Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Sorry, another wedding one - Christmas wedding

97 replies

Welshmaenad · 19/03/2015 11:06

I just need to check if IABU because I think my DH thinks I am and I suspect the B&G may think so also!

We have been invited to the full day at the wedding of one of DH's uni friends. Lovely bloke and lovely fiancée and under most circumstances I'd be delighted to go, they came to our wedding.

We have two children, who will be 9&5. They are not invited, which is absolutely fine with me. However, the wedding is several hours away and will require an overnight stay. It's also the 23rd December. We have very limited options for overnight care of our two, my mum is dead, dad is disabled and can't handle them alone for long periods, sister and BIL have a very busy life and are bound to have plans xmas eve. DH's family all the other end of the country and completely useless and disinterested.

Even if we could find someone to have them who doesn't mind giving up half their xmas eve to keep them till we get back in the early afternoon, I don't want to be away from them on xmas eve. We have a lot of traditions and it's usually a full busy day for us, and I think they would be upset.

I have told DH to accept the invitation and go solo and I will stay home with the kids, he usually works Xmas eve anyway so they won't be devastated at his absence. He thinks I'm being overly sentimental and that I should just ask around to find care for them. AIBU to say he should go alone?

OP posts:
Roseformeplease · 19/03/2015 12:25

Why not take them with you and make it part of Christmas but find (pay) someone to have them during the wedding itself.

Totality22 · 19/03/2015 12:27

I love, love, love Christmas Eve but ended up working it last year (for the first time ever. I'd always managed to book it off in all my years of employment). It actually wasn't too bad.

if you left very early in the morning after the wedding you could be home by 10-11? Is that an option? If you can get childcare of course.

SaucyJack · 19/03/2015 12:31

YANBU at all.

I'm all for people having the wedding they want, but a child-free one two days before Christmas really is taking the pee.

Viviennemary · 19/03/2015 12:32

I think it is a bit inconsiderate to have a wedding so close to Christmas. Unless you really don't want any guests but feel obliged to invite people. I think you'd be quite reasonable not to go and just send your DH.

Thurlow · 19/03/2015 12:34

YANBU.

If you plan a wedding abroad, in the middle of nowhere, around Christmas or New Year, or decide it will be child free, you can't be surprised when not everyone you've invited can make it.

Still resentful of the friends who haven't forgiven us for not making their US wedding

CarlaVeloso · 19/03/2015 12:34

How about going, staying relatively sober and getting up at dawn on the 24th to get home as early as possible? I did that after a wedding once. The bride and groom were none the wiser and I felt I'd taken part.

Or one of you stays sober and drives you both home (the passenger sleeps) after the wedding, back to your own home then the one who got the most sleep gets up early and heads out to collect the children early the next morning?

What are the distances involved? Everything's doable if you think it through. Kind of depends how much you want to be there. I'm sure the b&g will expect a fair few declines actually, esp from people with children.

Christmas weddings are a bit annoying though. We went to a 27th Dec one once and had to travel there on 26th - it was a flight away. Really interrupted our Christmas.

ChopOrNot · 19/03/2015 12:37

I agree with Carla and Totality. I think you are being a bit precious really. Yes Christmas Eve is special - but is really the first few hours of Christmas Eve any different? Go, have a nice time, don't drink too much and pick up your DCs at 9am/9.30am in the morning. Cannot see the major problem really.

CarlaVeloso · 19/03/2015 12:38

I also meant to say that I think it's perfectly fine for you to stay behind and let your DH go alone. With uni get-together this approach often works best anyway.... He'll have a blast.

squoosh · 19/03/2015 12:43

I think the problem is that the wedding is a few hours travel away.

outtolunchagain · 19/03/2015 12:53

I think your solution is the best , to be honest I would have thought it would be pretty difficult to get childcare on Xmas eve anyway

miniavenger · 19/03/2015 13:02

What does your DH think will happen about childcare apart from saying that you should ask around? He seems to think it's so easy, but has he actually looked into it? Has he actually put any thought into the logistics at all?

NeedABumChange · 19/03/2015 13:11

Don't they or you have any friends? Sleepover time!

Your being slightly precious, it's the night before Xmas eve not actually Xmas. If they are proper friends I would make the effort and go. At least ask sis and bil. They might be busy Xmas eve night but not the morning, that's just a normal day.

Original poster
Welshmaenad · 19/03/2015 14:16

Yes, squoosh is correct, the wedding is at least 3 hours away, more when you factor in rest stops etc. even leaving at 8pm we wouldn't be home till gone midnight with the kids, to get home in the morning we'd have to leave ridiculously early. Whichever way I look at it, it seems stressful.

I'm not really happy with the idea of booking a nanny-type childminder, they're not really used to being looked after by strangers, especially in an unfamiliar environment, I can see that it would be a solution for some families but not for us. Besides which it would make the trip prohibitively expensive, I'm a student and we are on the bones of our bums as it is.

Yes we do have friends, as do the children, but asking people to have my kids tag along in the majority of their Xmas Eve plans seems unreasonable. I do like the B&G but don't know them, or the rest if the uni friends, especially well, they're DH's friends from well before they met, and my thinking was that as long as HE got to go, all was good.

OP posts:
Original poster
Welshmaenad · 19/03/2015 14:17

Sorry, from well before WE met, as DH and I.

OP posts:
sparkysparkysparky · 19/03/2015 14:22

YANBU. DH going solo is the best compromise. This isn't a problem resolved with childcare imho. It would be a very good friend of your family that would do a sleep over especially if they have children too. I think the "It's Christmas, fgs!" card is played here.

Heels99 · 19/03/2015 14:22

Yanbu. It will impact in your Xmas eve which is Special day, I disagree with posters saying it's just a normal day, no it's not!

waithorse · 19/03/2015 14:26

I wouldn't want to miss Christmas eve with my dc for a wedding. It's such a special day, because they are so excited. You don't get many year's of them being young.

coconutpie · 19/03/2015 14:27

YANBU. The B&G picked one of the most awkward days of the whole year so what can they expect? It's a 3 hour journey away so half of Christmas Eve would be wasted then travelling back. Christmas Eve is too precious of a day to waste it travelling, especially when you have children. Tell your husband he can go solo.

PHANTOMnamechanger · 19/03/2015 14:34

YANBU at all! The B&G should have thought more carefully, I know it's their big day but if they really want people there why pick a date that is going to be so hard for many people - what about people who've got rellies descending for the hols, loads of cooking etc to do. Much better to have had it 28th/29th IMHO!

mandy214 · 19/03/2015 14:34

I think you're being slightly precious. I have 9 and 5yr olds too.

I think you have a few options that don't mean you both can't go.

  1. Pull a favour in from one of the the mums of your 9yr old and let them have a sleep over. My 5yr old isn't ready for sleepovers yet so I would leave with the relative (that you said was 45 mins away). I would stay until after the 1st dance, then leave, collect 5yr on the way home (probably won't even wake up) and go home. Collect 9yr old early doors from friends.
  1. Take children with you if it is in a hotel. When my sister got married a couple of years ago, we had a local nanny come to the hotel (recommended from here if I remember correctly) - spoke to her a couple of times before the day, met her at tea time, then I put the children to bed and she sat outside the bedroom. The children would love the adventure. H and I kept popping up to check with her / the children.
squoosh · 19/03/2015 14:38

It's not precious though is it? Christmas Eve is a busy day for people with small kids, who can be arsed starting the day with a three/four hour car journey?

sparkysparkysparky · 19/03/2015 14:39

Mandy, I think option 2 maybe but, personally, I wouldn't even try option 1 unless there had been a death in the family and I desperately needed a massive favour.

expatinscotland · 19/03/2015 14:45

YANBU. Not at all precious. All this fannying around is ridiculous, especially with so many suggesting you sort it all out, pulling in favours, getting up at dawn, hiring nannies. WTAF? It's a bad time of the year that they chose to have their wedding, hours away, and his mates.

He goes alone.

OVienna · 19/03/2015 14:46

Are they really this stupid or do they secretly want fewer people there? Terrible time to try to get someone to babysit for you, even if it's family - everyone has loads on and imagine if you got delayed and inconvenienced the person who was helping you. What they are thinking is anyone's guess.

YANBU.

diddl · 19/03/2015 14:49

Well travelling back Christmas Eve wouldn't bother me as long as I could be with the children in the afternoon/evening so you may be being a little precious.

But, when children aren't invited, B&G must accept that not everyone can get childcare & either just one, or neither of a couple will go.

Swipe left for the next trending thread