AIBU to reconsider France wedding trip after finding children excluded?

Sounds a bit mad to me. It’s term time and presumably you were at the official wedding? Does the wife have family in France or something? Say you can’t make it. Wish them well, have them round for a meal after to see the photos.

Go on your own or decline.

What assholes...

At least you know where you stand in terms of their values vs yours....

Same!

I work in a school, teachers do get time off for family weddings and the OP may not even be a teacher.

I must also be a bad mother because I would have loved that when mine were younger

Married 18months ago.

Were you at that one?

Second wedding-err really or just a party?

Second weddings are so silly, especially when the second wedding to share the experience with all friends and family except if they can’t travel or have children. It’s like couples are going out of their way to make attending difficult and expensive…. which might just be understandable if it was the real thing.

Many of us have had enough of this nonsense. Taylor Swift expectations on a Joe Swash budget. If you were there for the actual wedding you don’t need to be there for the pantomime second act, nobody does really.

I’ve stopped bothering attending OTT or second weddings (always RSVPing well in advance) because in my experience they are always for the couples that break-up before I’ve even paid off the credit card debt I accrued attending.

You poor thing! I love weddings and always come away having had a lovely time

It is almost as though he has arranged this wedding to mean that you have to decline!

I'd be delighted, perfect excuse not to go ... I find most weddings tend to be hard work for guests.

YABU for this bit: We choose not to send our children to kids clubs and only do things with them if they can be included.

This seems extreme and limiting to me, especially at the age your children are.

People seem to be assuming this is taking place at least part over a weekend. If it's like Thurs/Friday and you can stay for the weekend and the kids are just not coming to the meal, I'd absolutely still go and enjoy and do the babysitting. You've booked the time off.

If it's midweek, it sounds like a total faff anyway, especially with kids in tow, unless there is time for them apart from the meal to enjoy the area. If there isn't - i.e. you'd be bringing them there SOLELY to leave them with a babysitter - I'd go alone or just say there's now an issue with time off school.

So your brother has organised his wedding

in term time, when you are a teacher and have school age kids

in a different country

and then said your kids aren’t welcome for the middle 4 hours of the wedding

It doesn’t seem like he’s that bothered about whether you can go, does it?? In your shoes I wouldn’t go and would save my exceptional leave goodwill for something else.

I hope you were invited to the small wedding.

You're a teacher, it's term time, and this is not an 'exceptional circumstance' - it's just a party.

I wondered that too, has she maybe said it's for the wedding and not just a knees-up months after the event?

The following day stuff rings a bell, it was a long time ago. The whole thing was discombobulating and tiring. Why are the meals so long?

I think I would volunteer to miss the 4 hour meal and look after my own children, sounds to be a real bum-ache, I used to think Mess dinners were too long at about 2.5 hours.

A party isn't an exceptional circumstance.

He's already had one wedding.I wouldn't go to the second one especially if it was abroad.

I’d leave DH and the kids at home and go alone (or just not go). DH’s Sister is getting married in Spain next month, she lives there. We’re all invited but the day doesn’t even start until 5pm, dinner at 8pm and on until the small hours. It’s not worth the cost of flights and accommodation for me to deal with a grumpy tired toddler throughout (and be stuck at a remote venue far from where we’d be staying) so I’m just not going at all.

I'd be questioning how much they actually want you there. You work in education but they booked a term time wedding and are now saying that although their children who are younger will be at the meal, you need to pay a babysitter as your children aren't welcome.

Not really “exceptional circumstances” is it to attend someone’s second wedding

I often find myself in the minority on these threads. I would move heaven and earth to attend something like this for my siblings and make it work in line with the way they wanted their day.

Equally I attended all my friends’ weddings (including abroad, including kids free abroad where we travelled with grandparents to bring breastfeeding 6 month old to and from the venue so i could feed him!) and don’t regret time time, money or hassle from any of them. Many of them have been the best days of my life making memories with lifelong friends. My siblings’ weddings were amazing. One day my parents will be gone and I’m so glad we have had these times all of us together!

I went to a French wedding whilst pregnant and with a one year old. It wasn’t too bad as there is entertainment and such like between each course and kids were free to run around. I wouldn’t have gone without my child but I probably would’ve accepted babysitting at some points 😂 I wouldn’t take kids out of school for it though.

So they’re welcome for the whole lovely trip, holiday with family and cousins, and it’s just one boring long meal they’ll be missing and instead watching movies with a fun babysitter and having chips?

YABU. You can manage 4 little hours away from your kids in the context of a family trip.

If you miss it over this your brother would rightly be very hurt.

NRTFT OP but is the bride French?

In France a wedding can go on for days, it's not unusual for it to be a three day thing and the meal will be late, lots of standing around so factor that in if you are still wanting to take the DC.
Usually there is a nanny or two to take care of the children during the meal/before/after.

Is part of the family french? At my uncle and my brothers wedding (sil and aunty both french) they had a nanny come and take the children at 6pm onwards, the meal went on til 11pm. Theres no way the children would of say through it all.

French occasion meals are always a lifetime, christmas eve is a full day thing, christmas dinner stretches from about 10am til gone midnight with various courses, drinks etc.

The set up sounds fairly standard for a french wedding but entirely reasonable to not attend if it doesn’t suit your needs