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.

Vomiting, shocked, upset, angry, what a load of drama llamas you all sound. I'd be worried about your heart and blood pressure in the long run if you over-react to everything in the same way

I'm feeling stressed just reading your posts

Presumably the OP has attended the wedding with DH and MiL etc and all went ok, I would have been advising to stick a smile on and talk about it later - I hope that's what they all did!

sister-in-law with her cousins and bridesmaids and two bloody flower girls.

totally normal for the bride to have people she is close to in her bridal party.

We are in England there was no rehearsal dinner or anything

which is very normal. I’ve never been to a rehearsal dinner in the U.K.

I don’t get how people are saying you are being dramatic - you are hurt, and rightly so. They are your children and it’s not like you are some random guest, you are related to the bride and groom! I would’ve thought though that invites would’ve stipulated who would be invited?

keep your head high and try and enjoy the day. I wouldn’t mention anything and just be the bigger person here x

Hope it all went ok. I don't know why the SIL is getting the stick. It was up to the BIL to care enough to invite his nieces. It's pathetic that he tried to blame his wife.

No one know how the conversation went between them. For all anyone knows he might be the one that didn't want any extra kids at the wedding. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Gosh, MN must be even more popular than I thought if it’s the go to place for a non-user of MN to come to rant about about a wedding issue.

Also great to see that MN lingo (getting flamed) is making its way into general vocabulary.

Well done MN!

Hope you’re ok OP and you have someone to hold your hair.

When my friends ex BIL got married for the third time;his now wife insisted on no under 18's at the wedding including the grooms own two teenage children.

They were pretty upset so they told it was fine,they could come to the evening reception and someone would have to drop them off and pick them up.They told their dad no thanks.

Ironically when their ex step mum got remarried she invited them along with their mum and her partner and my friend (her ex SIL) and my friends partner and children to her evening reception;they all went and enjoyed it.

I think the children from the bride’s side being bridesmaids is a red herring. This sort of tradition stems from the days when the bride’s parents paid for everything, where the couple didn’t live together, the couple were expected to not have sex until the wedding night and so forth. These days, equity is more important and unless her parents paid for everything, it does seem unkind not to invite your girls to be bridesmaids.

Oh FFS if this is all you have to worry about in life be grateful! Very common in my experience to have child free weddings except for the bridesmaids.
Never heard of a rehearsal dinner over in the UK either, thought that this was just an American thing.

About to vomit? Seriously? Grow up
Kids aren’t invited to a wedding-completely normal. Of course they’ll have flower girls or page boys there, but kids as guests are very often a no no.
Are you just annoyed that your kids weren’t asked to be involved in the wedding? If so, why?

I can understand your disappointment. Not inviting the brother of the groom and best man's children is a bit of a shame. But the other children are in the bridal party, so I can see why. Weddings are difficult to get absolutely 100% right. We invited the children of one of DHs groomsman but not the other, purely because he wanted his god daughter to be the flower girl. It wasn't an exclusion of the other mans kids, more of an invite to others to join the bridal party.

I urge you to turn the other cheek here. If you or dh causes a scene over this its on you two alone.

This. What happened to accepting the invite and just going and enjoying the day?

A wedding day is the one day the couple have the day they want. You had the day you wanted when you tied the knot presumably? There's a load of reasons this wedding is the way it is. It's really nothing to do with you beyond your invite.

I was railroaded into having a bridesmaid on the day. On the fecking DAY mind! I had no choice but to smile and nod on my own wedding day.

No one died though. Everyone had a good time, got shitfaced on our dime and went home happy afaik.

So this is your husbands brothers wedding? And you’re upset your girls are not flower girls or invited? You’re way out of line.

The flower girls come from the brides side of the family, not the grooms side. So you have no right to expect the bride to choose her future BILs kids over her own relatives on her side of the family. Just like a boy ring bearer is always from the grooms side of the family.

In addition, for no kids weddings, this never includes kids who are part of the actual wedding ceremony.

Dont be that couple creating drama for the sake of drama.

Take a breath, it's their choice who they invite so don't be offended.
Enjoy a childfree day with your hubby and relax.

Goodness, when I read your opening paragraph I thought something dreadful had happened. What an anti climax!!

Are you always so dramatic?

ridiculous.

I think your kids are the lucky ones to be honest! What child wants to go to an adult only wedding, I bet they'd be bored as anything.

This.

I realise the wedding will have happened now, but wow - what a ridiculous an over dramatic over reaction

Also think what an odd reaction for a person who is not a regular user of MN to suddenly join to post such hyperbole

are we filing this under 'things that never happened'?

This.

It's most likely these are brides nieces, are they? It's pretty reasonable to have only kids in the bridal party there. A bride will obviously want the kids she's close with to be part of her bridal party, there's nothing weird or rude about that. You shouldn't have to have a whole reem of kids in your bridal party if you don't want to.

However It's a shame your BIL didn't fight to have his nieces/nephews there. How many are there altogether? He's being a right coward blaming his wife. He's their uncle, if he wanted them there they would be. He sounds a bit of an arse tbh. I wouldn't blame the bride though, isn't for her to get in the middle of his family stuff

Not having kids at a wedding makes complete sense. I'd say the flower girls will be shipped off home or to a babysitter soon enough.

It doesn't sound like your DH and his brother are particularly close. If they were, and if your children had a close bond with their uncle, then I would understand why you would all be hurt by this. But in that case, it doesn't make sense that BIL would not insist that his nieces and nephews were invited.

If they're not overly close and BIL is not overly involved with your kids, then I don't understand why everyone is so put out that they're excluded? It's fairly typical for weddings to be child-free with the exception of children in the wedding party and there's no reason why the bride should feel unable to include children she is very close with just to appease BIL's family when he doesn't have those kind of relationships on his side.

We had a similar-ish situation with cousins at our wedding. I'm very close with mine (socialise most months) so we invited them. DH has cousins that he rarely sees (hadn't seen them during our entire 7 year relationship) so we didn't invite them. Got a whole heap of abuse because we were apparently unfair, but we preferred to invite people on the basis of our actual relationships with them rather than titles.

You're not getting flamed for mentioning feeling sick, you're getting flamed for overreacting.

hopefully it all went ok

It’s odd not having children at weddings.