Brother’s Wedding

[VitaSackville]

I want to know if anyone else would be upset by this admittedly first world problem. Most friends agree with me but a couple who significantly know my brother as well don’t. I want unbiased opinions. My brother eloped last week.
A year ago my mother was cooking for our very small extended family something she does a couple of times a year. My brother WhatsApped asking me if I could arrange a babysitter. Was I unreasonable to ask why?
He hummed and haad and I began to worry he had something serious to discuss. He reassured me and asked about babysitter again when I said I couldn’t he suggested my husband stay at home. Again I was puzzled and refused. It was all a bit odd. Half an hour later he rings me and says he wants to announce his engagement. I totally admit that my first thought was how can a 9, 7 and 5 year old get in the way of an engagement announcement and to my regret didn’t congratulate him. Anyway he actually tells family by ringing them all before meal to which sister-in-law does not turn up. My husband overheard brother telling cousin that they had wanted to hijack mother’s meal to make a thing of it but Vita wouldn’t play ball. They wanted to marry before she moved to another part of country for a year.
We love sister-in-law she transformed brother’s life. When we see her she is the life and soul of the party. They are both studying for a top profession and are broke. Dad gave them £5,000 as a contribution to wedding.
We went on holiday and my cousin rings up to say she was invited to wedding but her fiancé wasn’t. Did I think she could offer to pay for him? We returned home and it turns out my husband and children weren’t invited either. I couldn’t believe it.
Mum and Dad intervened. Brother’s explanation was it was a quick wedding before they moved for sister-in-law’s training and they just wanted family and significantly a few friends and had a limited budget. Were we unreasonable to be upset? My dad said he wouldn’t go and they cancelled the wedding. I did not encourage Dad to do this. All through this brother was nice to me and didn’t blame me. My sister-in-law however made a barbed comment that in future she was going to run by any decision she made by my husband as clearly His feelings are more important than her’s.
Well they’re married now. I want advice about whether I could have behaved differently and how to move forward. My parents are devastated. My sister-in-law’s mother who we have never met returned the cheque but Dad won’t cash it.

[HeyMonkey]

Weddings are not a family reunion/party/chance for great-aunt doris to reconnect with everyone. They're about 2 people getting married, in whatever way they choose.

[Piffle11]

This is all very odd. I don't know why your DC couldn't have been at the engagement announcement thing - you need to ask DB that. I think you retaliating by not congratulating them is petty - especially since you say you think she's great. Your DH stirring the pot by telling you what he overheard between DB and cousin wasn't helpful, and made things worse in your head. Your DF gives them £5000 contribution to the wedding: you say they're broke, maybe they thought it would be a better idea to have a small wedding (my Dparents did something similar for me when I married exDH - £5000 to spend on the wedding, or deposit on a flat, furniture, whatever. No strings.) Cousin wanting to pay for her DH to attend is nothing to be mad at them for: they clearly couldn't afford to invite everyone. MIL and her (2nd DH) didn't want to contribute to our wedding (I didn't expect them to) but then when they realised that we couldn't afford to invite everyone they wanted (nearly 60 guests!!) they suddenly decided to pay - but only for 'their' extra guests. So basically it was 'here's £XXX but only if you invite these people'. I do think your DH and DC should have been invited, and it's fine for you to be upset, but I'm not sure why what you all want should trump what they want. They wanted to get married quickly, and all of a sudden they've got you sulking, your DH shit stirring, your DF refusing to attend, DM crying, cousin insisting they invite her DH … no wonder they eloped. What a carry on. There's never going to be a 'I'm right, you're wrong' in this: each person has their issues with it and the best you can hope for is to put it behind you all and move on. I wish I'd done what your DB did: things were said and done by my DH's side in regard to our wedding, and 8 years later it still annoys me when I think of it.

[Durgasarrow]

I don't think it's hard to understand. (Please tell me if if I'm wrong, OP) Her father gave her brother a check for five thousand pounds for his wedding. But then her brother claimed that he couldn't include her family because they didn't have enough money. The OP knows very well that five thousand pounds can cover the entrees of four people at a wedding, so his budget excuse was crap. Also, even though the parents who gave the gift did not give it with conditions, they would naturally assume that their son would also use the gift in the generous spirit they had given it.
Not only would it be insulting to the OP not to have your spouse and children be included in her beloved brother's wedding, but she also felt as if the bride had been a special young woman who had changed her brother's life, and she had looked forward to getting closer to her. She really looked forward to celebrating this occasion with an open heart. The furtive way that the brother tried to deliver the invitation was an indication that he was not proud of what he was doing and knew that it was not okay.

[Aderyn19]

Don't say any of this to your brother but I wonder if he would be okay in the future if his wife was excluded from wedding invitations. Or how he will react to his children not being invited to places. Fair enough if he's fine with it but sometimes it turns out that those people who insisted on child free weddings etc become very offended when they have children themselves and those children aren't always included in everything.

[Sceptre86]

I don't understand why you wouldn't invite your bil to your wedding as they are family in my eyes. So I am not sure why your brother and sil would do that. Fair enough if he was a boyfriend of a few months but he is your husband. Some people do have child free weddings, I do not understand this as it is so alien in my culture but if they didn't invite your kids you could have bit your lip and got a sitter. I wouldn't have gone without my husband though so yanbu in that respect.

If your mum is upset she needs to talk to her son and discuss it. How much involvement sil has with your family is up to her, it shouldn't be forced!

You were unreasonable not to congratulate your brother on his engagement, forget about sil for a minute, he is your brother and you should have made an effort.

[Iggi999]

A 5 grand wedding budget will not be exceeded by having the partners of siblings present. Nothing to do with great-aunt-so-and-so.
A babysitter costs me £50 a pop so although I'd happily get one for your child free wedding, I would not get one to go round for a family meal at my mum's!

[BeanBag7]

If your SILs name is Vita, you probably need to get the forum admins to edit her name out of your OP.

[Zebra31]

Yes YABU. Weddings are about the couple and no one else. If I understand your posts correctly, I would have eloped too. Your brother and SIL do not need to invite your DH and/or your DC

[SirJamesTalbotAndHisSpeculum]

I still don't understand.

The update didn't help.

Maybe I'm just thick though.

[Disfordarkchocolate]

I'm a bit confused but if only 10% of what people post about weddings is true it's still true that weddings make people acts nuts.

If you want things to calm down the apologies to your SIL will help. I don't understand why they were annoyed about your children and the engagement announcement, especially when they were not providing the meal.

[itswinetime]

Were any children invited? Or did they want a child free wedding? Would you have gone if your dh but not your dc were invited? What were the invites like on the brides side? Same set up or was it unequal?

Personally what do I think you could have done differently sat down and spoken to your brother and his wife if your normally get not go through your parents. Without properly knowing what they decided and why I can't see how anyone can know if you were right to be upset or if they were doing the best they could to have all key people their even if it meant cutting some still important people!

[Ellisandra]

Your dad’s a dick, isn’t he?

I don’t know what was going on with the engagement announcement 🤷‍♀️

But that was done.

Afterwards, your dad threw his weight around. There’s nothing wrong with only inviting direct relations to a small do. It wouldn’t suit everyone, but it was their choice. It would have been rude if cousin’s boyfriend was invited but sister’s husband not. But that isn’t what happened. They made their decision and your dad was a dick about it. And it backfired on him.

Yep, if my dad had refused to come to my wedding in those circumstances, I’d elope and fuck the lot of you. Good on them.

[NewNameIsNew]

I can't understand the drama and I've been through similar.

My brother asked me to go see him on my own with no kids. I went no questions asked because he's my brother and I love and trust him. He reassured me it wasn't bad (as I get anxiety) and I just went.

He announced his engagement. We then went for a meal.

It didn't bother me that my husband and kids were home. It didn't bother them either.

He didn't want a massive fuss but wanted to tell a few close friends and family in person. I have zero issues with this. I felt delighted to be part of a group of 5 people he wanted to celebrate with. Dragging my family along would have made the group 10 and changed the dynamic completely.

We actually suspected the invite might have been a "we are getting married in 10 minutes" invite as he's that type of person. If it had been I'd have been equally happy to be part of it.

As it was my brother eloped. Too many people interfering and telling him how to have his wedding I think. Again I've no issue with this. I'd probably have done the same.

The only acceptable reply to "I'm engaged" is congratulations.

[Ellisandra]

It’s not always about the budget, but about the type of wedding people want.
When they said budget related as one of the reasons, I’m sure they weren’t thinking “oh if only we had £5K we could have had more people”.

I loved my wedding. If I’d been given £5K, I wouldn’t have invited a single extra guest - I’d have put it on a free bar and started earlier in the day with extra food (we married in the late afternoon so it was only one meal).

So it’s not as simple as saying they had £5K they could have invited more people. It sounds like they didn’t want that. The elopement suggests that too - they just wanted to keep it small. Your dad didn’t respect that, it it doesn’t sound like you did either.

[GreenishPurple]

I don't see how your kids couldn't ruined the engagement celebration, that's not on you, and it would be unfair to blame you for that.
And yeah they do have to the right to invite who they want to the wedding, but if my brother didn't invite my husband and kids we would be having words!
Maybe the best way going forward to have an honest conversation with them, you don't want it ruining your future relationships

[beachysandy81]

Well, they had no right to make your kids stay home for a family dinner at your parents. It was your parents dinner and I expect they were looking forward to seeing everyone together. They should have done a dinner and theirs and specified no kids on another occasion when you would have had time to find a babysitter.

I don't think you are in the wrong. I think they are. They did have enough budget to pay for key family members but chose not too. Then they threw their toys out of the pram, eloped and gave back the 5K. Should have eloped to begin with rather than split the family over invites and cause a lot of bad feeling. You can't miss out your BIL it's just weird. It's like not inviting her to events.

[Aderyn19]

I do have some sympathy for the dad. He shouldn't have refused to go but it must be difficult to see son not inviting sister's husband especially if you have given them £5k to help out with the costs.
Presumably the son will want his wife to be treated like family. The dad is is just taking the view that daughter's husband is also family.

[AmIThough]

Paragraphs are your friend OP...

So, basically:

• your brother wanted to announce his engagement and you refused to get a babysitter.

• your brother invited you to his wedding and you kicked off because it was only a small 'do' so your DH and kids weren't invited

• your dad gave them money for his wedding so thought that meant he could dictate who attended

• you all threw your toys out the pram and refused to go, ruining the wedding so much so that they cancelled instead

• your brother then got married without bothering to tell his shit family and you're all upset with him again

Is that the long and short of it?

I think you're being very unreasonable.
It's his wedding, his wife. He invited you and you refused to go, don't them cry that he didn't beg.

[LucilleBluth]

Op, you posted in the wrong place. MN nearly always gives the opposite opinion of the man on the street.

Your brother and SIL are odd. Why get a babysitter for the engagement thing, I don't know.

Taking money and not inviting your DH is also not what people do.

The OP wasn't in any way hard to understand.

[itswinetime]

I don’t know what was going on with the engagement announcement

It's guess work on my part but at 9,7 and 5 the kids are old enough to understand weddings and invites! My guess is they were never invited and so the brother and SiL thought it would be mean to get them all excited about an event they wouldn't be attending!

[Aderyn19]

I also think it isn't totally fair of brother to hijack the family meal, which is taking place in your parents' house and tell you not to take your DC. I think I would have baulked at that too.

[Jaxhog]

I think you need to move and forget all the drama. It's water under the bridge now. Leave the situation between your DF and DB to them and stay out of it. If anyone mentions it, change the subject.

Focus on being friends with your DB and SiL going forward.

[katewhinesalot]

I think they sent a clear message that your dp and children are not important to them. It's also really hard not to extrapolate that further and read into it that they don't actually like your DP. After all a cousin (but not her husband) is deemed more important than a brother in law - your dp.

The only way in which this isn't extremely hurtful is that your dp might have been left out because there was no one else to look after the children, in which case that should have been explained. This is more understandable - even if still hurtful.

I don't blame your dp's for acting as they have. Bil's actions have resulted in a big crack in the family.

The message that they have sent is that in laws aren't important therefore its ok for you now to treat sil as if she doesn't exist. I know you won't do that but that would be fair - according to their rules.

[Cassilis]

Did your mum's dinner take place?

Did you attend brother's wedding?

Did bro and SIL cash in dad's cheque and then sent a new cheque to your dad?

[thecatsthecats]

Presumably the son will want his wife to be treated like family. The dad is is just taking the view that daughter's husband is also family.

But family surely can mean different things? The family you grow into, and your original family unit. In fact, my best friend grew up an only child, and very much considers her closest friends as sisters.

If you imagine your family as you were a kid, you don't retrofit your spouse into the memories?

If I had a teeny tiny wedding, it would literally be my parents, my sister, and my best friend, plus the same from DH's.

All of which is a load of gumph really, because OP's father had zero right to be a dick about the very simple wishes her brother had for his wedding.

(how the hell do people manage to make even very small weddings about them? It's OBVIOUSLY not a personal thing - just that the couple prefer a really intimate do)