Awkward wedding family situation

[Pepper12]

Hello all sorry this may be long!
Backstory I have 2 brothers. Brother 1 is getting married in March. Been together a few years no dcs. Brother 2 married for years has 4 kids from 7 to 2 months.

Brother 1 has asked brother 2 eldest child to be flower girl as she was so excited about wedding. All fine and dandy-dress shoes etc bought last week. Invitations have now arrived and wording as follows ' we respectfully inform that with the exception niece and fiances niece no children will be permitted at the wedding'. Brother 2 wife has gone mad how dare her 3 other kids (who to be fair are 3,2 and a baby) be excluded hence the eldest is now banned from being flower girl. Brother 1 and fiancée have stood firm and explained that niece is old enough and others are too young. Fiancées niece being flower girl is an only child. Cue me getting phone calls from sil and two brothers all wanting an opinion ! Is it awful that I think your circus your monkeys? Grrrrr

They might have decided not to take the younger ones if had they been given the choice !

Have skimmed the thread.

The bride/groom to be should be hanging their heads in shame. This has now caused a totally unnecessary rift on what should be a a celebratory occasion.

The brother will show his face and leave as soon as he can. This will never be forgotten.

Family is precious and one day these idiots are going to really really regret this.

It's sounds like there is a lot of stubbornness on all sides. I think SIL1 is jumping the gun in taking the flower girl's dress back tomorrow, there's 4 months until the wedding surely some attempt to build bridges can be made.

You haven't said what you, or your parents think about the situation. Is anyone trying to make an effort to avoid an unnecessary family fall out? Or are you all just saying not my circus?

Isn't part of a wedding accepting others families, learning to compromise, dealing with imperfection? Isn't that a good practice for marriage?

Where is the compromise on the part of the would-be flower girl's parents?

The notion that wanting an elegant, adults-only party uninterrupted by diaper changes, squalling, kids racing around or needing special food, etc., means that one is somehow "rejecting" part of the family simply does not fly. Marriages are about uniting families; weddings are about celebrating the milestone. Some weddings are informal jeans/BBQ/kiddie games style and some are elegant luncheons or dinner dances. Pre-school age children are not idea guests at the latter. It's common sense, not a personal judgment or barometer of how well they are loved.

Deep down, many of the "childfree weddings are awful" people know this but simply are digging in their heels because they profoundly dislike any sign that their offspring are not the center of everyone else's universe.

And I say this as someone who is not at all a fan of the big white wedding or how the party-planning industry has perverted the notion of hospitality and proper treatment of guests.

Presume dress needs to be returned within 14/28 days for a refund. Sounds like Brother2/SIL paid for the flower girl dress not the bride?

Will be very awkward.Presumably Brother 2 will just stay a short while then go.

Hope someone tells bride anyone can go to a church ceremony.

(my toddler niece shouted No during BILs ceremony, a sentiment shared by many his marriage lasted 4 months)

LeaLeander is the bridezilla SIL. And again, they don't want an adults-only party if they ask a 7-year-old to be in it. Of course, on MN I have heard of couples who ask a child to be a flowergirl and then don't invite them to any of the rest of the wedding.

Lea you are spectacularly missing the point. This is not a child free wedding!

I love a child free wedding! If I am invited to one where the kids can come then generally I will get a sitter or not go because frankly weddings with kids are hard work with all the waiting around, speeches etc. I want to have a drink and a laugh. No issues with child free weddings at all.

But this is not a child free wedding. There will be 2 children there, so there will still be attendees with different needs to adults who want attention, a cuddle during the vows, a wee in the middle of the FOB speech, wanting to get down and play instead of sit through a three course meal, potentially getting stage fright and crying through the processional/photos/ceremony etc..... even if you only invite one child, there is good chance of some or all of the above happening.

Couple that with the dividing line between invited and not invited children being drawn through one nuclear family, it was never going to end well.

This is not about childfree v non childfree weddings, its about excluding all but one child within a family from a wedding.

Your DB1 was completely out of order.

It is one thing having a child-free wedding, it is quite another to take it upon themselves to split one child and her parents from the siblings for the day. That's a decision for the parents. Utterly unacceptable to try to engineer that. I would be livid if I was you SiL and DB2.

Btw, I know one family where the brothers still don't speak after a fall out over weddings and flower girls several years ago. Really sad. If I were your parents I would be trying to sort this out pronto.

It is a child-free wedding. It is free of child GUESTS. The two seven-year-olds are invited to perform a specific function as members of the wedding party.

And, as I said before, there are times in life when not every family member gets to go along. She is -- as a toilet-trained, school-age young girl who can be expected to have decent table manners, on a totally different level socially than a diapered, eats-with-fingers 2 or 3 year old. It's common sense. Do the toddlers go to school with her, or to her after-school sports or lessons? No, because it's not appropriate at their age and they are not a part of those activities.

Can she sit at table without special seats or other paraphernalia, and use the same utensils/drinking glasses etc. as the other people present? Can the toddlers do the same?

(Presumably this seven-year-old does not need help getting herself to the toilet and can sit through a ceremony without "needing a cuddle" or otherwise displaying poor decorum; else why was she invited to participate?)

Insisting on dragging the little ones along is attention-mongering on their parents' part, if you ask me, and pointless as they are highly unlikely to remember it or to feel any angst over not getting to go. Merely being a blood relation of one part of the nuptial couple does not mean you fulfill all of the other requirements of wedding guest.

"Insisting on dragging the little ones along is attention-mongering on their parents' part,"

But they aren't, are they?

'Insisting on dragging the little ones along is attention-mongering on their parents' part, if you ask me, and pointless as they are highly unlikely to remember it or to feel any angst over not getting to go.'

Do you have children?! Or are you so well nanny-ed up that childcare isn't relevant for three small children?

'Dragging little ones' is not really how most people see their weekends spent together as a family. And generally the alternative is that one of the parents stays behind, which in this case would involve missing out on seeing their daughter as a bridesmaid and missing a close family wedding. Bizarre.

Babysitter?

This is an awful result. The DD not going even though her father is. How cruel of her parents. Am really for her, poor kid.

FFS! If they are attending, on the invitation of the B&G then they are guests. They are ALSO part of the wedding party, but they are guests.

And I would not send my 7 year old to the loo by themselves at a venue that neither they nor I have been before. Stage fright is a real thing, especially for young ones. Everyone looking at you is frightening. The 7 & 8 year old flower girls at my sisters wedding flatly refused to enter the church after her, despite being excited for months about being part of the wedding.

And them being invited to perform a specific function just conforms to the view posted above about them purely being there as photogenic bookends.

What a pity that you think it is ok to treat children as accessories.

'Babysitter?'

Yep, everyone has one of those, or money for one, or can hand children over to one (exclusively bf babies, for example).

'The two seven-year-olds are invited to perform a specific function as members of the wedding party. '

You are seriously suggesting people use a child like this, like a performing monkey, and not include them in the rest of the wedding?

OP, your SIL is reading your thread.

I rather suspect Lea is on a piss take with her talk of Luncheon, Dinner Dances and Decorum on the part of a 7 year old,

Stay out of the arguments as much as possible! If it were me whose eldest was allowed but not the others and the ages of the yoimger children I would have made the decision to probably leave them at home anyway but its a bit patronising you don't k ow your own kids. My 4 year old would be a nightmare at a wedding but mY 2 year old would be great. Babies are probably the most predictable behaved of all! .if your brother doesn't have their own kids they won't really appreciate that fact! . But it is their wedding and even though I find that idea strange it is up to them who they ask as I believe if its your wedding you should be able to invite who you want without generating bad feeling or argument. I agree with the poster who said it should have been made clear from the outset the no other kids rule before they asked the older daughter to be involved.

Oh, come on.

Now we're coming up with venues so unsafe that a school-age child (who presumably can wee by herself during the day without teacher's help) can't scoot to the ladies' room by herself, or kids who freak out at the last minute and all sorts of other dire and farfetched scenarios? Who would take her to the dangerous lav btw if the mother and father are juggling three other young kids during the best man's speech? Would other guests be expected to help hold and care for the three young kids?

I think flower girls are nothing BUT accessories whether or not they are invited to the post-ceremony events. So are matchy-matchy bridesmaids and groomsmen and many other trappings of the modern-day wedding. What does that have to do with whether or not a toddler in diapers is appropriate at an elegant wedding breakfast or evening cocktail reception?

I didn't think Lea was piss taking. My 7 year old DD can behave as she described. Not a boast, but surely normal. A three year old wouldn't.

For the record I'm a middle-aged woman in the US, not the SIL

So flower girls are OK if their younger siblings are permitted to attend but if only they and their parents are invited to the meal, they suddenly are merely being exploited as performing monkeys? Not sure I follow this line of reasoning.

Also not clear what one means by "piss take" but yes, at least where I come from, a certain level of self-control and table manners are expected of guests at wedding-related events, unless they are very informal backyard BBQs. I took it that the event in question in this thread is a seated meal of some sort with tablecloths, real cutlery and the like. Evening receptions with music and dancing are typically referred to as dinner dances.

As to babysitters, well, yes, I would consider it Parenting 101 to have a couple of reliable sitters on tap for when the parents wish to go out without (all of) the children. Everyone I know of, does, and surely attending one's own brother's wedding is worth the cost of a sitter?

Now we're coming up with venues so unsafe that a school-age child (who presumably can wee by herself during the day without teacher's help) can't scoot to the ladies' room by herself, or kids who freak out at the last minute and all sorts of other dire and farfetched scenarios?

No, we are talking about a venue that is unfamiliar so it would be better to accompany that child instead of them wandering around to find a loo. And the other thing ACTUALLY HAPPENED. I was there!

Yes 7 year olds can behave perfectly, but sometimes the fate align and then they dont. Being part of a wedding is a big thing, I have seen adult bridesmaids fall apart with rather less grace than your average 7 year old.

And again....[bangs head against wall] this thread is not about whether young children should be at a wedding. Children have been invited to this wedding, and the issue is whether the SIL who has been told, at the point of the invite coming out and not before, that the whole family is not infact invited. The vast majority agree that at the very least, this should have been discussed when the child was asked to be flowergirl so the parents could make their decision and not several months later.

But hey, dont let the facts stand in the way of your elegance and decorum.

Well sadly one does not have reliable babysitters when one wishes to attend an elegant luncheon followed by an equally elegant cocktail party. That situation is the same for many people usually for financial or family (lack thereof) reasons.

However, do please continue as the self appointed arbiter of etiquette in a country you do not live in, its very entertaining to read!

Oh and FYI, no 7 year old should "scoot" to the loo at a wedding. Scooters are for the play ground only, sometimes the school run but even then there has been some controversy so they are a definite no-no at weddings :)

I think if I'd been DB2 I would have taken dn to the ceremony and then left straight after. A pp suggested getting the b&g to have the pictures with dn in first but in my experience it tends to be in the hands of the photographer and they like to do the endless pictures of the happy couple alone first and children can get really bored by the photos.

From db2's perspective it would have been difficult to find a suitable point to take dn home. If he took her after the photos he may have missed the meal/speeches. If he had waited til after the meal he might well have not bothered to go back (and this assumes the menu would have appealed to dn). If he left it later in the evening depending on dn's nature he may have had to spend the evening sober and entertaining her rather than mixing with other adults.

B&G have brought the whole mess upon themselves. Their guests might not mention the missing family members to them out of politeness but it's a safe bet that it will be a major topic of conversation at the wedding and subsequently. Not to mention the long term repercussions in the family. Not really how you'd want your wedding to be remembered.