Wedding question- who is U- me or the bride?

[angelberry]

A relative of mine is getting married. One of my children is involved in the wedding, the rest are not. All fine.

My problem is this: she has booked a place which is too small for the amount of people she wants to invite. Her solution is to leave the children outside with 'a couple of the dads' to look after them. What this actually means is that I'll be in the wedding watching DD be bridesmaid but my DH and other children will be waiting outside.

I'm not sure how to react. Most of the family seem to think it was a great idea. I thought it was bloody rude, but this particular relative has never been too hot on manners so I'd let it go. But my parents have just found out and are livid, wanting me to pull DD from being bridesmaid if half of our family isn't welcome.

Now, tbh, I don't know whether to keep the peace or not. There's no middle ground here, due to the nature of my family, it's a choice between going along with it or setting off WW3.

So, what would mumsnet do?

I would just go along with it. They are being rude, yes. But lots of brides are rude and blinkered and entitled - what can you do?

If you make a fuss and refuse to go you will be the ones looked upon as trouble makersh/ haughty self entitled loons. Not really worth falling out over is it?

We've been to all manner of weddings, with all manner of rudenesses (one in a milllion examples - bride and groom had wedding list at a very upmarket shop where the cheapest item was a £70 bowl. We were all in our mid 20s at the time and skint. I went in with five other people to buy one bloody saucepan).

But we've gone along with it. It's only ONE HOUR out of your lives.

I had a similar problem at my own wedding. The venue we had fallen in love with had a ceremony room that was only licensed for 40 people. So we made it a child free wedding to fit the numbers in (in my defence we were childless at the time, I didn't understand what a nightmare child free is for parents).

Whatever you do, please don't try to sneak dh in at the back. The room is licensed for a maximum number. Anything over that could invalidate the marriage. It really is that important.

Actually I think the bride and groom should have a thought for their guests and the feelings of their guests. Remembers receiving an invitation to an evening do which would have been fine, but which included a section telling us where the ceremony would take place but we were not invited to the formal reception due to cost. So effectively "you are only worth spending money on for the evening do because you are not that important to us but we want lots of people in the church to make it feel like a big wedding but we don't give a damn about what you are going to do in London between 2pm and 8pm - go and amuse yourself or spend your time travelling home and coming out again.

MIL at the time was recently widowed and the most senior member of the family. She was invited to whole day but no effort or offer was made to look after her. DH, having been treated like a second class citizen had to take her to the church and attend the ceremony, escort her to the reception and then collect her from the evening do.

We declined the invitation due to the sheer rudeness. Still angry - my family would never have done anything like that. When dd1 was born we were part of a joint e-mail to about 150 people announcing the birth and stating very clearly what their new address was - presumably for receipt of presents . If they had wanted to keep in touch they would have informed everyone of their new address when they moved I would have thought.

Blood still boiling come to think of it.

AngelBerry - I think you should let your Mum deal with it.

If it were me, rather than shell out ££££ on attending the wedding of someone I'm not that fussed about/treated my dh and dc as spare parts I would decline the invitation.

I'd imagine my DW would be seriously annoyed, but I'd be happy enough to stay outside listening to the radio and chatting!

Actually, just picked up on DD being bridesmaid, in that case I'd want to be in there.

It is rude and I would probably just decline the invitation tbh.

Standing outside is bad enough, having responsibility for other peoples children even worse.

i think it's rude to assume he'll look after other people's kids. and rude to expect him to stay outside.

dunno what i'd do though... probably let my mum sort it out!

Very strange idea on the brides part, but perhaps you and DD could arrive at the start, sit though ceremony and let DD do her bridesmaid bit, then get DH to arrive with your DS's when the ceremony is over and everyones ready to move onto the next part - drinks reception/photographs, whatever that may be.
But this would only work if it wasn't going to break your DH's heart that he wont get to see DD be bridesmaid

See, in principle I don't think the idea is all that rude. Some of the responses on here are a bit dramatic.

The rude part is springing it on the OP rather than a cards on the table invitation. If you invite someone to-well, anything, really-they should know at the time of being invited what they are saying yes or no to.

If a relative did this to me, I'd probably say fine, but I'm not (or DH is not) looking after any children other than our own. I suspect DH would completely veto an arrangement where he didn't get to see DD being a bridesmaid though, he's soppy like that. If you aren't particularly close to the people getting married, sitting in the bar with a drink and a stack of magazines getting the kids full of sugar energy they can unleash at the reception sounds like the better option to me.

Why can't other people look after their own children?

because apparently they're too important to miss the wedding.

OP - am curious to know how the situation developed.

Were you all named on the original invitation? If so, at what stage were your DH and DSs "uninvited"? When were you told that DH was one of the "couple of Dads" dumped assigned with the childminding task?

Did she ever ask if you were OK with this or were you just told?

Tell her to fuck off.

We were invited to a family wedding couple of years back, the venue wa too small!! We ended up stood outside . . . Very odd. 3 hour trip .... Hotel costs, new clothes.... No wedding

Marking my place to see how this pans out.

(I like your idea of all going in and sitting near the front)

If a venue is too small for everyone then it's too small. Our local register office only holds 35 and it's perfectly usual for only that number of guests to be invited. However, I've yet to attend a wedding where the bride and groom only admit half a family. So if the OP's dd is a bridesmaid then surely the rest of the immediate family should be invited to the ceremony? It's not being precious to think this is reasonable either. IMHO.

Do you think you would of had an invite had you not had a 'cute' bridesmaid material DD ? If not I wouldn't bother going at all and spend the money elsewhere.

FWIW My DH was one of 6 and his sister had two nieces as bridesmaids but didnt invite their siblings..... yes two sets of Mum and Dad had invites and were expected to attend with their bridesmaid DD and leave the rest of the kids at home

You don't have to say yes to everything.

DD is included as bridesmaid, DSs have not.
Bride/Groom do not want children at the ceremony

Bride wants your husband to wait outside with your children.
Bride wants you to look after other people's children.

Now you have an understanding of the full picture, decide what is best for your family. Or let your mum sort it.

Why should your dh look after other peoples children, what if they little bastards and end up running riot? Or getting hurt?

Not be for us as a family, bride mad as a march hare! Tell them it's a no no and if it's ww3 then who cares, what have u lost here.

Your mom sounds lovely btw

I think your DH should take your DC elsewhere if he is not welcome. That includes your DD. It is rude to split a married couple in this way. you can still attend if you really want to. Although maybe you would all have more fun having a family day out.

There is no way my DD would be a bridesmaid under those circumstances.

The big problem here is that DH will have to miss DD's big moment walking down the aisle. That's really sad. I could be wrong, but I'm guessing the majority of parents would be gutted not to be able to see it, however they might feel about weddings generally. It just seems really mean. The rest is rather cheeky of the bride but copeable with, if you're so minded.

I think that the bride is being unthoughtful. There is a large tranch of society that don't consider children as people with feelings, opinions and 'rights'. I'm not one for putting children first over everything - I just think that everyone needs to be considered and that includes children and adults alike.

In this instance I would think that the bride doesn't have children (yet) and thinks one parent watching the wedding and one parent outside looking after the children is totally fine, without any consideration that a) the parent outside would like to watch the wedding too (isn't that the point of attending?!) and b) the children who are attending want to see the wedding (otherwise you would just take them to the park or something).

I can't tell you what to do. Child free weddings at the bride/groom request are perfectly normal and okay - but this half way measure doesn't work at all. It is like they are dogs that can be left outside. Just leave them a bowl of water!

I've read the whole thread. I hadn't realised your DH was supposed to be looking after 8 children during the ceremony.

You do realise that with 100 people in attendance, in all likelihood there will be far more than 8 children there in total. This either means there are some children who are allowed in the ceremony, which is a total snub to your 2 boys. Or, on the day, your DH is going to have a few more than 8 children to look after where other parents see it as free childcare during the ceremony.

If you don't want to create WW3 and want to agree to DH and DC not going to wedding, I would ask the bride when the ceremony will end and your DH and DC will turn up in time.

You could say "I know that space is tight and it is sad that DH and DC can't come to the ceremony but your DH does not want to look after other people's children so he and the boys will be along in time for the end of the ceremony."

Seriously - there is no way there will only be 8 children when there are so many guests.

I wanted to add to the others who have said not to try and sit in the room anyway. We had 80 guests at our wedding, there were 80 seats and hotel and registry office staff on duty to ensure that the 80 limit was not breached (and our ushers working hard to ensure families did not have to be split up).

FWIW every venue we saw could accomodate all the meal guests for the ceremony but in some venues that meant out in the marque or in a featureless dining room that you then had to wait an hour for before you could sit down whilst it was turned from ceremony room into dining room. I bet there is an option in this venue that could accomodate all the guests, the bride and groom just don't want to use it.