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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

...Or are our friends?

403 replies

flyfree1394 · 28/02/2016 10:12

Have three DDs aged 14, 12 and 9.

Very good friends announced their engagement a few months ago and invited the DDs to be flower girls - all three delighted.

Have now received formal invitation.

It says on it that no child under 10 can attend. DD3 is 9, will still be 9 at the time of the wedding.

Contacted friends to check that DD3 was still a flower girl.

Basically they want her there for the ceremony, pictures etc, but she won't be allowed to come to the reception/party afterwards. In short DD3 is expected to sit through a long ceremony, pose for pictures, look like a little angel, etc, then watch her sisters go to a fun party that she can't attend. We are expected to sort out childcare in a place that is miles from our home.

AIBU to think this is absolutely ridiculous?

OP posts:
OnlyLovers · 29/02/2016 12:04

Thank you, Purple. That's been driving me mad too! Child-free doesn't automatically mean 'hard of thinking'.

clam · 29/02/2016 12:11

You're a family you come as a package or not at all

Well, I don't actually agree with that as a blanket rule in life, but obviously in this case it's unacceptable to exclude just one child.

scampimom · 29/02/2016 12:19

I don't think you have to be child-free to think that hurting a little girl's feelings is wrong.

fruitbat2008 · 29/02/2016 12:40

I would show her this thread it might make her realise how unreasonable her behaviour is and also how you can't go around hurting children's feelings like that its disgusting she doesn't deserve to have your girls at her wedding anyway.

threesidestoastory · 29/02/2016 13:23

OP, your friends sound awful. I can't totally empathise with how you must be feeling.
I'm reluctantly attending a family wedding in the near future that my children are not invited to, even though Bridezillas friends children are all invited.

The excuse she has used is that she's only inviting children down to a certain generation (ie. Grandchildren/nieces/nephews, rather than great-grandchildren/great-nieces/nephews.) I would find this completely understandable if there were a load of them but mine are they only ones that fall into this category so they are the only ones who are being excluded.

If the family member weren't an utter bitch so high maintenance, and wouldn't cause a fuss amongst the rest of the family I absolutely wouldn't be going.

Well done for standing up for your girls. You sound like a fantastic mother.Flowers

WonderingAspie · 29/02/2016 13:41

I didn't say that all childless people have no clue. My point is people can think differently before and after having children, their consideration changes. I know mine certainly did and some things wouldn't have even crossed my mind before I had children. It is possible that the bride, for some unknown and frankly bizarre reason, didn't want young children there and did not think through the implications of that request. If she had had children, she quite possibly would have thought differently because she could have identified more with the impossible situation that she was asking of the OP.

At our wedding we had a lot of children, but some weren't invited. More distant relatives children or some younger ones not invited to the evening. It didn't even cross my mind what they would do for childcare, it wasn't on my radar (I also got married pretty young and my outlook has also changed as I have got older so that could have been part of it). Had I a,ready had children, I would have thought differently about it.

teatowel · 29/02/2016 14:09

I would have been the same as someone up thread. I would have read the invitation and thought ,oh that doesn't apply to us because DD3 is a bridesmaid. I wonder what the bride would have done if you had turned up with that quite normal assumption, may be turned the little girl out to wait in the car park. Some people are bonkers!

threesidestoastory · 29/02/2016 14:21

My post should have read 'can totally empathise' not can't!

HopefulHamster · 29/02/2016 16:13

Bonkers and more than a little mean.

10 is the most random cut-off age for a wedding and most peolpe would make an exception for flower girls anyway. I've certainly been to a couple of 'child-free' weddings that have still had wedding party kids in attendance.

So it's all coming from the bride, and the groom who presumably loves her doesn't want to rock the boat by telling her she's crazy.

She's going to feel terrible about this (I hope) when she's got a nine-year-old one day.

Jux · 29/02/2016 17:30

Let's hope that she's got a 9yo someone does it to BZ (but it gets sorted out amicably so no more 9yos have to suffer!) and BZ thinks "there is something strange but familiar about this situation..... "

hmcAsWas · 29/02/2016 17:45

WonderingAspie - I made exactly the same point that you've just made several posts back (right down to saying that I used to be that person pre-children), but I was dismissed too. Meh! (shrugs)

dolkapots · 29/02/2016 17:53

They are being VU and I would decline under the circumstances.

My dsis is getting married and there is a no under 16's rule at the reception (they will be allowed to attend the ceremony) There is a two hour gap (and 30 miles) between the ceremony and reception so if I had been going (which I'm not, for unrelated reasons) would have meant that we had to drive 80 miles to church, attend ceremony, find someone to look after dc in a city where we know no one and then drive another 30 miles to reception. They did this to keep costs down as the groom has a massive family; 30+ children within the immediate family.

NataliaOsipova · 29/02/2016 19:00

The more I think about this, the worse I think it is! They know the whole family and are close friends. "Dad" is best man. On that basis alone they are being pretty unreasonable to impose an arbitrary cut off that excludes one of the DDs. But the fact that they've already ASKED this little girl to be a flower girl means it beggars belief....

Goingtobeawesome · 29/02/2016 19:35

threesidestoastory - why not stand up to the woman instead of pandering to her?

FinestGrundyTurkey · 29/02/2016 19:55

The fact that the happy couple don't seem at all fazed by the loss of the 4 main members of the bridal party definitely suggests to me that they have preferred alternatives lined up (as others have suggested)

Devilishpyjamas · 29/02/2016 20:00

This is close to winning the 'most bizarre bridezilla behaviour ever' award.

threesidestoastory · 29/02/2016 20:07

Going she has from for causing problems with everyone in the family when she doesn't get her own way. It's better for certain older members of the family of everyone just keeps their mouth shut.

Goingtobeawesome · 29/02/2016 20:36

She's a bully.

VinceNoirLovesHowardMoon · 29/02/2016 20:50

Do they not care at all that you aren't going now? This is bizarre

JapaneseSlipper · 29/02/2016 20:59

"Do they not care at all that you aren't going now? This is bizarre"

Agree - I'm pretty surprised that they haven't come back and said "sorry, whole thing got out of hand, please come - all 5 of you"

SuperFlyHigh · 29/02/2016 21:08

I think tout is the bride!

DadDadDad · 29/02/2016 21:34

Has tout come back since inviting a flaming, or is she just a crispy pile of ashes now? Shock

ZenNudist · 29/02/2016 22:02

I don't get why your dh couldn't work it out with his bf. I can't understand why groom is so controlled by bride that he can't change one guest list place. Just dump a work friend or third cousin.

PuppyMonkey · 29/02/2016 22:31

You see, if this had been my family, and DP was best man and my kids had been asked to be flower girls and then I'd got the formal invite and it had said "no kids under 10" and my youngest was a few weeks short of being ten, I'd have just thought: "ah yes but they obvs don't mean us" and just turned up at the wedding in blissful ignorance.

Sometimes it's nice to be this dim. Grin

AddToBasket · 29/02/2016 22:31

OP, do you knows you of the other wedding guests? What do they make of the B&G's plans?

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