Brother's wedding - I need some perspective

[PaleBlueLavender]

I could really benefit from some perspective here, please. I'm feeling hurt but I don't know if I'm too sensitive or this is completely understandable.

My brother and girlfriend were meant to be getting married in the Caribbean last year. As it was long haul with really expensive flights, we decided to make it into a longer holiday for us and the two DC, but of course Covid hit and so everything was put on hold.

Since then, my brother and girlfriend have announced a new date but it's slap bang in the middle of the school term. Our children aren't of an age we can easily pull them out of school and even if we could, the costs and logistics are crazy.

My parents don't appear to see an issue and the rest of the party I believe are still going. I absolutely understand this is their wedding and their decision, but AIBU to be hurt that the new date rules us out and nobody seems to care that we can't make it?

Am I being unreasonable to be upset, or should I just get over it because it's their day, end of story.

I don't get it at all @PaleBlueLavender how. Could you afford it to begin with if you say it's too much now?? And did you not have a deposit paid? I think you just don't actually want to go to be honest?

MsT I agree.
The OP isn't unreasonable to be upset by her brother not being bothered about her not coming. But her brother isn't unreasonable to have the wedding he wants on his terms.
MN is the only place I know that is so anti weddings and abroad weddings in particular.
I hope you sort it with your brother OP

@PaleBlueLavender

Pippa yes, they knew the dates would mean we couldn't go. Which is what hurts.

The costs are now crazy. If we were to go for a week we've worked out it would cost approx £6k. This simply isn't realistic cost wise or doable factoring in jet lag.

@tatoowooo OP has explained in a number of posts about cost

OP thought she was close to her DB but has now had it made abundantly clear that the closeness was an illusion. That must hurt.

OP it seems that you're aware that perhaps your family don't reciprocate your feelings and your brother is preferred over you so perhaps I would say a gentle YABU to let yourself keep being hurt by expecting things from them that you're not going to get.
Step back from them a bit, focus on your family & relationships that are strong & true.
Arrange a nice evening with DB & family when they return, coo over some lovely pics, tell them they look very happy then spend the money you saved on a kickass holiday for your family that suits YOU & have a most excellent time.
Your DB etc will let you down & hurt you.
Put yourself first!!

I think it’s very small minded to be sniffy about destination weddings. Like the “right” wedding is in a church hall with everyone there having a knees up. Unless the destination wedding couple are having Verruca salt type tantrums about non attendance their wish to have their wedding where they want should be respected.

It's not necessarily that a church or register office is the 'right' venue - it's just that, in many cases, the actual legal wedding will take place beforehand in a register office in the UK anyway, with the 'wedding' on a beach in Jamaica or wherever just being a re-enactment. Entirely up to the couple where they prefer, but a lot of people see an actual wedding as a family celebration, so it makes sense to hold it somewhere convenient for the family - near(ish) to where they live. If the couple want to have an idyllic holiday in Jamaica - well, that's the whole traditional idea of a honeymoon after the wedding itself.

tatoowooo

This really is a classic case where reading the thread first would enable you to comment from a point of understanding, rather than just wading in and making a lot of assumptions that have already been covered and explained numerous times.

If it were a choice between having your family there for the wedding OR having a holiday somewhere hot and beautiful, I'd understand a lot more; but if you can have both, without it costing everybody a fortune to come on holiday with you - and then still be around with you when most couples would prefer to be left alone anyway - it seems a bit of a no-brainer to me.

Literally the only reason I can see for getting everybody to spend thousands of pounds, often use up lots of valuable annual leave, travel thousands of miles and stay in a hotel for a week/fortnight and work out all of the other logistics is so that they're there for a couple of hours so they can feature in your wedding photos on the beach.

Do people having destination weddings actually spend the week/fortnight with their guests? If not, what's the point in them being emotionally blackmailed strongly encouraged to book the same holiday as your honeymoon at the same time?

Normally, the whole idea of a honeymoon is that it's a very special, expensive, extravagant holiday to celebrate your own wedding - not just a holiday that all of the guests at somebody else's wedding also go on. Doesn't that rather make it less 'special' for the B&G? It's not even like you couldn't just photoshop the guests in to the photos these days!

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll how is a wedding necessarily a family celebration? If family’s paying for it sure but if it’s all the couple it’s their choice as to priorities. They’re not obligated to host a party for the convenience of other people.
‘Destination’ weddings in other countries as pp have mentioned can sometimes be better value for money than U.K. ones. Nothing’s wrong with making it a family holiday if you’re a close knit family.
As long as nobody throws a strop about non attendance...they can celebrate with whom they want.

how is a wedding necessarily a family celebration? If family’s paying for it sure but if it’s all the couple it’s their choice as to priorities. They’re not obligated to host a party for the convenience of other people.

It doesn't have to be - I'm just saying that's what it has been traditionally for a very long time. The custom of marriage is quite literally to join two families together. You don't have to see it that way: you're perfectly at liberty to view it as two individuals joining together legally and the fact that they probably both have a family network as by-the-by and co-incidental; but is it really a surprise that most people still see a marriage as a joining of families? Maybe that's it, actually - a distinction between whether you see it as a wedding or as a marriage? One is just a short occasion (leading to) the other, which is (hopefully) the rest of your lives.

how is a wedding necessarily a family celebration
Actually I remember a faint feeling of surprise at actually being taken on as a daughter, sister, aunt and cousin by a new family, and seeing DH taken on as son, brother, uncle and cousin. Somehow I knew we were joining but hadn't fully appreciated that our families were too. Including without us on occasion if it suits them to meet.

The wedding is whatever the couple want it to be. What the posters on this thread / the Victorian’s /the Royal family or the flipping Beckhams did is utterly irrelevant. If the brother wants to go to the Caribbean rather than prioritise dreary moany family which tbh from the ops posts there are issues with which he probably wants to escape from - well good for him!

I got married without my closest sister. When I organised the date she told me they ahs a holiday booked for Disney land. I fully understood as their family is huge and to book for all of them would be hard enough but to reshuffle. At the same time she fully understood that the date was important to us due to it been my and birthday and the day after mine. She made the cake for us and we had a fab time. I think if your brother has decided on a date I wouldn't expect change, there's not a lot of dates available for reshuffling with the coronavirus backdraft. But honestly it looks like he's adjusted it to accommodate people money wise as it is. To just accommodate you would hardly be fair. Obviously the cost must be cheaper in some way so wouldn't that balance out any fines given by kids school. As it is it all depends on the school. I know when I took my son on holiday they were quite happy for him to miss a week because he had good attendance and they set him tasks to do on his holiday (Fun things like spotting modes of transport) etc. We also visited a few museums so school were more than happy it was an educational trip.

Don’t go and don’t feel bad about it. People are weird about weddings. Expecting guests to find huge sums of money to enable their whims has always seemed very rude. It’s sad your brother has been sucked into this and your wider family don’t seem bothered on your behalf but at least you know what value they place on you now. You have your own family after all - invest your energy and time in those you share your life with every day.

Meet face to face ASAP to explain that you won't be able to come and why - see how they react - you will soon know whether they are just being inconsiderate or if they don't care if you can't make it - and tell them how that makes you feel

@PaleBlueLavender

Pippa yes, they knew the dates would mean we couldn't go. Which is what hurts.

The costs are now crazy. If we were to go for a week we've worked out it would cost approx £6k. This simply isn't realistic cost wise or doable factoring in jet lag.

Surely, it would be even more expensive in school holidays?

@CheltenhamLady apparently they originally sucked it up by making it a holiday. Now they can't have their holiday they're not going, and people wonder why the brother light feel upset.

My sister got married abroad in term time, I work in a school so couldn't go (it was long haul), but my brother could. They booked it for then because it was cheaper than school holidays. Whilst I was sad I couldn't make it, I wasn't put out that she hadn't planned a much more expensive wedding to accommodate me and she totally understood why I couldn't go 🤷

I have just caught up with the thread. I think that despite the reasons you have given, you could go if you chose to do so. I am a school governor and as long as it wasn't an exam year, I would have taken my kids out of school for the wedding of a close family member.

I think it appears that you feel your family should have been considered and consulted more before the date was finalised.

That is slightly unfair for the majority of the party for whom school holidays are not something they need to factor in.

I think it’s bloody cheeky of the brother to want people to spend so much to go to his wedding.

I wouldn’t go, instead I would buy then a nice wedding present and tell them you are so sorry etc and then when Covid has settled down, I would plan a lovely holiday going where you want to go and have a toast to your brother for getting you to save for the holiday. I wouldn’t spend that much going on a holiday that I didn’t want to go on and I don’t have dc and I would happily spend more than you are talking about for DH and myself to go where we wanted to.

I wouldn’t say this out loud to your family, but it sounds like you know where you stand with them, so concentrate on your DH and DC but still be polite to your family

Sounds like you and your brother are not close. Because if you were than he would make sure that his little/big sister can make his wedding. Sad situation to be in. I am sorry

[quote TheLastLotus]@sopuCat but you did attend in the end and DH was home with kids - did your DH not go only because it was his birthday?

If someone was v close they’d be heavily involved in planning the wedding. As the sister OP should at least be a bridesmaid. She isn’t.
So the brother probably consulted people who WERE involved in planning and without whom there would be a problem.

The fact that OP isn’t that involved should have told her all that she needed to know.
Yes she may be hurt because she isn’t close but this should’ve been blindingly obvious from the start.[/quote]
OP is sister to the groom; I can’t recall any weddings where the groom’s sister is a bridesmaid. The clue is in the name! I went to one where the groom’s sister did a reading, and a niece of the groom might be a flower girl, bit it’s the bride’s choice who to have for her attendants.

I’d take the kids out and go life is short this is a life experience how many brothers do you have . We have just had COVID sorry but this would be me . The whole lot of you are lucky to be here . Boo hoo they didn’t make the booking in half term 😳

Families are funny things. I get your point OP, the real issue is that he didn’t take the time to treat you as a loved family member, explain why they’d made that decision and consider how they could celebrate with you when they were back. That’s what you would hope for. Unfortunately I’m not sure you’ll ever get that, from your explanations. Who knows what led to all of this, but you do have the choice as to how you deal with it. Not to be particularly nice to them or confront; just accept that is the dynamic and might always be, and find support and that consideration elsewhere (sounds like DH, DC, maybe PIL?)
Good luck

Oh gawd OP you sound like my sil. Just be happy for your brother that he is having the wedding he (your sil) wants. Probably a preferred child-free wedding/holiday after this awful year. Be happy for them and celebrate together when they get back. It's not the wedding day that matters, but what happens after that counts.

@MargosKaftan

I think too many people are hooked on the fact its overseas, or their big day etc.

The bigger issue for the OP, is that her brother and his fiancee have decided to rearrange their wedding, they've had a list of those who "must" be there and "nice to have but not important", and its very clear from the way this has been rescheduled, she falls in the second category, other people who aren't family matter more to the brother and DP, so are in the 1st group.

This is hard to realise. Its really not about being at the wedding or not, it's a very clear indication that the OP and her dh & dcs aren't all that important to her brother, compared to other people who have been factored in to the plans in a way to make sure they can go.

OP, your brother is telling you something here. Its ok to be upset.

Its really not about the wedding.

Think you're right its more like the op thinking she is regularly left out of the family.

However, they might have thought it was less money to go fir everyone and presumed as a close family member you'd take the kids out of school as its special.

Think you should ring your brother and find out the thought process behind their decision before jumping to a conclusion?

Also perhaps you should be a bit flexible on this one occasion and take the family for a week? It might be your only chance this year?

Families & weddings are a nightmare and I think you should go or you will forever after feel left out and they will see it as you being awkward or inflexible? In time the £6k will sting less 😘xx