think the bride and groom clearly have no knowledge about children, or have trusted people whose advice they can listen to: totally not ok to sit a 9 and 12yo away from their parents at an event full of strangers. I mean, nothing was going to happen to them, but it’s understandable the younger one came to her mum’s table. I suspect the b&g had two cancellations and that was the spillover table. It would have seemed to them that they did a nice thing for your DH.

Your DH wasn’t wrong to ask for his SDC to be included.

You weren’t wrong to suggest sitting it out.

I think this is just one of those things. Children don’t fit easily into adult settings. It’s not a big deal. I wouldn’t dwell on it, it’s not likely to happen again.

Tbh I rhink the appropriate action would have been to stick with your original decision that you wouldn't go, and for DH to go with his kids. The invitation extension to your kids was clearly half-hearted and grudging. Having accepted though, your DC are old enough to be expected to sit where they are told and behave themselves without you needing to disrupt the seating plan, unless you didn't disclose that one or both of them actually needs a familiar adult 1:1 at all times (in which case declining the invitation was even more the right thing to do)

yanbu to think that putting 2 quite young kids on their own on a random table is weird and a bit rude of the b&g.

Yes, nothing was going to happen to them with you in the same room, but wedding meals drag on for ages, it's understandable they'd want to be with the rest of their family. Also a bit shit for the other couples on the table forced to supervise 2 random kids! B&G should have just chatted to you and DH and said 'Look, we're happy to invite the two younger DC but we don't have room to put all of you on the same table - will they be okay on their own or what's the best way to sort it?'

However trying to get your step son or whoever else to swap was a bit weird - you or your DH swapping with one of your kids would have been the most straightforward choice from the outset.

Well then you shouldn't have gone!

Tbf they were doing her a favour. Weddings are expensive and it’s the one day in life that the B&G should be able to decide who attends.

Sounds like the bride and groom felt an obligation to invite your children once your DH had spoken to them, which was kind of them, given it was clearly not convenient. It sounds like it caused a bit of a ball ache with seating plans.

They were very generous to you and, for the waitress to have spoken to your daughter, she must have been disruptive.

If it happens again, may I suggest you accept it and don’t try to wangle an invitation - putting people in that position is really cringeworthy

English wedding invitations are like favours from God. Better to not attend such weddings where they are doing such grand favour by inviting you.

Not sure how to vote really.
YABU to have expected an invite for your DC, your DP is not their Dad and his family are not their family. You shouldn’t have refused to go.
But i wouldn’t have thought to sit 9 and 12 year old DC away from their parent. So yes in that situation I would have swapped and sat on the other table like you did.

Your husband should never have spoken to the groom. It was their wedding and they can invite who ever they like. It might rankle that all the children are not treated the same but you need to lower your expectation of people or you’ll be forever disappointed. My DHs hideous parents treated my daughter differently once I produced another daughter that shared their DNA.

Which is another reason why the OP shouldn't have forced the situation where they had to be at the wedding in the first place.

She didn't. She was going to decline, and her husband was the one who asked if the children could go - see below

I did not throw a strop. Before I could send my regrets my husband asked the groom if it would be possible to extend an invitation to my children which he kindly did.

The lack of empathy from so many posters who can't remember what it was like being a child and feeling unconfident and uncomfortable with strangers is depressing and lacking in empathy

Which is another reason why the OP shouldn't have forced the situation where they had to be at the wedding in the first place.
It's not about lacking empathy for a child put in a situation they aren't happy about, it is about thinking the OP is unreasonable in the first place for creating the situation and then even more so for complaining about it afterwards as if it is everyone's fault but her own.

The whole thing sounds awfully embarrassing. You should have just gone to the wedding without your children in the first place.

I find some of these responses very bizarre!

You’re married, you’re supposed to be a family. I presume that your DH’s relatives knew he had gotten married and that his wife also had children, if he’s close enough to be invited as a day guest.
In a situation like this, either just the two of you should have been invited as a couple, or your whole family unit. If it was about cost, they should have approached your DH and explained, and asked if it would be okay just his children or he’d prefer just the two of you go.
I also think it’s terrible to put children aged 9 and 12 on a table with strangers, what an awful and uncomfortable experience that must have been for them.
I find it quite inconsiderate on the B&G’s part how they have handled all of this.

OP you did the right thing switching seats. Ignore your stepson having any sort of issue (nothing happened so what is actually his problem?!). Ignore SIL as well.

Don't feel bad for not wanting your children to be excluded, you are their mum, and they are part of your DH’s family now.

I wouldn’t have dragged my kids to the wedding of someone they didn’t know in the first place. Weddings aren’t fun for teenagers. If you didn’t want to go then you should have let your husband go with his children awhile you did something else with your own.

I have read some more posts now

a) The OP didn't "throw a tantrum" about her children not being invited
b) The lack of empathy from so many posters who can't remember what it was like being a child and feeling unconfident and uncomfortable with strangers is depressing and lacking in empathy

I’m extremely ancient and I wouldn’t have wanted to be sitting with strangers at a wedding.

Christ @TMFF . Yes really.

At nine I would have felt uncomfortable sitting with just my sister and a load of strangers I didn't know at a wedding.

Have you never in your life felt uncomfortable with strangers?

Don’t be daft. She wasn’t being ‘there for her child’, she was making a point that she wasn’t sitting with her children by causing a bigger problem than there needed to be.

She took them in to a situation that they were not able to manage. A wedding with people who they didn’t know. Her child was repeatedly getting in the way of people trying to do their job and her mother didn’t do anything about it, yet again putting the child into a position that she shouldn’t have been in. She should have said something like ‘stay at your table with your brother until the plates have been cleared away and then I’ll come over and see what you thought about the lamb’. But she let her wander about until someone else had to tell her to sit down. That’s not ‘being there for your child’. It’s putting your child in an unnecessary situation.

Why did your children have to go? You shouldn't have forced the groom to invite them. How weird!

YABU.
You should have just used the "lots of childcare" you have available, or asked their Dad to have your dc for the day, and gone to the wedding you were invited to as your dh's wife.
You have created the situation by putting your dh in the position of feeling he had to put pressure on the groom, who for some reason relented and invited your dc.
Despite causing all that fuss to get them there, you then created further fuss by moving seating at the Reception.

I’ve lost count of the number of threads where an OP who is a step mum is chastised for not ensuring that her own family accept her step kids as part of the family, and include them in family events. Seems that step dads are not held to the same standard if the replies here are anything to go by.