SIL & Our Wedding

[Elleblue78]

OK - so yet another Wedding/IL thread! But would love to know if I am being a bit miffed for no reason or is this the norm?

OK so we are getting married next year - on a weekday as the venue we love had that day free and we got an amazing deal. Because its a weekday we sent out Save the Dates a good 10 months before the day so that people could either make arrangements to book a day off or tell us it wasn't possible - of course we understand that with it being a weekday people may not be able to or want to attend/use holiday etc.

Now my Fiancé's Sister works in a school as a TA. She loves her job and we are constantly being told that her school is super strict and she can NEVER get time off for ANYTHING in term time (this includes being ill, hospital appointments and funerals etc). She is a stickler for the rules. Anyway - before we booked the wedding I said to DF that we should speak to his sister as she had previously mentioned this fact. We did text her (as she didn't answer calls from us) and explain we had fell in love with venue etc and we got a great deal etc etc and could she check with school. She never came back to us despite chasing/calling/asking MIL to ask her to call us. So we went ahead and booked.

She has now said she cant come and that not only can she not come, nor can her 3 children or her husband - who happens to be best man! (he works in a diff industry so getting time off isn't an issue nor is it for the kids).

When we asked her to ask her school she said she will but to not hold out any hope and can we change the date to the weekend. She is being a bit 'huffy' about it and has said to MIL that we are losing 5 guests because of this.

Any TA's out there? How hard is it to get 1 afternoon off work (Late wedding) with 10 months notice for your brothers wedding?! Or is she just being a d8ck?!

she chose to ignore us. the same way you chose to ignore her CONSTANTLY (your words) telling you beforehand she won't be able to have time off.

The family may be mature, that's obviously going to change when you marry into it. You purposely book it for a time she can't make it, you can't even be bothered to ask her to her face if she can make it, I'm not sure whether to class you as a bridezilla or a toddler having a tantrum.

Why couldn't you book it for a day in the 12-13 wks off she has? Why book it for the very last friday of the very last term when there are 51 other fridays to book it on? Although I imagine it was the only friday left all year.

Your step daughter will be allowed time off because it's her dad getting married. Parents getting married is the ONLY time authorised abscence can be given for a wedding.

I work a whole hour and a half a day in a school as a midday supervisor. I wouldn't dare ask for time off as we have it made abundantly clear to us it is not allowed unless for emergencies or sickness. I dare say TA is considered a lot more important in the day to day running of a school.

What network whoever is in means nothing. It's up to the individual school what they allow.

I'm a TA and have worked for four heads over the years. first one made it clear at the beginning of every academic year that 'time off' was for unforseeable circumstances only, and was explicit that weddings were not unforseeable. Funerals were allowed, unpaid of course, and even then, we were asked to request that timings were 'sympathetic' to our working hours - thank goodness I never had to ask a bereaved family member to consider my work when arranging a funeral for their close relation!
No.2 (Different school) would happily allow time off, usually paid, if you wanted to attend the opening of an envelope!
No3. (School no 2, but in SM) less hard line than no 1, but made it clear we were only to ask for exceptional circumstances. Funerals and some medical appointments ok, but family weddings and 'check-ups' still very much frowned upon - I only know of one person who was allowed time off for a wedding and that was because the previous headhad already authorised it.
No4 school 2, current head). A little easier but we are still expected to take all steps to ensure we don't have to ask for time off. Certain times are a definite no no, including end of term. For us, end of term is ridiculously busy, getting stuff organised for next term, especially end of summer term.

It is not always possible to have time 'in lieu' - as I already work all week I do not have the opportunity to do extra in order to build up a bank of days to take off. And even if I did, I would still need the agreement of the head - as with all employers, time off is at the convenience of the employer, not the employee.

It is not simply about making the effort - if you know that the answer will
be 'no', why would you request it? especially if, like most schools these days, budgets are being cut and the first and easiest place to reduce costs is to reduce the support staff. Most schools locally are losing at least one member of support staff .Others are reducing the number of posts by making all current staff re-apply in the knowledge that several of them won't be appointed to one of the new posts. If the SIL works in a school like this, she may be more concerned about keeping her job than about her DBs wedding. If I was in the position where the choice was to attend a wedding and have a nice meal, party etc or put food on my table for the coming year, I know which I'd choose. But actually, my family would not organise a wedding for term time and then get arsy with me if I couldn't attend.

FWIW, in our school, children would not have time off for a wedding authorised either.

It reminds me of an email we had for a close family birthday fairly recently.
It went along the lines...
"We are planning a 60th birthday for dh and your presence is really important to us. Can you make 20th October as we're trying to sort dates so all can make it ?"

Now firstly I am fairly certain they don't see it as important for us to attend I'd suspect they are pretty indifferent except for that they like our dc to act as babysitters for their younger dc so they don't have to.
Secondly it wasn't a date we can make. Both the dc have a non movable activity where they have to be there (dress rehearsal with quite major parts). I also have committed to be there (child welfare officer) and dh has already committed to a different activity which he does regularly on the 3rd week of each month and they are perfectly aware of it as it's been mentioned several times and they have referred to it in the past.

So I wasn't totally surprised when we replied that there was no way we could make that, however we could make the previous or next weekend and several other dates, that they went ahead and booked that date anyway.
They didn't apologise or anything, we just received the invitation. And we have had to refuse the invitation.

I'm fairly sure that was actually the result they wanted. But they wanted to be able to say "oh we tried to get a date they could manage, and we asked and they just couldn't manage..." So they look reasonable.

Now actually I'm not bothered about going. But I did feel irritated about the initial message "you are important" because we clearly aren't (they've done it before).

I suspect your sil feels similar.
And just because people are outwardly sympathising with you now doesn't mean they don't also ser the sil's side and it willblow up ob you.
I know that my fil thinks they treat us badly, but he wouldn't dream of saying anything.

Having organised many a function, to canvass guests in advance as to when they can attend and when they can't is completely untenable. You have to pick a date and just go ahead with it or you would spend days/weeks/months giving yourself a headache finding the date that suits most people and you would still end up upsetting someone.

Every year I try with a Christmas Meal I've organised now for 16 years and I've hardened up considerably because you can't please everyone. If it was my birthday party or wedding or whatever, TBH I would just pick the day that suited me/us and hope for the best. Maybe that sounds mean but I've learnt to my cost it's the only way. Of course I wouldn't book something when someone close was on holiday but apart from that, anything goes.

People do not only arrange weddings for times/places when all guests can come. They arrange weddings abroad, for pleasure or because they have inconveniently decided to marry someone from another country. They do not always invite your children. They make you set next to people you don't like and sometimes the menu is vegan! There are lots of ways in which weddings are not designed to fit the need of every guest.

Actually I'm really curious as to where the venue is for it/everything else to suddenly cost 5k extra. Most of our expense was food which was the same price any day of the week.

I struggled to get time off for my own daughters surgery for example

Sorry but thats bullshit. If your child is having surgery you TELL work you won't be in, you don't ask. You don't allow the head teacher to decide whether you are with your child for that.

Some really fucked up priorities here. Timing funerals to suit your school? Fuck that.

Hi op good luck with your wedding.

This is all about you and your DH to be. Everybody else is s bystander.

She will be there and if not then more fool her.

Enjoy your day and ignore her drama now!

Just scrolled up and some of the posts are ridiculous. Really dime of you would expect that it was actually SIL that was marrying op or that sil job was more important that op wedding.

Jeez!

"Today 12:57 user1467101855

I struggled to get time off for my own daughters surgery for example

Sorry but thats bullshit. If your child is having surgery you TELL work you won't be in, you don't ask. You don't allow the head teacher to decide whether you are with your child for that.

Some really fucked up priorities here. Timing funerals to suit your school? Fuck that."

I really agree with this. Some of this is bonkers. Schools have to find a way to tolerate sickness (which is at higher levels than most industries) so to pretend they can't accommodate a rare day off for a major event is ridiculous.

But I reckon your SIL just doesn't want to come, sadly

They can't help getting ill, they are expected to get appointments outside school day hours and the training days are usually when the school is closed to children and all staff are trained at the same time

Don't be so ridiculous. So you get a bad smear test result, or you are passing blood and the hospital appointment is for 10 am and the Head will say no you can't go? I would love to see the Tribunal result on that one when you go ahead and attend and get dismissed. At least you would have a nice sum of money to cushion you during your illness.

Because TAs get sick, like the rest of us, it is surely bad practice to allow a child to become so reliant on them that a TA can't have a couple of hours off on a Friday afternoon. In adult social care it would be frowned on as staff can't swear to never be ill, never go on holiday, never change jobs or even never drop dead. If that is normal in schools it is something that needs to be looked at as it is completely unfair to the child.

The date of the surgery was changed at short notice - not my fault..not anyone's. People were off long term sick another short term sick, so not easy to arrange. I am aware that a colleague came in for me which I was able to repay but I don't think it's fair for me not to turn up to work do you?

It wasn't life threatening surgery, and we had already rearranged due to us preferring to go on holiday first so it wasn't immediate.

My point was it was an awkward situation. Yet sports day was not a problem as no one was off that day.

At schools local to me they always finish early on last day of term. I wonder if that is common or just local. If it common then she might only need an hour off.

My Uncle (who I was also my Godfather; we were incredibly close) passed away last June, three weeks later his funeral date was set and I wasn't able to go as we had the school induction day on that date, and I had to be there to meet the new ones starting that September. It wasn't something I could simply "take time off" for as though I work in an office and nobody would mind an empty desk for a day. I finished at 3pm and made it to the wake at 4pm; his wife was just thrilled I could be there at all but fully understood that my job means I can't be flexible during term time. Ordinarily I'd have been able to have the day for the funeral but certain school events outweigh that and an induction day (which happens on the exact same date County-wide so can't be altered to suit) overrules everything; funerals, weddings, sick children, everything, and when you commit to a contract with a school you're made very aware of it.

At the school where I volunteer a teacher who was due to have a new year 7 class from September was unable to attend the induction day as she was on a prebooked school trip. Again the world didn't end.

i think the clue is that it's your hospital appointment, not someone else's.

your wedding, fine perhaps

But a bad smear result for your sil would not entitle you to have time off!

but I don't think it's fair for me not to turn up to work do you?

I do, for something more important than work.

Op do your wedding YOUR way and stuff your sil.

You waited for a response for two months to book and she couldn't be bothered so why should you change your wedding for her?

Two of my bil's, a sil and niece didn't turn up for my wedding (still had to pay for the meals though). One bil had dentist, others didn't give an excuse.

County-wide so can't be altered to suit) overrules everything; funerals, weddings, sick children, everything, and when you commit to a contract with a school you're made very aware of it

Right, so if your kid was rushed to hospital om Induction day, you'd stay at school? Pull the other one, its got bells on.

Why is your fiancé not picking up the phone to speak to his BM? Or has he just picked a new one?

I don't understand why you didn't pick a day in he Summer holidays to be honest. You do appear to be thoroughly enjoying the drama.

User, they are all martyrs and obviously never put family first, never get sick and God forbid if they did they would wait till August to see a doctor.

HeadofHive, I don't think people normally invite people to hospital appointments in the same way as they do to a wedding but people are saying they can't have time off for ANYTHING including hospital appointments and that is just ridiculous. I say again if people tell lies and exaggerate they can't be surprised if people doubt what they are saying.

I think this thread is incredibly sexist with everyone saying why did the OP choose that date. Her husband to be is presumably an adult with capacity and its his sister not hers.

OP I hope you have a great day, I don't suppose you will miss her.

Incredibly sexist.

It's not the groom here asking if his sister is being a dick.

You gave 10 months notice for goodness sake! You can't please everyone and tbh if you did change date/venue she'd probably find a different issue anyway.

Lweji so do you really think he had no say in this? It is his wedding as much as the brides.

I think the 2 months to respond is a moot point TBH.

OP and her DF already knew that term time didn't work for SIL but the fact that they hadn't heard either way seems to have indicated to the OP and her DF that that must surely mean the situation had changed and SIL could now attend ??