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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

family wedding saga...

23 replies

sotiredandfedup · 17/01/2011 14:17

Me and dh have four children between us - he has three from his previous marriage and I have one. Dh's kids don't live with us but come to stay in the holidays and some weekends. My dd lives with us.

Dh's cousin is getting married in August. We received an invite to just me and dh, not including our four children. I initially thought it must be an adult only wedding (fair enough) but have since learnt that dh's brothers children have been invited to the wedding. His older brother has one child and his younger brother has two.

AIBU to be offended that our children have been excluded? How can they invite dh's brothers children and not ours? I know we have four, and weddings are costly, but how can families discriminate in this way? I feel like saying if our children are not invited then I'm not going (dh agrees with me).

AIBU to be offended and not to go on this principal?

OP posts:

Hassled · 17/01/2011 14:19

It's bloody odd - usually there's a least consistency with child-free weddings. All I can think of is that perhaps they weren't sure your DH would have his DCs on that date and didn't want to complicate things? Is there a PIL you could ask?

Tillyscoutsmum · 17/01/2011 14:19

YANBU to be offended (or indeed not to go). I have no problem at all with child free weddings but to invite some and not others is ridiculous imho

scurryfunge · 17/01/2011 14:19

Don't go -it is not worth arguing about.

MommyMayhem · 17/01/2011 14:21

Maybe check that it wasn't just an oversight. If they are definitely not invited, then I wouldn't go either.

curlymama · 17/01/2011 14:22

I think in this case you would NBU to email the cousin, or get DH to, and ask if this really is the case. I would definately want to check I had my facts correct before declining this invite. Asking them would either give them the opportunity to correct you, or make them see how awful they are being.

If they have invited one brothers children but not the others, then YANBU to be offended, and to tell them exacty why you are declining their invitation.

CheckeredFlag · 17/01/2011 14:23

How close is he to his cousin? If it were me, I'd phone and ask. 'Are the children invited too or is it a child-free wedding?', no need to assume they haven't. It'll give them the chance to explain their reasoning if they don't want them, or to say, yes of course they can come, if that's what they intended. Then you can make your decision accordingly. Very odd if your four aren't welcome!

Original poster

sotiredandfedup · 17/01/2011 14:24

Yes, mil (who is usually very opionated and vocal on most subjects) seems to be sitting on the fence with this one. She doesn't want us to 'make a fuss' and thinks we should not make an issue out of it and just go.

Hassled - yes, perhpas they wern't sure if DH's Dc's would be with us that weekend, but surely they should have asked anyway? And to not invite my DD (she does live with us) is just plain rude.

I am feeling very defensive of my 'rainbow' family here as you can probably tell!

OP posts:

cat64 · 17/01/2011 14:28

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

MommyMayhem · 17/01/2011 14:29

Do people not realise that it is not always easy to arrange childcare? And also that it is expensive? I went to a wedding once (against my better judgement) and it cost me GBP 150 for a nanny for the day to look after my (non-invited) children (I had no-one else to look after them). Then when I got to the wedding, there were other children there. I was really angry.

BigHairyGruffalo · 17/01/2011 14:56

I really hope that this was a misunderstanding! Are the invited children significantly older?

monkeyflippers · 17/01/2011 15:00

You should ask. Ignore MIL and just ask.

hophophippidtyhop · 17/01/2011 16:57

mommymayhem, I had the same happen to me. I received an invite for my cousins wedding for just me and dp, and had been told no children. When we got there,two of my other cousins children were there,and about 12 other children, meaning only mine and my sisters had been excluded. Took the gift voucher out of the wedding card and left a short angry message in it leaving her in no doubt about my anger and why I took my voucher back!
So, op, yanbu as far as I'm concerned!

feeimcgee · 17/01/2011 17:35

You should check first before getting too upset.

curlymama · 17/01/2011 17:42

hophop, I like your style.

What happened next? Did you hear from them and did they still send you a thankyou for coming or anything?

OP, you do need to double check, unless you have actually seen the invitation with the other children's names on. Sometimes people just assume their children are invited, could that be what's happened?

StuffingGoldBrass · 17/01/2011 17:47

COuld it be that your DP's XP has already made it known to the bride that she won't let her DC attend the wedding or something?

maddy68 · 17/01/2011 17:49

I would assume that only the children of the immediate family are invited i.e. the brothers children and sadly not yours :(
I wouldnt be offended if I were you, it is really expensive factoring in everyones offspring and I expect that is why

rubyrubyruby · 17/01/2011 17:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster

sotiredandfedup · 17/01/2011 20:01

No, DH's XP is not invited as it is his family's wedding, so that cannot be the reason. DH's brothers children are similar ages to ours, so I just can't understand it. I think the reason is probably simple - we have 4 kids and they don't want to fork out the money to invite all six of us (DC are 13, 12, 7 and 5). I still think it is really unfair and feel very offended. How can they ask some family members and not others. Anyway, thanks for all your posts, I feel better knowing I am not being unreasonable in feeling upset. I will now just take great joy in sending them a wedding card signed by all our kids! That'll show em' - ha :)

OP posts:

hophophippidtyhop · 19/01/2011 07:04

curlymama,it wasn't something I'd usually do, I tend to be more of a sit there and seeth and say nothing type. Just walking into the reception and seeing the 3 other children on my side of the family and a dozen others bought out the protective lion in me! I stayed because of my mum, whilst letting the rest of my family know how pissed off I was. Later on I heard she'd been upset at what I'd written, and my uncle made the lame excuse of, there had to be a cut off point somewhere. It was 3 children aged 1,2,and 4. Nothings really been said, my fondness of this uncle has taken a serious bashing.

onceamai · 19/01/2011 07:22

YANBU - either no children or children IMO. Might just get away with just grandchildren of the bride and groom's parents.

We had a family wedding a couple of summers ago (we're cousins) where we were invited to an evening do and told on the invitation it was because they couldn't afford everyone at the wedding breakfast but the invite said but come to the wedding ceremony because we'd love to see you there. Politely declined by these "b" listers here. The DH's recently widowed mother was invited to the whole shabang but no arrangements whatsoever were made by the rude morons happy couple to look after their elderly and recently widowed guest. Guess who was expected to. Guess who has been struck off the christmas card list.

They have treated you badly but they have shown up themselves. If I were you I'd stop worrying and book yourselves, kids included, a fantastic treat for that weekend. Weddings are expensive to attend and you can put the present towards it too.

DizzyKipper · 19/01/2011 08:54

Like others have said, ask before doing anything. I'm organising a wedding myself at the moment (and have to deal with this very issue from the opposite perspective) and I still find it strange. There should be consistently. I did wonder whether perhaps this cousin is in frequent contact with the brothers' children and therefore knows them quite a bit better and thus could explain why they're invited and yours aren't? It's the only reasonable explanation I could think of, and if this was the case to try to be fair I think that is reasonable for a bride and groom to only invite people (or children) that they're close to. However if that's not the case then it wouldn't strike me as fair.

This has made me think about my own invite list. We're having a child friendly wedding (complete with bouncy castle, balloon modellers, ice cream van etc. etc.) and will be making sure people are aware that children are very much welcome. But it hadn't occurred to me to invite my cousin's OH's 4 children from his former marriage. I was assuming they wouldn't want to come - kids usually don't and we're not related so I didn't see why they'd even want to. But now I'm reconsidering whether I should (though tbh money is quite tight and has been extremely difficult to raise) - I guess the simplest thing would be to leave it as "kids welcome" on the invite and ask them to inform us of who specifically will be attending.

MumNWLondon · 19/01/2011 09:49

I am surprised about the lack of consistency. At our wedding for example we had family children only (ie my cousins, and 2nd cousins) but no friends children. So it wasn't children free but we didn't invite the children of friends.

I wouldn't have had a problem with friends bringing a tiny baby though.

I would email and ask why DH's kids are not invited but his nieces and nephews are?

SkyBluePearl · 19/01/2011 10:57

how old are all the chldren? DH's, yours and BIL's?

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