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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Pressure re baby at wedding

486 replies

DeeDee40 · 26/07/2015 16:44

Hello AIBU? Getting married in a matter of weeks. Decided not to invite kids due to cost,type and size of venue. Means that DHs nieces cant come too but thats choice were happy with. A friend contacted me today hinting re inviting her baby who will be seven months by then due to bfing! The message said that her family will have to keep him outside church and reception and phone her when he needs feeding and she hopes the next wedding she goes to will invite him!???? does she expect her family to bring her baby into my wedding ceremony and reception.so she can bf him? My DH not happy as he feels shes trying her luck majorly and if others can find babysitters some of whom have smaller babys then so can she. Not happy

OP posts:
CrystalCove · 27/07/2015 13:38

Do the posters who proclaim "your day your rules" think that the bride and groom shouldnt think about their guests at all? As I said why bother having guests?

merrymouse · 27/07/2015 13:47

Depends on how close you are to each guest and what their circumstances are. Any party with a large (or even sometimes small) number of people requires a certain amount of compromise.

My mum (80) was recently invited to the evening do of a friend's daughter's wedding at a trendy East London club. The wedding had clearly not been organised around my mum but why should it be?

ActiviaYoghurt · 27/07/2015 14:27

I think a child free wedding should relax the rules for a babe in arms being breast fed tbh.

I also think your friend is being daft not to decline if you won't allow the baby along.

dustarr73 · 27/07/2015 15:23

I don't get all the angst around child free weddings especially when b and g don't have kids themselves.They wouldn't have a clue regarding the needs of very young babies.

I think in this case the friend should just decline and catch up at a later date.

reni1 · 27/07/2015 15:29

Child free weddings are for the "perfect day", children might spoil the soundtrack of the wedding video. I suggest un-inviting ugly people, they spoil the perfect pictures so. Maybe rent some child-free, young, attractive friends to stand in for the nearest and dearest.

zeezeek · 27/07/2015 15:59

Some of these posts just show how ridiculous and entitled some parents are. Your children are not the be all and end all of everyone's life and sometimes adults want to, and are allowed to, spend time with other adults.

Elsashmelsa · 27/07/2015 16:08

OP, I had a child-free wedding due to numbers. However we did make the exception for my friend whose DD was only 4 months old and BF.

She bloody cried all the way through the ceremony and my friend didn't take her out to feed her. She just sat at the back of the church with her and let her cry. It's all you can hear on our wedding video when we're saying our vows.

Stick to your guns OP, don't back down. Angry

derxa · 27/07/2015 16:17

YABU It is not as if your lovely friend is a pp who wanted to tandem feed a small baby and a four year old.

reni1 · 27/07/2015 16:22

Zeezee, nothing to do with entitlement, children are people. Nieces for instance in this case, they are close family and excluded because of their age. I understand a no to friend's kids, you are friends with parent not kid. But a bf baby cannot be dropped so the friend might be unable to come, how utterly entitled of the bride to want her friends to stop bfing for her day!

OhPuddleducks · 27/07/2015 16:30

I had this. Close friend was getting married and I was bfing 7mo DS on demand. She made it clear there were no exceptions so I declined to go. I wasn't going to change how I was changing my son for her no matter how close we were. I totally understand if children aren't invited to weddings but I think there's a nice way to do it and a rude way. She went the rude way and (unsurprisingly) none of her mates with young children attended.

PinguForPresident · 27/07/2015 16:35

It's the norm with weddings I've been to for BF babies to be allowed to attend child-free weddings. It's not like it costs anything for them to be there.

Hugely Bridezilla to get uppity with a friend who'd like to bring her BF 7 m/o. There's no way I could have left either of mine at that age, they were both feeding very frequently and didn't take bottles - despite my best efforts.

ollieplimsoles · 27/07/2015 16:42

We told my dad we were having a child-free wedding, even though dh's little cousins came and my friend brought her baby.
My dad lives in a different country and I asked him not to bring his three kids because they are really badly behaved and they are allowed to fun free causing havoc. I realise that makes me look like a horrible person as its my own siblings but we were not having a night do with loads of booze, we just had small ceremony then after party at a pub nearby. There was nothing there to entertain kids and if they get bored they misbehave badly.

My sister had a huge wedding and they came to that, my dad and step mum went to their room during the reception and just left them to run around the venue, they knocked the wedding cake over...

I think child free weddings are fine and i would only make exceptions for babes in arms really.

LuluJakey1 · 27/07/2015 16:43

This is why I hate weddings.

ShelaghTurner · 27/07/2015 16:46

I've just watched my wedding video after 15 years. We fast forwarded through the vows as it was so bloody boring. God knows why anyone would want to sit through theirs again, it's the least interesting part of the day from a viewer's point of view.

fourtothedozen · 27/07/2015 16:47

I hate weddings too. The last three I have been invited to I have made up excuses.

Bunbaker · 27/07/2015 16:50

Why the wedding hatred? I haven't been to very many, but the ones I went to were enjoyable. The last one was 5 years ago when my cousin got married. It was the best one ever. It was very informal and the reception was in my auntie's beautiful garden. The weather was glorious and the guests brought the food. My cousin paid for all the booze though Grin

Headofthehive55 · 27/07/2015 16:58

Yes adults are allowed to be with adults only if that is wanted, but I think the original op was suggesting a good solution to facilitate this request.

That said, I can't imagine any wedding being so important that I would choose to go without my children - I'd rather have a day out with them instead!

clam · 27/07/2015 17:09

I think a lot of people forget that, whilst their wedding day is the most important day in their lives, it really isn't for everyone else.

zeezeek · 27/07/2015 17:17

And whilst a child is the most important thing in their parents' lives, they really aren't for anyone else!!

middlings · 27/07/2015 17:23

clam is it not the case though, that if you want to participate in the most important day of someone's life (and I don't think my wedding was by the way), that you attend the event to which you invited, in the style in which you were invited, and that if you don't like it/it doesn't suit, don't go?!

I would have loved it if there were no children at our wedding. Yes, DH and I planned the wedding we wanted and honestly, it wasn't a suitable event for small children. And I do love his nieces and nephews, but I didn't particularly want them at the wedding, nor did he, and I think they were bored out of their brains by the whole event. Even his sister's wedding a while later, which by the way had tons of children at it, and was a lovely day, wasn't a "child friendly" event imho.

I have two children, both of whom were breastfed. Wouldn't have taken either of them to a wedding. In fact, they were invited to a couple, and I didn't take them and in one case, didn't go myself. Now they are slightly older and I still wouldn't take them to a wedding. The idea of trying to entertain two toddlers at a wedding makes my blood run cold.

If I were the OP's friend, I wouldn't go to be honest.

I don't get the vitriol that comes on MN with this topic. But I suppose that's as I don't get why you would want children at a wedding. Had one, been to many, and have two of the most adorable, smart etc, etc children and still don't get it.

middlings · 27/07/2015 17:24

Precisely zeezeek.

Bunbaker · 27/07/2015 17:32

"And whilst a child is the most important thing in their parents' lives, they really aren't for anyone else"

And neither is a wedding to anyone other than the bride and groom.

Headofthehive55 · 27/07/2015 17:35

I'm happy to miss out on invites though. We come as a family unit or not at all. I have been to weddings without our children years ago and concluded that it really wasn't our thing.

I wouldn't expect my children to be invited though if they didn't want.

ollieplimsoles · 27/07/2015 17:39

I know weddings are family events too but its not like a birthday party excluding children.
Weddings are really expensive and venues are just not appropriate most of the time for young children.

Hellion7433 · 27/07/2015 17:47

Is this a joke OP?

You seem to have no experience of babies that are solely breast fed. I suspect you and your partner will realise how embarrassingly pedantic you've been with time.

Non of my children would take a bottle at 6 months. All were breast fed. It would of been physically painful for both me and my babies to be separated for anything more then a couple of hours.