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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Brother’s wedding help!

576 replies

WeddingDilemma2 · 15/05/2023 01:31

First time poster- sorry if this is long but didn’t want to drip feed!

My brother is getting married this summer. The wedding reception will be outside at my parents house (lawn/marquee). DB and SIL want the wedding to be child free and feel strongly about this.

My issue is that we will have a 5 month old and a toddler at the time of the wedding. I would usually be up for a child free wedding and OK with leaving the toddler, but the baby is mostly breastfed and I don’t feel comfortable leaving her for a long period in any case. This is particularly the case as my parents (who would be first choice to care for the DC) will obviously be at the wedding themselves, plus it is a long day (12 plus hours taking into account travel time to our house).

We had thought it would be OK to have the DC stay inside my parents house (so not actually at the wedding reception itself) with a babysitter taking care of them, so we could pop in and out for breastfeeds etc. However I’ve realised my toddler could get quite upset in this scenario as he will be able to see the party going on outside with us and all extended family there.

I asked DB/SIL if the toddler could possibly attend a couple of hours of the afternoon reception (not the ceremony or speeches/dinner/dancing), but they do not want the DC to attend at all. We suggested that perhaps me or DH could instead leave the reception for a couple of hours to take the toddler off somewhere so they are not left upset in the house. However I think DB/SIL are not particularly happy with this either.

Reading between the lines I think DB/SIL are not happy we are planning on our DC will be on site at all (albeit not actually at the reception) as we will inevitably end up a bit in and out of the day. If it wasn’t DB I don’t think we would have said yes to the wedding in these circumstances, but even suggesting that we don’t attend at all would go down very badly I think.

AIBU to expect DB/SIL to be ok with us having the DC cared for in the house and possibly us leaving the reception for a couple of hours in these circumstances? Any practical solutions/ideas of how to approach the issue would be welcome as we generally get on well with DB/SIL and would not like a falling out over this.

OP posts:
SunnySaturdayMorning · 15/05/2023 09:12

Robinni · 15/05/2023 08:41

We had a month old baby at a family wedding…. the father of bride spent almost his entire speech talking about the baby…. Wasn’t a good look.

Rest of time was fine though, they got the baby offside pretty sharpish after meal and everyone alternated to look after it. Bottle fed baby which made it easier.

Show quote history

I would question the maternal/paternal instincts of a parent who let their baby be passed around like a football.

ClairDeLaLune · 15/05/2023 09:14

YANBU. Child-free weddings are miserable. Who puts perfection before family? Do they expect you to leave your kids with total strangers and you to sit there with your boobs leaking all over the place? I wouldn’t go in your position.

SW2002 · 15/05/2023 09:14

YABU

They have asked for a child free wedding and that is their right. Either arrange childcare (can you express some milk and leave it with you DH's parents if they do baby care?) and go to the wedding, or don't go.

It's nothing to get funny about , respect their wishes or just don't attend.
By the same token, if you choose not to go they have no right to get funny with you. You have a baby that you didn't feel able to leave and that's that. When you have a baby there are things you can't do, and perhaps in this case that involves not attending a child free wedding if you can't / won't arrange childcare.

I'm not seeing the problem.

Climbles · 15/05/2023 09:15

If they don’t want children on site then grant their wishes and don’t go. Instead attend the ceremony and plan a day out with your children after.

MargotBamborough · 15/05/2023 09:15

SunnySaturdayMorning · 15/05/2023 09:12

I would question the maternal/paternal instincts of a parent who let their baby be passed around like a football.

Show quote history

Good lord, why are you derailing the OP's thread by making judgemental comments about anyone who doesn't do things exactly the way you would do them?

If you're like this in real life then I'd be amazed if you get invited to many weddings.

CremeEggQueen · 15/05/2023 09:16

EllandRd · 15/05/2023 02:26

Respect your brothers wishes, it's his wedding, he should not have to worry about childcare's issues when it's been made very clear it's a child free wedding.

This. You know it's a child free wedding, either go or don't go.

Bluebells1970 · 15/05/2023 09:16

Bloody hell, you get some funny family stories on here but this has to be one of the worst I've read OP. Fair enough at a venue, but this is your parents' home.

I'd only assume that your "D" B doesn't actually like you very much, after this.

Rosebel · 15/05/2023 09:17

I don't see why your in laws can't babysit your toddler or a friend. Then have a babysitter come with you and look after the baby and you go in and breastfeed when needed. Your DB and SIL will be busy and probably not notice you nipping in and out, especially after photos of the family are done.
Or just don't go. They obviously aren't that bothered as they're making it hard for you to attend

pizzaHeart · 15/05/2023 09:18

To be honest what your brother was thinking when he decided to have child free wedding knowing that his sister has 2 kids ? Did he think you can make them disappear for a day? And where on Earth your parents were in this? I know people become too selfish around weddings that’s why parents exist to advise gently about practicalities of life to their inexperienced grown up children.

MargotBamborough · 15/05/2023 09:18

Rosebel · 15/05/2023 09:17

I don't see why your in laws can't babysit your toddler or a friend. Then have a babysitter come with you and look after the baby and you go in and breastfeed when needed. Your DB and SIL will be busy and probably not notice you nipping in and out, especially after photos of the family are done.
Or just don't go. They obviously aren't that bothered as they're making it hard for you to attend

The OP hasn't said anything about her in laws. They could be dead, or living in Australia, for all we know.

Robinni · 15/05/2023 09:20

SunnySaturdayMorning · 15/05/2023 09:11

They were still choices that you made.

Smug? No. Judgemental? Everyone’s judgemental about something.

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@SunnySaturdayMorning mate I did not have a choice. Aside from the fertility issue, I was going to end up with a colostomy and permanent bladder damage if I didn’t have a baby! Leave off.

I made the best of a horrific situation.

You were and continue to be incredibly blessed and privileged to be able to poo poo bottles and talk down anyone who had to/chooses to use them.

OP shouldn’t be shamed if she chooses to try and express to attend her sibling’s wedding. It’s an important family event and expressing is a perfectly viable option open to her if she wishes.

SleepingStandingUp · 15/05/2023 09:20

DH stays home with the toddler, surely that's kinder than locking them in the house where they can hear a big party going on.

Babysitter at your parents for the baby and you come in to feed them?

rainyskylight · 15/05/2023 09:23

@Robinni ignore SunnySaturday. She clearly got out of the wrong side of her snarky bed this morning. You don’t need to explain yourself xxx

MargotBamborough · 15/05/2023 09:24

pizzaHeart · 15/05/2023 09:18

To be honest what your brother was thinking when he decided to have child free wedding knowing that his sister has 2 kids ? Did he think you can make them disappear for a day? And where on Earth your parents were in this? I know people become too selfish around weddings that’s why parents exist to advise gently about practicalities of life to their inexperienced grown up children.

This.

I think that if someone so close to you that it would be a problem if they didn't come to your wedding has very young children, it's selfish to put them in this position by insisting on having a strictly child free wedding.

"I'm happy for you to spend hundreds of pounds on a babysitter/for your children to be upset about being left all day/for you to be hours away from your toddler in an emergency/for your first time away from your baby to be 12 hours long/for you to have to pump in the toilets every 3 hours to avoid mastitis so I can have what I want, which is a child free wedding. But if you don't come I will have a strop because how dare you put your children before ME ME MEEEEE?"

This really isn't what weddings are supposed to be about.

MollyRover · 15/05/2023 09:26

@Robinni fair enough at expressing milk to pop out to the hairdresser or whatever but this isn't the same situation. The OPs DPs are quite some distance evidently so it would be at least 24 hours. My Dc was feeding 7/8 times in that time period at 5 months. Did you say you were giving yours bottles of cows milk at that stage? Unless the milk is cooked in food it's not advisable to do that before 1 year. And a 5 month old is not weaning at 5 months. Again, up until a year "food is fun".

OP, try and get toddler sorted and then ask DB and SIL what they expect you to do otherwise. Do not tie yourself in knots about leaving your baby, it's very bad form that they won't make an exception. Reasonable people do for family.

burnoutbabe · 15/05/2023 09:27

I thibk it will be even more awkward if you attend ceremony then collect family from inside house and "try and sneak out"

As I imagine grandparents would want to say goodbye and then other guests come over to say hello to kids and then ask why you are going and it's just very uncomfortable.

So I can see why couples don't want that option. (Even if overall I think they are being dick ish)

Do your parents think this is all fine? It's their house.

CremeEggQueen · 15/05/2023 09:27

SleepingStandingUp · 15/05/2023 09:20

DH stays home with the toddler, surely that's kinder than locking them in the house where they can hear a big party going on.

Babysitter at your parents for the baby and you come in to feed them?

How realistic is it that baby would stay in the house though once there?!
Realistically you'd get loads of cooing guests passing them around/wandering outside "oh, they're here now, need a bit of fresh air...." etc
It's a child free wedding.
Which means child free.

JemimaTiggywinkles · 15/05/2023 09:29

Go to the ceremony and leave the children with DH at your parents house while you do. Then go home or for a family day out after the ceremony. If DBro doesn't like it, he can lump it.

If you want your sister to attend your whole wedding day you don't refuse her 5 month old, exclusively breastfed baby.

Fairydustandsparklylights · 15/05/2023 09:30

How about the children’s other grandparents? Let me guess… it’s your husbands parents so you don’t feel comfortable and couldn’t possibly leave the children with them so you will continue to make this wedding all about you and stamp your feet until your brother concedes and you get your own way?

SleepingStandingUp · 15/05/2023 09:31

DilemmaDelilah · 15/05/2023 08:02

I'm with @snitzelvoncrumb . In my opinion the best solution would be for the toddler to stay elsewhere with people it knows well, and for you to leave the baby with a sitter in the house. I had a very new baby at my sister's wedding and I was aware that there was a certain amount of attention being given to the baby that should have gone to the bride. It wasn't a child-free wedding, but there weren't very many children there.

Your sister didn't get enough attention at her wedding because your baby was there? Either she's a Princess who expects everyone to track her round the room constantly, or you're over imagining the extent to which people were excited about your baby. I mean I have no doubt they were excited, babies are great and I'd have loved a cuddle of you were my family. But I'd have enough capacity to watch the bride walk down the aisle, ooh over the dress, do the photos, toast, watch the first dance, congratulate the couple etc and cuddle your baby and tell you it's the cutest one I've seen yet.

MargotBamborough · 15/05/2023 09:33

Fairydustandsparklylights · 15/05/2023 09:30

How about the children’s other grandparents? Let me guess… it’s your husbands parents so you don’t feel comfortable and couldn’t possibly leave the children with them so you will continue to make this wedding all about you and stamp your feet until your brother concedes and you get your own way?

Why not say, "What about your child's other grandparents, OP? Are they in the picture, in good health and able and willing to take care of your toddler all day?" rather than massively projecting?

Not everyone is lucky enough to have two sets of grandparents who can/will babysit.

user1492757084 · 15/05/2023 09:33

Book a motel nearby and a baby sitter.
Book the sitter a couple of times before the wedding so that the children are not strangers to them.

One or both of you leave the wedding to attend to the children with the sitter at times that need your attention.
It is disappointing that the kids will not be welcome but that is the decision of the B and G.

Inkpotlover · 15/05/2023 09:33

Tandora · 15/05/2023 09:07

Jesus Christ, you think OP should spend months pumping her breasts with a machine, and forcing a potentially unwilling baby to take a bottle, disrupting their feeding/ comfort regime, just so her brother can have a child free party? WTH kind of world do we live in?

Totally valid choice to chose to express / bottle feed, but no woman should be expected to do this as some kind social norm/ standard. What rot.

Show quote history

^ This. That same poster also accused OP of catatrophising because she's looking for a solution that doesn't involve shoving her breasts in a pump and forcing her baby to take a bottle just to accommodate one day out of 365 and the whims of her brother and SIL-to-be. Nice.

OP also said in her post that bride and groom weren't happy by her suggestion that she and DH ducked out at stages to check on toddler and baby inside the house – so it doesn't sound like they'd be happy with her sloping off to pump anyway, which she'd have to do regularly because she'd be engorged.

Raingo · 15/05/2023 09:34

I would attend vows. Then go home.
I couldn’t express, even if baby took bottle of formula. I would have been in agony and leaking.

MargotBamborough · 15/05/2023 09:34

user1492757084 · 15/05/2023 09:33

Book a motel nearby and a baby sitter.
Book the sitter a couple of times before the wedding so that the children are not strangers to them.

One or both of you leave the wedding to attend to the children with the sitter at times that need your attention.
It is disappointing that the kids will not be welcome but that is the decision of the B and G.

JFC I can't believe that more than one person on this thread has made this ludicrous suggestion.

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