I’m a regular poster (penis beaker, softzilla etc) but have name-changed as I’m worried SIL is on here.
BIL (DH’s brother) and SIL have just announced they are getting married in Scotland next year in the Highlands. The area is important to them as they visit every year to go hiking etc and they have loose, distant family heritage connections to the area. However they have never lived in Scotland and none of their living relatives or any of their friends live up there (we mostly live in London or are scattered across the south).
The problem for us with getting there is that it’s not possible to just travel up on the day and get there in time for the ceremony, so you have to travel up the day before. The wedding is on a Saturday but is during term time and DH is a teacher so can’t take the day off, so that means not leaving until around 4pm on the Friday.
Apparently other guests who are teachers are either getting the sleeper train that night to arrive the next morning, are flying up to Edinburgh after school and then hiring a car to drive the rest of the way that night, or are staying in Edinburgh for the night and then getting a train for the last bit on the saturday morning. None of those options would really work for us as we have two young children (DS will be 3 and DD will be 11 months) - they really need their sleep routine (I’m not being precious, they will genuinely be horrors at the wedding the next day if they haven’t slept) and all 3 options would mean keeping them up way past their bedtime.
I think BIL and SIL think they are being accommodating as they have researched and told us all the travel options and have also said they “don’t mind” if we’re not able to bring the kids (but have also asked DS to be page boy if he does come?!) I don’t feel able to leave them for two nights, even with my parents. They are fine looking after DS for a day but they’re not in the best of health and he’s a handful at the best of times, without adding the baby too!
So my suggestion is that DH goes alone on the sleeper train and I stay at home with the kids. Although tbh I’d be upset to miss it and I think BIL and SIL would be quite offended (most of their friends don’t have kids so I think they just don’t get it!). Overall I’m just pissed off that they’ve chosen somewhere so difficult to get to for all of their guests and haven’t made sure that it works for close family before choosing it. Just feels like we haven’t been considered properly and they don’t really care if our kids are there or not but will be offended if DH and I aren’t there.
WIBU to say it’s too difficult for me to go, either with or without the kids?