about family wedding, I know that I am

[ditavonteesed]

I am really really U, but I feel upset so I want people to tell me to get a grip. My lovely cousin is getting married later in the year, she lives in argentina but is getting married over here. (well I guess that has outed me to any family), it will be where my aunty lives which is about 4 hour drive away. Anyway we wont be invited to the day do, just the evening, I wouldnt expect anything else we dont see them often and are only cousins. My mum said yesterday cousins are only going to the evening. Here is the complicated bit, My brother is the photographer, so he will be going all day, and has said he wants his family there all day, so my sil and d niece and nephew. My my mum and dad will obvousy be going all day as will my gran (all live round the corner from me).

this is exactlly what happened when my other cousin got married and we dutifully drove for 3 hours with at the time 2 very small children and hung out in the hotel room all day and felt very left out when we actually went. this is not anyone but my own fault. but I really hate feeling so left out of my own close family, it brings back memeories of always feeling left out when I was younger and feeling like my dm and df would have prefered dsil was there daughter to me.

Anyway I realised that it is not cousins, it is me, I am the only cousin as my brother obviously doesnt count because of the photgrapher thing.

Thing is both dd's are really car sick and I would normally give them phenergan for such a long journey, rendering them not a lot of use for most of the rest of the day. it is a very long drive and neither of dd's are good at late nights, we have been to parties before where they have been begging to go home at 9pm.

I should not go really should I, I just feel so left out of my family (db shares hobby with df so they are always going to stuff together with dbs family and dm and often dgran)
I know that all of this is my problem and I am very happy for my dcousin, love her to death and would not expect her to invite me to the day or anything, but for some reason i have woken up feeling very sad about it.

So shout at me please. :)

I really wouldn't go tbh.

4 hours drive for a night do? No chance.

YANBU at all. You have been treated quite unkindly in my view and I actually would make a point by declining the invite.

All of you should have the same invitation extended. If your brother and his family are invited all day (regardless of him being photographer) the same gesture should be made to you and your unit.

Send a card with your good wishes and spend the day doing something fun with your children instead.

YANBU to feel upset - I've been the bride in the opposite situation and I felt upset I could only invite my cousins to the evening do of my wedding. (I have a large family and we had a small wedding, so if all my cousins, partners and their children had attended I'd have had barely any friends at the wedding).

In my case DH only had 1 uncle and aunt and he is not so close to his cousins, so it made sense to only invite mine to the evening otherwise my family would have completely outnumbered everyone else.

4 of my cousins still came to the evening and I was really glad they did come, it meant a lot to me. I wish they could have been there for the day, though, and I hope you do manage to get there one way or the other!

Yanbu.

Who on earth expects anyone to travel 4 hours for a wedding reception?

And it's not like your wedding at all, you didn't invite any of them, not some and not others. Why didn't you want the stress of inviting family to your wedding? Was it general wedding stress or are your family stress inducing anyway? (mum and mil turned into principal-guest-zillas at mine ).

It would be very unreasonable for them to expect you to travel 4 hours and pay for an overnight stay with children just for an evening party. Your children might not even be invited, in which case you would need to sort child care too.

God some people on here have a massive sense of entitlement.

If the brother is taking the photos for cost and is a professional wedding photographer - he is saving them thousands (laughs at idea of 12p for DVD and a camera).

The SIL is being invited because he is doing them a huge favour, their family relationship is by the by in this case.

The bride probably hasn't thought of inviting just you - no dh and DCs - is your mum close enough to her mum to suggest it?

Otherwise - go down with your parents - get dh to have DCs - have fun in pool etcand take a day to relax, go to the evening do and enjoy yourself and go home with parents in morning.

It's what I would do.

The OP did state that she doesn't mind about not being invited.