Wedding, husband and flower girls

[Harrishoole]

Brother in law is getting married in an hour and a half; never been on mumsnet, don't know what to do. Feel as if I am going to vomit.

Checked into hotel to find sister-in-law with her cousins and bridesmaids and two bloody flower girls.

Our two girls are not invited.

It became very obvious to me and mother-in-law that my children were not going to be invited to the wedding, logically none of our business but it was hurtful and upsetting. I thought my husband would be accepting but he was completely offended. He approached Brother-in-law who spoke to sister-in -law. Kids not invited.

Pandemic took over and when wedding was planned again both MiL and husband spoke again but no kids. BiL admitted this was SiL as he had left all planning to her.

Husband is best man. I don't know if I should ring him and warn him and MiL. I am scared there will be an atmosphere when they walk in.

Well if her husband was on I'd ask him the same but as she was the one who posted ..............

But why would it be up to her to know who her husband would invite?

Why would the inviting all be up to her?

I thought a couple getting married would work out invites together. Don't people do that?

I don't know why the inviting was up to her in the OP, the OP says when her husband asked his brother his brother asked the bride and she said no children so it sounds like for that wedding it was up to her.

For the other post I replied to I was replying to what she said, I have no idea what her husband, or husband to be, would have said as I don't know if he's on here.

I'm with you OP. Seems mean to me. And not a great way to join up with another family.

I'd have gone full bridzilla and gone mad and had 4 actual little flower girls instead of just the 2.

And they could have all dashed about together afterwards. They'd have loved it.

Seems like it would have been the crazy (and obvious) nice thing to do. And not too hard.

You got a hard time on here because you used the word vomit maybe 🤷‍♀️ but that's equal to caring too much. And being new. That gets everyone's knickers in a twist.
You even spelt the word queasy wrong!
God Alive OP.

Queezy'??!! You're a gp and don't know how to spell queasy? How bizarre.

😄 couldn't make it up.

honestly @Mymoneydontjigglejiggle who do they let into medical school eh?

Jeez-wifework expected before marriage!

Leave it out. It's called "doing a guest list"

So you wouldn't even invite your husband's nieces to the wedding? Well that is certainly one way to get closer to his family.

Where did I say that? I said I wouldn't make them flower girls or bridesmaids.

@Harrishoole

Thanks for coming back and giving context.

It sounds like you behaved very well.

The B and G could've seen the wider family dynamics and had 4 flower girls but just went with 2 (wrong decision in my opinion).

The bride sounds like for whatever reason she wanted 2 flower girls, not sure why, may be it would look better on photos. I don't blame her for not choosing your DDs. Although, the flower girls were her 'cousin's daughters' - the cousin and her family, have a deeper relationship to the bride than you and your DH and DDs. Also if she has lots of close 'cousins' and they also have DC, it's a lot easier just to say 'No' to all DC apart from the bridal party - this is probably what happened.

Really I think it's down to your BIL and your new SIL and to some extent your DH. I can't believe your BIL and DH didn't talk about stuff like the bridal party months ago. Or if he saw the bride in the months leading up to the wedding why it wasn't mentioned. They either knew you would be pissed off so avoided telling you or were oblivious that their actions would cause hurt. I think it's probably the former.

Thanks for coming back. I think you have been very restrained.
In excluding your girls from the wedding your Sil has made it very clear exactly how unimportant they are.
I suggest if/when she has a child you greet their arrival with exactly the same level of interest/care as she has shown

I don’t know what people expect of your husband. He was told there were no children at the wedding so took it at face value. What more was he to say to that? It obviously never occurred to him that their were loopholes and children in the bridal party don’t count. A lot of people wouldn’t think about that.

I think you handled yourself well. I can understand the feeling of being left out. I don’t recognise a lot of MN responses to family events.

Proper queezy so gonna vom innit

I'm really surprised at the responses to this thread. Only 5 years ago I posted a thread asking for advice on having a child free wedding as I didn't want to invite DHs half siblings and was told that weddings are about family, that I was cruel to even consider it, even childfree weddings include the family children etc. Now it seems the tides have turned and childfree weddings are very much to be expected.

I do think that OP was right to feel disappointed and could see why she would want to warn her husband so that his reaction wouldn't be seen by everyone at the wedding venue, it can be hard to keep a neutral expression sometimes. I would have been upset to attend a family wedding that was childfree, found childcare, paid out the associated wedding costs and then found that there were children there after all.

Not everyone has childcare on tap so it can be a real pain to find, my children would have been disappointed to miss a family event and not everyone wants to have time away from their children for weddings, I see a lot of posters saying "I'd love the chance to be childfree and enjoy it" but personally I'd rather choose myself when I will be using the rare chance of babysitting to go to something I actually want to go to.

Anyway OP, you sound like you handled it well and I suppose although it wasn't ideal you now know how BIL and SIL view your families relationship with them and can act accordingly with future events.