I am utterly stunned that so many people responded to this thread.
Well the wedding went off beautifully, somebody did vomit but it was a + 1 of brother-in-law's friend and they did it into a loo!
My initial intention to ring husband and mother-in-law was never to 'stir', it was to simply prepare them for the presence of children when the only two children in the family were excluded. Their lack of an invitation was contentious in my husband's family, upsetting and my husband was angry.
Many people who responded questioned what I said about its being my first time on mumsnet; I don't know why this would be an issue for anybody. What I meant was while I had frequently read posts on the site I had never registered; this was my first time of registering.
I am a GP. Vomiting is a very common response to stress and while I have actually never vomited I was very 'queezy' when I saw those two girls, who were actually lovely by the way. I was also very jealous and upset that the groom couldn't have extended the same courtesy to his own nieces.
Even in my original post I accepted that they could of course do exactly what they wanted at their own wedding.
The bride is Irish and has no direct nieces but calls her cousins' children nieces and nephews; the flower girls were the children of one of her cousins who was accompanied by her breast fed baby as well. No other children were present.
I am not judging her use of the titles nephews and nieces for these relatives, my best friend does it who is English as well as many colleagues from different cultures.
The girls were not taken away after the ceremony but stayed up all night and danced and danced, they showed no sign of boredom and were even going to be taken into the residents' bar after but were stopped by stopped.
Three people came up to me to ask where my children were and I said that they wanted a child-free wedding. They did not make any comments. In conversation with people I had never met before children and child care came up and one of these women when she realised how I was related did say it was unusual for them not to have been invited.
My husband's uncle is married to an Irish woman and when my mother-in-law was sitting on a terrace after dinner her sister-in-law did say that the bride had shown her the flower girl dresses on her phone at a BBQ and she had assumed that they were for our girls and MiL did start crying; it was discrete and lots of people are emotional at weddings.
In my original post I seemed to suggest that I was criticising them for not having a Rehearsal Dinner; I was merely responding that we are English and there was therefore no opportunity for my husband to know who was in the wedding party prior to the actual day.
I have always been nice to the bride who is a medic too so we bond over that kind of chat.
We all behaved superbly and will not ever mention our children lack of invitation again.
It was painful to me when people suggested that my children were 'brats'; they are not and at eight and four are similar ages to the flower girls.
I hope I have clarified a few things for people who cared.