Hello one and all.
I'm not sure whether I just need to vent or whether I actually need advice...
We paid £1000 deposit to book our wedding on a reasonably priced last minute deal, to then find out we were having another baby and I'd actually be 5 months pregnant by our date in November 2019...so we rearranged for 15 months later for their slightly less reasonably priced winter package in February 2020.
Now it turns out we're idiots who didn't think to buy wedding insurance and the venue went bust- goodbye venue deposit and hello having to rearrange the whole blooming thing again, hoping the photographer, florist and registrar as well as whatever venue we find with our now even tighter budget, can all do the same date- so as to not lose any more deposits (get wedding insurance- I beg you 😂!!). Anyway, we found a new venue and a date where all these things aligned so snapped it up and paid the deposit to new venue for our new date of the Saturday in Easter weekend 2020. We then email out our second lot of save the dates and feel chuffed that we'd sorted it all. Unfortunately, my fiancee's sister says she won't be able to get the day off work from the conservative club she manages as there's an unofficial rule that no-one gets busy Easter or Xmas periods off. She also says that her partner's job won't give him time off as his contract says Easter weekend won't be granted as holiday and she then also goes on to say that her also won't be able to come on that date as he's hoping I get a job at the same place as her partner.
Now. Sigh. What do we do? I've emailed her back saying we really want them there and that obviously we wouldn't have gone with that date had we thought ppl couldn't get time off and I explained how we'd really appreciate it if they could at least ask/try to get time off, given the circumstances- I even gave my own example of how I've asked my work if I could have 3 days unpaid leave during term time (I work in a school) for the honeymoon and they, completely surprisingly, granted it! I told her that to try to highlight that it's at least worth asking. Anyway, we've had no reply and I get the sense they're not going to try and also that they're somehow a little offended that we've inadvertently booked the wedding on a day they might struggle to get off from work.
Soooo....on the face of it I've been really apologetic towards them, but really, I'm pretty annoyed that we even have to make the suggestion that they at least TRY to get it off. Is wedding fatigue making me unreasonable in asking them to try to get the day off? Should it be up to us to see whether there's another date we could rearrange for? I'm thinking of asking his sister whether she might be able to offer to take the day as unpaid leave rather than holiday, and we pay for her hotel...but don't want to offend her further!?
Anyway, help?! I don't think I actually have it in me to rearrange this bloody day again. But then I think- it's his sister and the Guestlist is already mainly ppl on my side as he's got such a small family. Massive, heavy and loud sigh