Childcare fallen through so can’t make DB’s child free wedding

[LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet]

My brother lives 350 miles away and is getting married tomorrow. Children aren’t invited - it’s been a nightmare trying to organise childcare for 3 full days (have to stay at least 2 nights because of distance) for my 2 kids in the summer holidays but we roped in BIL and SIL who thankfully had the days free and veryl kindly agreed to have them.

BIL found out yesterday that he has COVID! So we not can’t send them. He’s quite unwell with it as well apparently.

I told my brother today that we can’t come as we just cannot find anyone else at short notice to look after the kids for 2 nights. It’s a big ask of anyone!

He’s really pissed off with me and has asked if I can send them anyway as isolation rules etc are essentially redundant now. I’ve said no I’m it asking them to do that. Especially because we go on holiday next week and don’t want the kids taking COVID to Turkey with them. Was IBU to say no? I think if you ask people to make a 700 mile round trip for their wedding without their kids being invited you risk things falling through and this happening

This thread is insane. Which people on this thread are actual parents and would dump their asthmatic kids in a house with covid? Would expect someone to just leave their cev husband who is sick (actually sick not asymptomatic) with covid to look after her kids? Would leave their kids with a complete stranger with no childcare qualifications? Sil-to-be had a massive falling out with her sibling re having a child free wedding, op tried, now the op has had her plans fall through and that’s what happens with children, brother will just have to suck it up. If he really wanted her there he’d have invited the dc. That would be my line - come off it db if you really wanted me there no matter what you’d have invited my children. You didn’t, I tried, didn’t work. I wasn’t going to crawl there on an injured leg. Ask your wife’s sister if I’m being unreasonable, or are you all still not talking?

Even half price the fares aren't cheap, the journey takes hours, takes her nowhere near the venue and there's a train strike! But yay, she can fork out £160 to maybe get somewhere within the same country!

It’s been a quick thread and I’ve read every reply. A quick thread means that you don’t always read replies as soon as they’re posted. Meaning you read them quite some time after they’re posted. HTH. And again, not that I need to explain myself, but other players have clarified that it says £320 at the top but to find the £160 tickets you have to scroll down

Players? Posters!

This has probably already been answered but there's a train strike on Saturday involving Network rail so all areas will be affected.

I would send one quick message @LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet to both your mother and your groom-brother, saying that you've tried everything under the sun to get to share in the wedding but unfortunately it just isn't to be. You would love to be there but circumstances have changed for you so significantly that you just will not be able to make it. You're sorry if they feel hurt by this and the short notice but the situation is entirely out of your hands now. You'll be thinking of them when they are sitting down to their lovely meal etc. etc. etc. Hope they have a wonderful day yadda yadda yadda.

Then I would turn my phone OFF.

Disengage.

Drop the rope.

Don't get on the train.

Don't pass go.

Don't collect £200

Open a bottle of wine and put your feet up and relax.

If all hell breaks lose after this, then so be it but you have your other brother to go to if that is the case.

Reasoning skills are piss poor too. 😂

Haven’t read the whole thread but have read all op’s posts. Yadnu, it’s the risk of a child free wedding.
have had one thought though, (might not be original) could you all drive up and stay at db house 40 miles from venue, dh and dc stay there while you’re at wedding, have a bit of an adventure without the cost of hotel etc. I would try and make a db wedding if at all possible. Might be too late for that now though.

if you can’t make it, shit happens and people will have to deal with it. Absolutely not your fault.

Couldn't agree more! 👍👍

If "D" B wants his Dsis there so much then he would find a way to add HIS nieces/nephews to the party. Far easier than OP trying to find 3 days childcare with less than 24 hours notice. 🙄

Oh and 2 nights at hotel - essential! We went to our nephew's wedding in the middle of nowhere - mid Cotswolds - which was only 3 hours drive and we looked at every way possible to do it in 1 night. (We are tight and hotel mega pricey 🤣) No chance unless we wanted to arrive at very luxurious venue a crumpled mess or left expensive celebration very early sipping diet coke all day. 🤔

I feel your pain OP!

Does your DB have multiple MN accounts by any chance? 😉

Yes, I think he has judging from some of the batshit and totally unreasonable replies on this thread.

I’m gonna send a grovelling apology to both DB and the bride. Hopefully they will understand but the ONLY viable option - coming with DH and attending wedding alone - is just not what I wanna do, it’s not fair on DH or the kids and it means re-booking the hotel at a huge cost as well.

I strongly suspect that DB will see this as me ‘siding’ with other brother in some way (no it doesn’t make sense but my family is weird and I can’t explain the dynamics). But hey ho. Hopefully they can live stream it!!

@Namenic why should OP spend hundreds of pounds and several hours each way to travel up for the ceremony to show she made an effort? Same with sending her DP. Fuel prices are sky high, fuel bills are mental, everything else is going up. Not everyone has the spare money to do that.

The inconvenience is her DBs fault as he chose a child free wedding in a location very far from OP. He has every right to choose what he wants but he also can't get mad when those choices mean OP can't attend.

@FatBettyintheCoop

Jeez, there's no reason the brother can't have a child free wedding, it's extremely common. Besides kids get bored at weddings, I've the video footage to prove it! My sister had a child free wedding, I didn'. It's personal choice and guess what we didn't get a bee in our bonnets about it. We actually liked each other enough to show up and if my childcare had fallen through I'd have left kids with hubby and gone on my own. It's abundantly clear the OP doesn't want to go.

And again, not that I need to explain myself, but other players have clarified that it says £320 at the top but to find the £160 tickets you have to scroll down

😄 I think "I didn't scroll all the way down the ticket booking website" is also in the "dog ate my homework" league, as is "I started a thread on MN instead of researching trains myself." But I hope you've had fun with the other players lol.

I recently missed my brother's wedding. He got married in Italy and it wasn't a child free wedding in fact my children were invited and we're going to be asked to be ring bearers. However I am pregnant with my third and was anxious about flying (I would have been 6 months pregnant at the time) andy brother and his wife were not only extremely understanding and kind about it they booked a trip to come and see US in Spain within another of their wedding where we live so they could see us and our children as newlyweds.
They will be here on Saturday ☺️

They wouldn't have dreamed of acting like this, the whole ask someone with covid to mind your asthmatic kids so you can go to their child free wedding is ridiculous. Groomzilla!

Hilarious. Excuse me while I mop up all the piss that’s been released from the amusement of your posts.

Child free second wedding? Already fallen out with her sister over the ban? Holding grudges against other brother? Oh let them crack on OP. Let him sulk. Yadnbu

If it was me I just wouldn't go. He sounds like a rubbish uncle anyway that he doesn't want his own neices/nephews at his wedding. How ridiculous people saying your SIL should still have the children. Put your own family first - he is being unreasonable!

*within a month that should have read!

To be fair to the OP, that website is very misleading and seems deliberately set up to ensure that you select two single tickets when you go onto it, rather than making it obvious that you can pick a return ticket for the price of a single.

This. DH family is about 180 miles away. I don't think we've ever managed it in the 3hrs 40 Google claims it will take. I think the longest it's taken us is 7hrs.

No, as the OP has just said (and demonstrated fulsomely throughout this thread) she just doesn't wanna go. The end.

I thought that - if you look on the app it’s obvious but a search from a desktop makes it hard to see you can buy an off-peak return.

Hopefully @DarkDayforMN won’t give me a detention though for my faux pas

Hopefully @DarkDayforMN won’t give me a detention though for my faux pas

no, I'm sure missing your brother's wedding is punishment enough! I'd say you're gutted.

So the OP is expected to move heaven and earth to come, but the brother can't be expected to just bend the rules slightly to squeeze his niece and nephew in.... if he wanted her there that badly then he'd do it. He obviously doesn't care that much.

Which is absolutely fine, but he is BVU to give OP a hard time about it.