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.

Its a completely valid choice to not want to go by yourself.

When you said that you were close it seemed likely that you knew his friends well etc. Eg I know lots of friends siblings really well.

But that's completely fine to not want to go by yourself. But you just need to be honest with yourself that it your choice.

@MiddleParking

The thing is, even before it got postponed the couple had already made it clear to every invited guest that they weren’t arsed if they went or not, by having it in the Caribbean. If I was in your position and my brother said anything at all like “I’m gutted you can’t make it” I wouldn’t think ‘oh he does care about me after all’, I’d be like “why’s it in the Caribbean then, arsehole?” If you’re going to have a destination wedding, especially in that kind of destination, where guests would be travelling and staying at their own expense, the only acceptable response to a decline is “that’s fine, totally understand”, no follow up.

I can’t believe someone suggested OP should host a family party to make up for it 🙄

I agree with this. People only have destination weddings if they aren't bothered about all their friends/relatives being there. The fact that he's not bothered is not new news. It's been clear from the start.

You have choices here. You can go alone, or take your kids out of school for a week, or not go. But you shouldn't be surprised that your brother isn't totally committed to having everyone at his wedding when it's being held in the carribean

With so many affected by furlough and redundancies, you won't be the only non-attendee.

TBH OP I think it's optimistic that this will happen anytime soon. I have family in the Caribbean and the government say borders will be closed until next year at the earliest. Obviously each country is different. I can technically book a flight to see my family, but it gets cancelled when the date draws closer.

I've been invited to weddings overseas and with one exception, they weren't planned around school terms. You either take them out of school, get a sitter or don't go. Luckily for me my mum watched my kids so I could go, they weren't too young and thus were annoyed we went without them (they knew the couples in both circumstances, not family though). Just the way it is, eg my cousin got married in the middle of my finals and my brothers a levels, my aunt never forgave me for not coming to the preliminary bits she had the week prior, said family came first (no my exams did!) people don't think do they!

It sucks but I'm guessing they were about to have loads of people pull out because of the cost so went term time

Dishwashersaurous

You are coming across a bit Marie Antoinette. OP clearly isn't on her uppers, but neither does she sound particularly better off than an average person/family. She's being very sensible about the cost of it, imho. We don't know what sacrifices and strict budgeting choices they may have made in order to prioritise money for a family holiday - it's not just fallen into their lap with always plenty more where it came from.

Assuming you like in the UK, If you were invited to a wedding in, say, Barnsley, without your spouse and children, would you go without any hesitation? Or would you feel a bit off that your family weren't welcome too - and that you'd have to travel there and back alone, maybe stay overnight in a hotel alone and then spend time at the wedding having to latch on to others to avoid awkwardness - others who will probably have their own families there?

Now, if you have all that in the picture, except that instead of Barnsley, it's Barbados - so the cost, travel time and time spent alone (and away from your family) is massively increased? Still keen?

@MixedUpFiles

I would be upset if my sibling didn’t care enough about me to plan a wedding I could realistically attend.

Same here. Its different for friends and extended family but to plan a wedding that excludes either your parents or siblings to me is unthinkable.

I think having your wedding in the Caribbean when you live in the U.K. is unthinkable full stop, unless you’re genuinely happy to have no one else there and no one else will be really upset by not being there. OP said earlier in the thread that she’s not Beyoncé - I’m guessing her brother isn’t either nor his fiancé.

Webuiltthisbuffet thank you for getting where I'm coming from. It is appreciated.

I feel like I'm going round in circles defending our position re money. Yes, we have the money for the original holiday but this has been saved carefully and only justified because it was something for all of us to enjoy as a one-off. We have NEVER spent anywhere near this kind of money on a holiday before and realistically, will never again.

For the original dates, the pre-wedding events, the day itself, post-wedding activities and travel equated to 7 days which would be glorious (though not particularly fun-filled for the DC), but then the remaining week would be focussed on our immediate family and the amazing activities the DC wanted to do, such as water skiing, windsurfing, scuba diving, etc. They're sporty boys and were really excited by this.

The change of date now means if we went, the added value family time is lost. While of course, it would be lovely to be there for the wedding, there wouldn't be much for the kids to enjoy and if we excused ourselves from some of the wedding activities, they may get a day or two to do their own thing before we came home.

We have a choice, yes. This money could pay for holidays for the next 2-3 years or we could blow most of it on one week where the cost represents the long flights and the activities on offer that we can't really embrace. The same goes for flying out alone and spending almost £3k on a week tagging along with others - financially, it doesn't make sense for us as a family.

OP you don't have to try to justify yourself further, but this AIBU and some people think you are BU (and many others don't). Saying the same thing over and over won't change our minds

£6k

SCREW THAT..

stay home and wait for the Wedding photos 🌸

we weren't part of the critical 'must be there' list, but the 'be good if you could make it' list.

OP from your updates it sounds like you have a bit of a fraught relationship with your brother/rest of family. Which can't be nice, but in light of that, why do you think you should be on his critical list? Or why would you want to be? Why does that matter so much to you?

And yes the planned extra family time in the Caribbean would have been lovely but why do you think your brother should have taken that into consideration?

Weddings are such a ballache to organise that in my opinion it's gigantically unreasonable for anyone to expect the couple to arrange it for anyone else's convenience (as long as they don't then take offence, which doesn't sound like the case here).

In this case it does sound like they've focused on celebrating with their friendship group (which sounds child-free from your description), and there's nothing wrong with that. A close social circle can be your chosen family - I'm certainly closer to my friends than my actual relatives.

And it's just a day. I have several close friends whose weddings I couldn't make for one reason or another. (Destination wedding I couldn't afford, work clash, etc etc.) I didn't think they should put themselves out for my sake. They weren't offended that I didn't rearrange my life for their sake. We celebrated afterwards separately. Our friendships were not affected.

But it sounds like you just don't have that kind of relationship with your brother, where you're close/loving enough that it simply doesn't matter whether you attend this one day. And that's the root of your feelings.

i can understand why you are upset particularly by the tone of the message but i had a covid wedding disaster too and your DB and future SIL will have gone through the mill so many times and probably are sick of problems. My siblings live abroad and are unlikely to make it to England any time soon so my DP want me to hold off any celebrations until we can all be together. It sounds petty but it is pretty tough going. We were meant to have this all over last year and be looking to the next stage of our lives. We had our honeymoon booked for after the wedding and must have rescheduled the flights about 10x now and we still dont have any guarantee that we will get to go. We lost loads of money as well. Your DB and SIL were likely looking forward to the wedding for long before it was booked and then covid hit. Your DB message could have been a bit more sympathetic but i would just wish them well and try to remember that the circumstance has not been nice for anyone

I guess the problem is that it doesn't matter to them. It's a shame and clearly does show you how close your brother thinks you guys but if it mattered you being there then they would have checked the date with you guys. When we planned our wedding we checked the date with everyone who mattered to us just to make sure they could come.

If I was in your shoes, I'd be upset too. I had something a little similar - Dsis announced their date to everyone and it happened to be Dh's 40th/plus a potential work trip for me. I was also a bit upset - not that they are not entitled to the date but that they didnt consult their close family over the date. In the end, I had to go alone and DH was on his own with the kids for his 40th. But if am honest - Dsis just doesnt really care about us all that much and it did hurt

OP if you’re insistent on being upset just go ahead. You don’t have to care what anyone else thinks.

The destination is more important to him than his sister.

That is really what it comes down to. Even just expecting that you will be able to outlay huge amounts of money to attend the wedding is unreasonable. Then to add in not checking the date with a sibling, it is a really big deal.

I don't think you are being unreasonable but they might just be so desperate to get married they've taken this date. It might not make you feel Any better but I'm sure they didn't make the decision lightly, they probably weighed up their options and decided to go ahead with an imperfect solution

@Pinkpaisley

The destination is more important to him than his sister.

That is really what it comes down to. Even just expecting that you will be able to outlay huge amounts of money to attend the wedding is unreasonable. Then to add in not checking the date with a sibling, it is a really big deal.

I wouldn’t say that actually - the original wedding was booked and his sister and family were planning to attend. Due to covid it’s been rearranged to a date they feel they can no longer attend - however, the bride/groom likely had no choice on destination/venue at this point having likely already paid a deposit/in full.

Dsis announced their date to everyone and it happened to be Dh's 40th/plus a potential work trip for me. I was also a bit upset - not that they are not entitled to the date but that they didnt consult their close family over the date. In the end, I had to go alone and DH was on his own with the kids for his 40th. But if am honest - Dsis just doesnt really care about us all that much and it did hurt

Even if you only consult a handful of close family/friends over a date, you'll have clashes and preferences coming out of your ears.

Bypassing that hassle doesn't mean they don't care about you.

Brides and grooms should just pick a date and get on with it. People who can come will do and if they can't it's not the world-ending big deal MN makes it out to be.

You could have celebrated your DH's 40th a week earlier or a week later.

@gannett - we did celebrate DHs birthday at another time. However, most people nowadays get married years after they got together and living together. Weddings are essentially now just big parties for family/friends. Dsis had been with her partner for 15 years before getting married so you know what I think it does show who they care about.

I can understand why you feel hurt, @PaleBlueLavender, but I think you’re focusing on you and not your DB and stb-SIL.

They chose a destination wedding, aware many people wouldn’t come. Getting married in that place was their priority.

Covid cancellations mean there is a mad scramble for dates now with all the weddings that would normally happen this year competing with all those postponed last year.

Dates in school holidays are doubly fought for, because of people in education and people with kids.

He and the bride check with their best friends, find a date, go for it. When your entire group has no children, people are remarkably uninformed about school dates. It often doesn’t register on their radar, except as “avoid this time when the prices double.”

They book it. You can’t come. That’s a shame, but if they (by some stroke of extraordinary luck) arranged a date your family could come, every single guest would be paying a premium just so you could be there.

Would that be fair? To everyone else who can still go but, like you, has Covid-affected finances?

I expect they decided the wedding going ahead was the priority, and accepted you were unlikely to make it.
Surely you’d rather you miss out than they not get their wedding?

because it still sucks being the one who misses out.

When I organised my wedding, my sister's availability was the most important factor for me but:

• it depends on how close you are
• Covid and all that - they are already not having the wedding they planned

Could you go alone?

@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.

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.

No way I would pay that amount of money to attend a wedding even if it was my family member! We spent the equivalent on a 6 week once in a lifetime trip!

I get why you feel a bit like a after thought but honestly OP I think you have a get out of jail free card from spending lots of money to take a trip that isn't a place you want to visit!
Catch up with them after and smile at the photos!