AIBU - Saturday Night England Match??

[CityMumma78]

Hey everyone, please help me…
This Saturday we are due to go out with my parents to celebrate their special wedding anniversary. We are going out to a low key basic chain restaurant with our kids and my brother and his kids and we have two tables booked for 7pm. This arrangement has been in place for 1 week and we all live local so no special guests travelling from miles around to attend. Last week when we were arranging the evening we didn’t even consider the Euro fixtures but because England won last night and are playing on Saturday night we REALLY want to watch the game! I asked my parents if they could change the booking by half an hour which would allow us enough time for a leisurely dinner and taking into account the drive home this would enable us to watch the 2nd half. I have checked at the restaurant and there is plenty of availability to make a slightly earlier booking but when I spoke to my parents last night they have refused, point blank refused to change the booking by half an hour from 7pm to 6.30!! There is no reason other than they don’t want to. I haven’t asked them to rearrange the date I just want to bring it forward by 30 minutes but I have been made to feel guilty for even asking and I’m so angry they they can’t be more flexible to allow us to watch just part of the England game in the quarter finals. My husband doesn’t even want to go now.
Am I being unreasonable?

Does anyone know when the semi final is due if and when England win as I might need to reschedule my combined wedding and life-saving surgery for which I've been waiting several years. and let’s not forget that any woman giving birth on that night would be unreasonable to want her DH to miss the football to be there.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz oh I forgot all about those threads. Now I am excited

Oh great.....a year until we get the inevitable "England have made it through to the semi finals but it's at the same time as our wedding" threads.

I've missed those!

Ooh, I love a good ‘AIBU for not allowing people to stream the football in the phone at my wedding’ thread

YABU. This is your parents special anniversary and you accepted their invitation. They wanted to spend time with you. It's not just bring it forward is it, it's bring it forward, we want to eat and rush home for football, byeee.

Decide your priority and if a football match is more important than your parents, then make your choice and live with it.

Still each to their own, some people put family first and some don't.

YANBU. But then my family are pretty flexible so any/all of us would be willing to move a meal of there was clash with an important match for half of the family. A wedding, major party or anything which would be a pita to reorganise wouldn't be changed, but refusing to move a meal is petty imo.

Yabu. It’s your parents anniversary and you accepted the invite.
It’s rude to expect them to change plans so you can watch football. Just record it!

Are they Welsh or Scottish and have kept this quiet all your life?

Their anniversary, their choice, even though it is being a bit unreasonable.

Yeah, you're being outrageous. It's football. Your parents must be feeling devastated that you value that more than them on their special day. Christ on a bike, imagine if someone wanted you to change your wedding arrangments so that they could watch sport.

@RadandMad

Yeah, you're being outrageous. It's football. Your parents must be feeling devastated that you value that more than them on their special day. Christ on a bike, imagine if someone wanted you to change your wedding arrangments so that they could watch sport.

Bit melodramatic.

A wedding is nothing like a dinner at a chain restaurant booked a week ago.
And for your wedding you’d just get a screen and a projector surely 😜

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

Yabvu

You want to rush through their special anniversary dinner, and go straight home after 2 hours, to watch football? That’s so rubbish of you I don’t know where to start. These are your parents ffs

It’s also quite reasonable not to want to start at 6.30, which is not a very grown up time. All done and dusted and out of the way by 8.30, eh, OP? Not very special for their anniversary.

I agree with this. Your parents special event vs football... skewed priorities if you put a soccer game above your Mum and Dad.

The recording idea is great, but we tried this a couple of years ago when DD2 was in a production and there was a major cricket match.

Unfortunately lots of people were watching on their phones during the production and talking.

Is there the possibility the restaurant would have the TV on, in which case you could keep plans as they are!

I can't believe anyone who was that bothered about the football would not have planned around the dates of the games so for that alone you are being unreasonable. I would never agree to any social events during a major tournament exactly so that I would be ever be in this situation.

I think your parents are being pretty unfair tbh, it would make no difference to them to move it forward by 30mins, it’s not every day we beat the Germans and get to the semis!

It’s not like your going to some big fancy fine dining restaurant where they’ll be multiple courses and you’ll be out all night it’s a pub chain where they’ll want you in and out!

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply with your thoughts. I have to say I’m quite surprised by how rude some people are with their comments! No matter thank you for your feedback none the less.
I wish there was a dadsnet where I could publish the same post to help balance opinion ☺️
Have a lovely day everyone.

FWIW, I think I have a bigger issue. Through sheer chance and footballing insight, I managed to name my dodecuplets after the England starting 11 and Southgate. I've just read he's going all tinkerman and shufflemeister for the game against Ukraine. I had a contingency plan by conceiving with a multiple birth to enable me to roll in new names for a new starting 11 but my due date is Saturday, the same date as my wedding and separate life-saving surgery. I recall the threads about a father not wanting to be at the birth. WIBU to not want to be present when I give birth myself so I can go down the pub and watch the football?

I tried to fly out to watch the game in Rome but COVID rules and some silly rules about not flying when about to give birth to undecuplets put paid to that. I thought we'd left all that bureaucracy gone mad when we left the EU but it turns out the EU think they still control how I use my blue passport to follow the England team.

anyone who says "just a game" doesn't understand the significance of it.

for those who do it's "just a dinner". in fact it's a dinner that could start earlier or moved to another day.
they will still be married the day before or an hour before, won't they?
or a week later, fingers crossed.

and it's not about what's more important.
it's about the fact that they both are, but one can be rescheduled the other can't.
the parents don't need to be so insistent and bloody minded out of spite.

if it was my anniversary dinner I would've rearranged it by now.

What a great idea for a comedy tv show. A couple of people who can't watch a football match so try and avoid all the results until they can watch it later. Where would be a good, down to earth place to set it and with what regional characters, Scousers, Yorkshire... Geordies?

Don't bother going if you're just going to speed through the meal and worry about getting back in time for football

This ^^

@Zilla1

What a great idea for a comedy tv show. A couple of people who can't watch a football match so try and avoid all the results until they can watch it later. Where would be a good, down to earth place to set it and with what regional characters, Scousers, Yorkshire... Geordies?

@Zilla1

this type of scenario has been done to death in various comedy shows.

I loathe football but think YANBU. It’s possibly that your parents think you will rush off that’s more of an issue for them but I’d be surprised if the restaurant would expect/allow them to stay all night anyway. Places I’ve been since the reopening tend to allocate a two hour slot anyway.

@NoSquirrels

I think I’m feeling over sensitive about this as this year ought to be my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. Which my mum would have totally planned for a chain restaurant in order to include all the fussy eater grandchildren and make sure we had a great time. And if my DH threw his toys out of the pram over football I’d be deeply unimpressed. (Wouldn’t happen, as he and my mum actually bonded over shared love of their football team.)

But she died last year, shortly after their 49th wedding anniversary. So we can’t ever have this dilemma and it hurts.

Celebrate graciously, OP. England will win or lose regardless of whether you watch it in real time. There will be other matches.

I have a similar situation coming up to you @nosquirrels and I totally sympathise.

I’d love to have this dilemma but sadly won’t again.

But imagine the comedy potential from lots of situations where the couple have to do outrageous things to avoid inadvertently hearing the result. I wonder what the funniest payoff at the end could be?

Watching football is more important to you then spending time with family. Fuck me have you got your priorities wrong. Lots of people would love to spend time with their parents before it's too late. Jeeze. Suck it up go to the dinner fuck the football. England will fuck it up any way. Although if I was your parents I'd cancel and tell you to get stuffed.

I dare say your parents weren’t feeling that special anyway with their anniversary meal booked at a low key basic chain restaurant but this will have just about put the tin lid on it. 😂

Bugger. Bold fail.

low key basic chain restaurant