To now say no to party invite

[baboos]

Relative (not close to her) invited twin ds's to her dd birthday party at soft play, thank you I said, would go as to keep the peace within the family. Today, she sent a text via my sister to me stating that if I still wanted my ds's to come to the party I will have to pay for them myself, or they can't come!

Who sends out party invites, then three days before, insists that your children can only come if you now pay...should I decline gracefully, or tell her to stuff her invites.

I am annoyed, but quite happy to be convinced IABU.

How bizarre. Is money an issue for her? Perhaps she didn't realise how much it would cost.

Keep the peace by saying you had not budgeted to pay for a party to which you had been invited as you have not been invited to a party before where you were expected to pay for the DT's and it was not made clear to you when the party invitation was issued, and as a result you will not be able to attend.
This will hopefully make her feel bad and gives you a perfectly reasonable out at the same time.
I wonder if she had too many people accept and didn't expect so many, but no YANBU.

I don't think YABU! I'd tell her I couldn't afford it which would be true 99% of the time

I wonder if she budgeted for a certain number of people, thinking some would RSVP and say they couldn't make it, but she's had more say they were coming than expected? So thinks asking family to pay is the way out of it?

Or she's a rude cow. That sounds more likely.

I'd come up with an excuse why you now can't go.

YANBU

Yanbu

She is.

YANBU. If she wanted you to pay it should have been clear from the start

No, have spoken with two other relatives and they havn't been asked to pay, as far as I can tell, it's just me. Luckily I hadn't told ds's.

I wouldn't bother then

My DD was invited to a party where it said on the invite 'you have to pay, please bring money for cinema, bowling, lunch and shopping afterwards'. We declined. I wouldn't mind if they couldn't afford a party otherwise but 1)it would have cost a fortune on top of a present and 2) they are very very well off so it seemed selfish. There are times when we couldn't afford a large party, so we cut our cloth accordingly and had a birthday sleepover or just went to cinema/pizz hut kids deals. Bizarre!

perhaps she was only inviting out of duty and never in a million years thought you'd say yes and now she's thinking oh shit

very rude of her, tbh. She should suck it up.

If you are the only ones being asked to pay, I'd take the hint and say don't worry about it, we won't come.

YADNBU how odd

Thank you...will decline on principle, perhaps had she spoken to me personally and explained why she expected me to pay, it might have been different. To tell me I have to pay is not on.

I can understand she wanted to keep the peace in the family, invited everyone and then realised she couldn't pick up the whole tab.

Although she should have done her sums beforehand rather than then mailing that you have to pay...

Just decline graciously. In this day and age no-one will hold it against you that times are tough economically.