DD left wedding early cos of work - should family of kept out of it

[Safarigiraffe]

Hi went to family wedding last night & stayed overnight in hotel. DD couldn’t stay overnight as she was working today however she did come to wedding but here’s the AIBU or not - wedding was running later than expected & DD had to leave by a certain time to be back home as she was up 630 today for work. When DD went to leave everyone on our immediate table (MIL, BIL mainly) made a huge scene about why DD was leaving early as food hadn’t yet arrived (Starters she had but as main food was running a hour late she couldn’t wait for that) & as my husband went to walk DD to car park MIL ran after them both expressing herself over why DD was leaving early (she knew she had to leave early for work)
So AIBU to think that maybe no one should have got involved causing a scene or was DD being unreasonable for having to leave without eating main food when it was already running a hour late and she had to leave to get back home (journey home was hour and a half so she didn’t get in until 8/815)

She presumably accepted on the basis of the timings given on the invitation - the meal was running an hour late. From her point of view, there'd have been no guarantee it wouldn't get even later. There'd then be the time taken to eat the meal, so even if it did arrive on the hour, it's not just an hour's delay; and she had an hour and a half's drive home.

I think she should have stayed and left straight after the meal. she also should have warned them in advance that she would have to leave early.

I think your DD was extremely rude to disappear during the meal. It's not like she had to be up at 4am.

6.30am is a normal wake-up time when you have to go to work - you really don't need to be home and getting ready for bed at 8pm.

I'd have expected her to stay until 10pm really - with a half hour drive she'd have been in bed by 11 and getting 7.5 hours sleep - hardly a late night.

Sorry - I misread the journey time but she could still have stayed until 9-9.30pm. No need to disappear off at 7pm halfway through a meal.

Did you miss the bit about the day's schedule running behind?

Does your daughter never go out on a work night? 8pm is ridiculously early to be home when someone has forked out for a meal for her. 6.30 am is a normal start to a working day.

I think unless your DD’s work day was something out of the ordinary for her, ie a first day at a new job or an interview for a promotion or a day involving a lot of travel then she was being very rude by leaving so early. You haven’t said OP whether she was was relying on public transport or a pre-booked taxi to get home, in which case I can kind of understand why she had to be so strict in her timings, but in the event she was driving herself home I don’t see how she or you thought I was ok to leave part-way through the meal.

MIL was definitely rude too though, although I’d be staggered if the bride and groom weren’t similarly perplexed and just too polite to say anything.

I think your daughter was pretty rude. I got up well before 6:30am for thirty years and have never needed to be in bed by 8pm. I also might have used annual leave.

I think leaving early is fair enough when you have work the next day but it sounds like your daughter left very early. Surely getting home at 11 would have been ok and she could have stayed another 2-3 hours. The bride and groom probably paid a lot of money for her to be there for the meal and might have invited someone else instead if she couldn’t make it.

Massively unreasonable and rude to leave that early imo.

Wedding breakfasts can cost £45-£150 per head.

It's not just about the money though, for most people every family member you're. It close to but feel should be invited means you have to drop someone you'd love to be there. Trying to whittle down our friends to accommodate rellies we barely saw or didn't know so well but whose presence would be important for the older generations.

If you can't be bothered to get through the meal then you shouldn't go full stop. Guest lists are tight. Tbh if it was a last train situation and you knew you'd have to leave by 6.30 I'd still say ask if you can do a ceremony only invitation or would it better to decline altogether.

Agree with PP about the entitlement of people these days.

Did you miss the bit about the day's schedule running behind?

But it's not like she wasn't sitting down to eat until 10pm - she left before 7pm! Even if the meal had been running bang on schedule that's leaving things very tight if she was insistent on leaving so early.

To be honest this excuse is poor, unless some hidden medical condition a young women should be able to cope being up from 6:30 and doesn’t not need that long to get ready for work. Does she never go out on a work night? I can see why the family were annoyed, clearly seems to indicate she was just bored and didn’t want to be there and would prefer a couple of hours watching tv at home instead.

Workdays I’m always up by 6 , absolutely no need to be home by 8pm the night before or I’d never go anywhere .

I understand the meal was running late , but the food is priced per guest so I can understand family members thinking it rude to walk out mid way through a meal and leave very early evening.

If your daughter didn’t want to be there she should have declined the invitation not made a half arsed excuse mid way through dinner .

I think it’s rude to leave and not eat the main course. Someone will have paid for that and it will have been chucked in the bin. Same for desert, same for coffee, glass of fizz for the toast, same for buffet later if there was one. Roughly speaking a wedding could easily be £100 per head when you add up food / booze / canapés etc.

Getting home at 8.30pm is not overly late and it was a special occasion. And getting up at 6.30am is not particularly early. I can understand why people were annoyed. What’s one hour of your life? Worst case scenario she’d have been a bit tired at work.

What I can’t understand is why you didn’t say anything to your DD about how rude she was being, OP.

You write about this as if 8/8.15 is a late night and 6.30am is astoundingly early to get up.

Presumably your DD was driving (since her dad walked her to the car park).

Maybe he walked her out to tell her that she was being rude and selfish. Did MIL just happen to go with them so she could tell her adult granddaughter how disappointed she was, rather that running after them screaming and throwing a tantrum as you’ve implied?

One person left a wedding early because the full day was running behind and they needed to get home as they were up early the next day. It’s hardly the crime of the century.

Why was she so early? 8pm is not late. She was rude to leave mid meal

It's doesn't matter if the day was running an hour late.

She was planning to eat and leave, gone by 6.30 that's before the dancing has begun. Nobody leaves a wedding that early even someone with young kids wouldn't leave thar early.

If she genuinely when home to bed she needs to see a Doctor because she has some sort of illness - or she had someone or some thing (or rampant rabbit) in bed with her.

Maybe her grandmother has noticed a pattern of selfish and entitled behaviour in her granddaughter and was really unimpressed that she just buggered off at 6.30 in the middle of a family wedding because she fancied a couple
of hours on the sofa before bed.

Well I’m mid 50s and I’d head to bed about 10.30/11 if I had to get up at 6.30. And if I was out socially I’d make that midnight.

Presumably your DD is young? Why does she need so much sleep? Does she ever go out on a work night?

It does seem rude … she could have had the rest of her dinner then slipped away.

i can see why you want to just focus on your MiL but there are a lot of people who think there is also an issue at your daughter's rudeness. And she was rude. Very rude. And the couple of course would have seemed okay about it because they wouldn't have wanted to spoil their own wedding by getting upset. But I would have been really irritated and I imagine they were too.

Which young person without any medical issues needs to get home by 8pm for a 6.30am start? I imagine this isn't the first time you've been entitled as these things aren't usually one offs. YABVU. But you are determined not to be so nothing I say will change your opinion, which is another reason why MiL got irritated.

BTW on MN MiLs are always the devil which is why I imagine as many people supported you as they did.

The hazard of weddings being followed by a working day is that some guests will have to prioitise their work the next morning. It is quite an early time to leave, but some people do need time to decompress after a long sociable day and travel. If the DD is quite young and new to work and long distance travel it may need a bit more time to adjust around those demands.

Finishing the mains would have been better, but as the evening goes on and wine gets flowing, it gets harder to make an early, sober visit.

Leaving at that point wasn't ideal, but there was no need for a bunch of extended family to get involved and make a bigger event out of the departure. It's quite an extended family relationship, so presumably not a small wedding where every guest is critical and lots of compromises made.

The main point of a wedding is to celebrate the marriage. The DD was there for the key part of the wedding ceremony and a substantial part of the celebration.

Some wedding receptions are poorly executed and drag on. The worst one I went to was a 12pm ceremony with food not served until 8pm and 5 hours of standing in a cold bar with limited seating or refreshments provided. Pretty extreme example, but when delays get mounting, it can become difficult to plan and cut off at an appropriate point to make an early exit.

If she couldn't be bothered to stay to eat she shouldn't have accepted the invitation.

Was it BIL’s child that was getting married?

Did your DD inform the couple she planned to leave very early (6.30 would have been early and still during the meal
even if it had started on time)? Or did she tell them in the middle of their wedding that she had more important things to do and would be buggering off?

Does anyone remember going straight to work after a night out …. those were the days 🤣. Couldn’t do it now 😳