Wedding invite - no children

[FunkySnidge]

Aibu?
Wedding invite but children are not invited unless they have a role in the wedding or are babies. This means that our kids are the only kids from our side of the family who will not be invited. In fact as it's not a big family they are the only relatives not invited.
We now don't really want to go. Our kids really value family events and they can't be fobbed off, they prefer this kind of family thing to a substitute treat.
If we go we will have the faff of organising house pet child sitter, and then the expense of travel and accommodation... During a school holiday. Tbh I would prefer to just go on hol with my kids and let someone else who is closer to the wedding couple enjoy the day.
It's not my family it's dh so I'm giving him space to say what he wants and haven't said my view yet. He has indicated he thinks it's unfair to go without our kids as they will literally be the only family members from our side excluded and he doesn't agree.
Should we get over it and go or do we have a point and should just decline graciously and send a lovely pressie.

I’m not quite sure why you’re so resistant to the idea that we’ve seen a shift away from family and towards friends (you know, apart from having to be right on this thread wink) but knock yourself out.

I'm not 'resistant' to it (I didn't invite anyone when I got married) - I just don't think it's true .

I've given my reasons for that at length already.

I think it's a cliche, (and like I say- a cliche from a quarter of a century ago, so not really relevant now anyway) and really it's an excuse to justify inviting only the people that you personally like spending time with (your friends) and not inviting the people that you're socially obliged to invite (your family)

Do you really think that our parents' generation actively wanted to spend time with Great-Auntie Rae or with their snotty-nosed nephew, rather than their mates that they chose to socialise with the rest of the time?

I think it's basically prioritising a totally self-centred view, rather than a community- or socially-centred one. Of course you'd rather have your friends than your family there- who wouldn't, and when was that ever not the case? But people used to have a sense of social obligation around this type of occasion, and now they only have a sense of individual 'wants'.

I'm not a very conventional person - like I say I skipped the wedding thing altogether - but I don't think that valorising 'me me me' and throwing out any idea of there being a broader responsibility towards, or membership in, a wider community, is a very positive move for society in general.

I think we need more inclusiveness and less judgement, more community and less narcissism - and I think that pretending that 'preferring your friends to your family' is a new idea is very much on the wrong side of that.

And now i have 20 minutes left to work before the school run.

30 or 40 years ago it was unheard of virtually to exclude children from weddings

I am mid 40s and was never at a wedding as a child. First wedding I was at I was 21 and bridesmaid for my best friend.

Expecting children to be invited weddings seems to be a more recent thing.

Actually come to think about it, I didn’t go to a wedding until I was 18.

And I had 2 aunts who married when I was a child. No invite for me!

Rubicon80

I completely agree with your last post.

I went to loads of weddings as a child. That is just how our family is. Children are included in everything. My friends are the same. We've not been to any wedding amongst either family or friends where children haven't been invited apart from one of my husband's friends wedding and that caused a bit off a stir when several parents left early because we had to get back for babysitters.

It's up to the B&G whether they invite children and then up to the guests whether they choose to go but in the ops case I can really understand the extra upset because for some reason her children have been singled out. As she says, other children with the same relationship to the B&G have been invited so of course people are going to be put out over this.

I think it is a matter of different family / circle culture / habit, as well.

For DH's family, all events are Big Family Events. Attendance at funerals is pretty much expected for anyone with the slightest degree of relationship, and much the same principle is applied to weddings.

For my family, the culture is very different. Attendance at funerals is close family only, and until the current generation, only men (there were 10 people at my beloved grandfather's funeral, the right number to go back to the house for tea - not because he wasn't loved and respected but because he had 10 people at the appropriate level of relationship, and he would have been slightly taken aback that i was there). Weddings tend equally to be small, relatively low key affairs - the main point is the service, the reception tends to be a bit smaller.

My elder brother married into a family with very similar traditions to my own (in fact, there are stories of a mad uncle who played hymns on a harmonium round the streets of Newport which are shared, so I suspect there is a previous link between the families somewhere...), so wedding planning was smooth.

DH's family and mine ... well, let's just say that one was more difficult to negotiate!

Neither tradition / cutom is WRONG, just they are DIFFERENT, and coming to a compromise that suits all parties is very very hard IME.

Reading this I am amazed that anyone has the audacity to have a wedding, let alone invite anyone, children or otherwise

God what a world where children are included in everything

Dinner parties? Works Xmas dos? Stag/hen parties? Saga coach trips?
F that

The phrase 'my wedding... my rules ' makes me want to vomit it is so utterly crass and preposterous.

@fandabbyfannyflutters God what a world where children are included in everything Dinner parties? Works Xmas dos? Stag/hen parties? Saga coach trips? F that

Er no, I think this thread was about weddings . HTH

@Swellerellamoo You might enjoy this (or not!):

www.reddit.com/r/bridezillas/

Why do you think that would help?? Did you miss the point, Rubicon?!

No, I think that @fandabbyfannyflutters (and presumably you too) missed the point, @HeadintheiClouds .

Why do you think that the fact that nightclubs/old age homes/hen parties/work dos are unsuitable for children answers the question of whether or not they should be invited to weddings?

Schools are suitable for children. Old age homes are not.
Playgrounds are suitable for children. North Sea oil rigs are not.
Postnatal wards are suitable for babies. Dirty Martini is not.
A screening of The Lion King is suitable for children. A screening of Apocalypse Now is not.

And? So? What? The thread is discussing weddings .

YABU. The wedding is about the couple not your random children. If you're going to be that precious you probably won't be missed there anyway.

I think you’ve done your children a disservice by making them expect an invite. Children’s expectations are shaped by their parents and bringing them up to expect invites to everything just sets them up for disappointment.

My mum led me to believe I would be my godmother’s flower girl /bridesmaid when I was 10. She had no reason to think this other than the fact they were close friends and I was a pretty little girl who was known for being well behaved (so in my mum’s eyes the perfect candidate for flower girl).

When I wasn’t asked I was gutted, but I would never have expected to be asked if it hadn’t been for my mum building it up in my head!

Please understand that your children are not the same people as you, others are allowed to be closer to you than they are to your children and to value your company more than that of your children. It doesn’t mean they don’t like your children or they don’t like you, it just means they are not that close to them and this is OK.

I think you’ve done your children a disservice by making them expect an invite.

How do you know that the children weren't led to believe they would be invited by B&G, who then later changed their minds?

We've had an experience of 2 little girls being told by the potential bride, for their whole lives, that she would have them as her bridesmaids, until she got to the planning stages and decided that she didn't want bridesmaids. Fair enough, that's her decision but it certainly wasn't the girls' parents who led them to expect to bridesmaids.

Expecting children to be invited weddings seems to be a more recent thing.

I think it's more of an expectation in Britain or England though, I've never came across people in real life (in Ireland) who get so offended when their kids aren't invited

Do you and your DH go out for evening meals/drinks without your children? I don't see how it's different to be honest. People acting like it's a problem to get a sitter for the night and go out without them. People do it all the time. Some people want adult time without kids playing up or shrieking through the ceremony.

But in this case it isn't a sitter for the evening - it's a sitter for 3 days and 2 nights. Family weddings can also make it more problematic if your usual sitter is also attending the wedding. Maybe guests can't afford to spend out a lot of money on a weekend babysitter even if they feel comfortable doing it?

In this case I think the worst part is that it's only these 2 children who aren't invited. If you were invited to a wedding but your partner wasn't and then you found out that they were the only partner not invited wouldn't you be a bit upset? I doubt you would all be so magnanimous about it. Regardless of why the B&G decided to do this I think, at the least, it shows a degree of thoughtlessness. It isn't the same as having a blanket "no children" which, while I don't agree, at least doesn't single out individual children.

Do you really think that our parents' generation actively wanted to spend time with Great-Auntie Rae or with their snotty-nosed nephew, rather than their mates that they chose to socialise with the rest of the time?

I think it's basically prioritising a totally self-centred view, rather than a community- or socially-centred one. Of course you'd rather have your friends than your family there- who wouldn't, and when was that ever not the case? But people used to have a sense of social obligation around this type of occasion, and now they only have a sense of individual 'wants'. Think what you like but you're wrong to think your perspective on how things used to be is somehow better. Social obligation sometimes meant having to accept social hierarchy, silence and lies about damaging things that were happening within the family (eg emotional/physical abuse), clannishness, a lack of social conscience, insularity etc etc

@ConkerGame

Please understand that your children are not the same people as you, others are allowed to be closer to you than they are to your children and to value your company more than that of your children. It doesn’t mean they don’t like your children or they don’t like you, it just means they are not that close to them and this is OK.

This is the most refreshing thing I have heard on MN in a long time.

If I’m paying £££££ for a huge party you can bet your last dime on the fact it’ll be about us us us. The colour scheme will be what we like. The favours will be what we choose. The wedding breakfast menu will be food that we choose. The music, the venue, the hair and makeup of the bridesmaids, the entertainment, the bar extension, the evening buffet sausage rolls will be what we choose.

If we’re putting our hands in our pockets to pay for a meal, you can bet your ass that well have the people we want there, the atmosphere we want. If we wouldn’t buy you dinner on a random day, we certainly won’t buy it for you on our wedding day.

Goodlookingcreature

How hospitable.

As many people are getting married later in life, or marrying for the second time - it is less about joining two families and more about the couple and that is perfectly ok.

My first wedding was very traditional - emphasis on family over friends, children invited, church then hotel for reception etc. My parents paid for all of it, because they wanted to and had the money, whilst we were still students. They weren't too bothered about how it was done or who was invited though. It was fine and our marriage was, by and large, a very happy one.

I'm now engaged again and this time the marriage and the wedding are going to be very different. We don't view it as a joining of families, but as the start of our lives together. We are marrying for us and our wedding will be for us. Maybe that makes us selfish, but we don't care and I think that it is because we are doing it when we are much older than we were for our first weddings; but also because there is more choice these days regarding venues, styles etc and we're excited about having the wedding we want that will reflect us and our personalities.

@Rubicon80 I was going to let this one die but I've been wracking my brain and cannot understand your comments.

"My parents paid for my wedding and put no stipulation on they what so ever. I was very luck.

You misspelled 'selfish'."

How is my parents giving me the gift of a wedding selfish???

How is my parents giving me the gift of a wedding selfish???

I expect it’s because god forbid you invite your actual friends, who you want there, rather than a slew of first cousin’s children who you probably barely know.