Weddings again - aibu?

[tallblonde]

DH is from Oz. His brother is getting married in October, so we've spent almost 4k on flights for me, DH and 2DS, who are 3yrs and 18mth, to go over. The flight will be torture, but I was happy to go through the pain (!) for a big family event. However, BIL has now announced that children are not invited so we have to find a babysitter, bearing in mind that all family members will be attending the wedding and our DSs don't know anyone else in Oz.

I understand that people don't want kids at weddings BUT I think it's well out of order to expect us to travel half way around the world and spend thousands that we can ill afford when our LOs - their nephews that they are yet to meet - aren't even invited, and to expect us to be happy to leave them with a stranger - if we can find a sitter at all. I'm furious about this and find it incredibly rude that DH's brother is showing such contempt for his brother's kids, but DH doesn't want to rock the boat. AIBU?

Maybe Lydia... when did the couple pick the venue?

We travelled to New Zealand earlier this year to a friend's wedding. We had booked the flights last Sep and as the couple hadn't said otherwise, assumed DD 17 months at the time was also welcome esp as the couple had a child a similar age themselves. When the invite came through a month before the wedding, it turned out that it was a child free wedding.

I was very stressed about this as it was all booked so there was no option to leave DD behind for 3 weeks so I had to find a local nanny. The couple's own child of course attended the wedding so they didn't help me with childcare and I was really uncomfortable with the whole thing. It all turned out fine in the end - we found a local nanny on the internet, spoke on the phone before travelling out and she worked out very well. But I may have reconsidered attending in the first place had I known from the off. Plus it was another expense to add to a very costly trip. So I guess that what I'm saying is, it's not a great scenario but it will probably be fine to arrange childcare in advance. Sympathies though, I was really offended that we were spending to go to this wedding and had to leave jetlagged DD with a stranger.....

For me it depends on what the wedding invitation said.

IMO if an invitation says "John & Jane Smith are invited to..." it means just that. It doesn't mean "John & Jane Smith and their children are invited to...".

If John & Jane want to bring their children (or need to for practical reasons), it's up to John & Jane to phone up and say "please can we bring our children".

So I think that if it was an invitation to the OP's DH and her, then the OP WBU to assume that it automatically included their children and to go ahead and book flights.

On the other hand, if the invitation said "we'd love it if you and your family could come" or "we'd love it if you could all join us" then the OP WNBU to assume children were invited.

Which was it, OP?