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.

[IAskTooManyQuestions]

Who is Vita??

This just doesn't flow in English-as-a-first-language type of way. Give us the back ground because I hate trying to unpick these when there are cultural undertones afoot.

[Cassilis]

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!

Nail on head, @itswinetime

[AmIRightOrAMeringue]

Aderyn19 has good advice.

I'd have been confused if my brother asked me to get a babysitter for a family lunch, it's very strange and unless your kids are badly behaved and their behaviours takes over every event it is unfair to exclude them from an engagement announcement, which takes about 20 seconds at most! So you didn't do anything wrong here, though if you regret congratulating then tell them

Yanbu at being upset to your husband and children being excluded from the actual wedding. Kids maybe fair enough, child free weddings are quite common, and depending on the style it may have not suited them eg if it was a posh evening thing

Did your refuse to go though or just your dad? If you refused to go then I think this is wrong, hey explained they wanted a v quick ans quiet wedding on a limited budget so I'd have just sucked it up and gone. I think your dad was way over the top though especially if you were going anyway, it wasnt his battle to fight.

I would try and make amends, unless they regularly exclude and ignore your children it's not worth a long term fall out over one engagement and wedding. You could get them a gift or take them out for a meal to celebrate

[thecatsthecats]

After all a cousin (but not her husband) is deemed more important than a brother in law - your dp.

I'm making an assumption here, but then so did you. A cousin can be like a best friend to some people. One you grew up with almost as close as a sibling. Of course they can matter as much or more than a spouse who came along later.

[Cassilis]

Who is Vita??

Vita is the OP obviously!

This just doesn't flow in English-as-a-first-language type of way. Give us the back ground because I hate trying to unpick these when there are cultural undertones afoot.

Eh? I think English is OP's first language. There are no cultural undertones, that's so patronising to other cultures.

[thecatsthecats]

Vita is the OP, people! It's in her username. I'm surprised so many have missed that.

[Deadringer]

Isn't this the same as the mammy and daddy wedding thread from a couple of weeks ago? Brother only invited immediate family and his friends, daddy refused to go, wedding was cancelled? Anyway back to op, your brother and sill wanted a tiny wedding, it caused problems in the family so they eloped, this seems like a reasonable outcome to me. I think you should reach out to your brother, life is too short for this shit. Your mother will get over it.

[implantsandaDyson]

Vita is the OP- it's her user name.

I don't think it's strange to be closer to a cousin than an inlaw. I'm much much closer to quite a few of my cousins than I am to my sisters husband.

[VitaSackville]

Thank you for your responses. I wanted to see what people thought.
Vita is the name I made up for here.
I can see why an outsider would think that my dad was a blackmailer but I think his refusal to go to the wedding was a knee jerk reaction to being incredibly hurt. I do accept that it wasn’t what he considered proper etiquette but do not think he thought oh I will threaten them.
My brother cashed the cheque and spent it... on relocation, a holiday and the rest was going towards initial wedding. While my dad didn’t attach strings he never thought his own son in law wouldn’t be invited. My cousin never spoke to my brother about her fiancé just me.
My brother wanted initially a very small but expensive wedding at a very famous restaurant. And my husband and children weren’t family enough to be invited but some friends were invited. None of us knew about elopement. My mother is crying about not being at son’s wedding. It is sister-in-law’s very posh mother who has written a cheque to Dad. He will not cash it.
As for not congratulating him this was not deliberate my mind was just confused about why my brother didn’t want my children and by extension my husband at an engagement announcement.
At the end of the day he is a nice bloke. Didn’t find his niche at university and after met my SiL got her passion for Law and is retraining (and just realised Dad is contributing to that). He exudes happiness now. Brother is acting like nothing has happened. I am going to send present and follow the advice above about moving forward. Thank you.

[Cassilis]

@Deadringer similar but not the same. I loved that thread though, the OP kept everyone updated throughout and beyond the wedding, which is a rarity on MN

[Vasya]

I think it was really rude of them not to invite your husband and children. I understand that it's their choice, but it doesn't make it a good choice.

I don't really have any advice, sorry. If you all love each other and want to move on from this I suggest you try letting bygones be bygones and see if they will agree to do the same. Sometimes you just have to leave a problem in the past without actually resolving it.

[ChicCroissant]

Vita is the OP! I also wondered if this was the Irish wedding from recently.

I assume that the brother has cashed the cheque, and his (now) MIL has written his dad out a cheque to repay him for the wedding contribution.

It was an odd idea to hijack your mother's meal IMO, why didn't they just organise one of their own?

No, I may be in a minority here but if someone asks me to celebrate their wedding/partnership, I expect my own partner to be invited especially if it is close family.

But if you are the poster who said their Dad was going over to talk to the sibling - it obviously didn't go well! Did the in-laws get to go to the wedding ceremony?

[Aderyn19]

cats when you get married you are declaring to the world that your new spouse is your life partner/your number one person/chosen family. It's strange to get married and expect your family to accept and value this about your own relationship, while simultaneously treating your sibling's spouse as if they are none of those things and are no more important than a stranger.
I don't understand why a person would do that to their sister.

[Deadringer]

To answer your question op, yes I would have acted differently. I would have happily gone to my brothers wedding without my dh and DC if that's the way he wanted it. Your parents had expectations of a 'proper' wedding, especially after handing over 5k, but it's not what your db or sil wanted. They are disappointed but they will get over it. The important thing is that your brother is a good man who you all love, and his wife makes him happy and you all love her. The rest is just politics and nonsense. In your place I would be encouraging your parents to understand that lots of couples elope now because they don't want a fuss, and not because they hate their family. This can be sorted, and you can be instrumental in sorting it.

[Halo1234]

I can follow your post fine. I dont know why people are so confused.
You have not been unreasonable. Your sister in law doesn't sound very nice at all. Dont know why she or your brother think they can un-invite your children from a family dinner they weren't hosting to make an announcement. And very poor taste to accept 5 grand for their wedding and not include your dh. And also rude of your brothers mother in law to return the money by cheque.
You have not done anything wrong. Born have your parents. However in the name of keeping the peace I would send a congratulations card and gift and maybe invite them to dinner. If your sister in law chooses not to come that's on her and u know y tried.

[SmudgeButt]

The important thing that I see in this is that you think your new SiL is good for your brother. So great. Ring her up, laugh about what a mess everyone made of things and say you'd like to put that in the past and be friends. Hopefully she will be over it all and be happy to be welcomed into at least one part of the family.

If anyone else in your family (your dad etc) thinks this is a betrayal then they are just pig headed and should be avoided whenever possible.

[Cheeseandwin5]

So lets see:
a) He asks you to be babysit- either you can or you cant - I don't know why you feel he needs to tell you his plans before you accept. On top of that you then say you cant so either you couldn't all along and just wanted to be nosy or you didnt get the full answer and decided to be cantankerous.
b) after announcing his engagement you dont congratulate them? How rude is that? Instead you use it to be critical about them not speaking infront of their children - to excuse your own behaviour.
c) Hijack your mums dinner? They had good news to share and wanted to do it at a time and place with all the family, why yous such a hostile word as hijack.
d) It seems obvious that the fact your DH and DC wasnt invited was the reason your Dad refused to come. By the tone of your letter, I wouldn't be surprised if you had something to do with that even though you say you didnt.
e) Why are your parents devastated? They were invited to the wedding and choose not to go.
f) Off course your Dad wont cash the check, it is the only control he thinks he as and once cashed it would have evaporated.
You and your family sound like an absolute horror. I feel sorry for your Brother and SIL. They want to announce their engagement and get married. This should have been all about them and not about you or the rest of your family.. Instead they get obstructive behaviour, refusals, rudeness, controlling behaviour and manipulation.

[SirJamesTalbotAndHisSpeculum]

I see.

There were two cheques in this seriously unclear post. One from your father and one from some woman related to your DB's wife?

Still none the wiser, OP.

You could try using paragraphs. Exponents of the English language always recommend paragraphs for clarity.

[HeyMonkey]

Was the £5k from Dad specifically meant for the wedding? If so I think DB should have returned it to him.

But that's the only part where I think he acted wrongly. I think it's fine to only want a small immediate family wedding. But he wasn't allowed what he wanted, so it seems he saw no choice but to elope.

[Aderyn19]

Presumably dad gave brother £5k, which brother spent. All this happened with the wedding and sil's mum has sent a cheque for £5k back to dad. Dad hasn't cashed this cheque.

[ASundayWellSpent]

A persons wedding is their decision how to celebrate who to invite etc. I might be upset being knowing they had the 5k would be knowing that they could afford to invite your family. However giving money should be a gift and not a set of conditions to comply with. Sounds like your family has a massive communications problem. He said, she said, she does this but not infront of him in front of me, her mother returned... just bloody speak to eachother and sort it out!

[thecatsthecats]

Aderyn

That is what a wedding is to you. To be honest, that barely featured as a thought to me. I'd have thought my friends and family damn silly if they hadn't cottoned on that after 11 years together, we were in it for the long haul.

You are doing nothing more than proving my point that weddings - the ceremony and the celebration - are something that people think of very differently. Yes, feelings can be hurt by expectations being different, but the best solution to that is to not overburden yourself with expectations in the first place, but to meet with joy the preferences of your loved ones.

[Sorrysorrysosorry]

Why are your parents devastated? They were invited to the wedding and choose not to go

^ I agree with Cheeseandwin5 whole post. They didn’t get the wedding they wanted at a very expensive restaurant and had to elope instead because of the way you all reacted. YANBU to have been upset at DH not being invited but YWBU to make such a fuss about it instead of grinning and bearing it.

[Wonkybanana]

Tricky. I think the fact that he tried to take over your mother's meal and dictate who could and who couldn't be there makes him sound a bit of a groomzilla. If he didn't want your DCs to be there he should have organised a different occasion at a different time and in a different place.

I also don't think your dad was 'throwing his weight around' because of the money he gave. He hasn't asked for it back and won't cash the cheque from SiL's parents. He was disappointed that people he thinks of as family, ie your DH and children, apparently aren't considered as such by your brother.

It's done and can't be changed. You have to move on. (But if I were you I'd be planning a renewal of vows with DH, at which you only want immediate family. And I'd wait to do it until brother has at least one child of 7 or 8. Even if I didn't do it, I'd enjoy thinking about it. I'm mean )

[PerfectPenquins]

I wouldn't be surprised if my brother visited one day and introduced us to his wife lol He is pretty private and a nice person so the first thing id say is congratulations on your marriage, not why didn't I get invited.
He also loves my kids but he knows his friends better so I can understand why nieces and nephews might not be invited over friends they are close too.
It seems from the off you had been difficult-either get a babysitter or say you cant so offer to not attend at all, that would have allowed their announcement.
You didn't congratulate your brother-that's just pathetic sulking.
Perhaps your brother is closer to his cousin than your husband? Why on earth was the cousin asking her fiancé to be invited ffs you all sound pretty selfish.
Your dad tried to blackmail his son and it didn't work so tough luck they didn't attend the wedding which they did have an invite for initially.
I think you've all learnt a lesson that sulking wont get you what you want. I hope your brother had a wonderful wedding, you are all definitely embarrassing relatives.