Child free wedding - newborn

[Cleo2628]

One of my best childhood friends is getting married next week, my baby will be 3 weeks old.
He is EBF but she has said no children, including him. I’m so sad to miss her wedding, I understand people not wanting children but AIBU to be a bit upset that that includes a 3 week old who is breastfed? I said DH would be on hand to take the baby out of the ceremony if he were to cry etc.
i understand it’s her wedding her choice etc but we’re very close friends and I’m just upset to miss her big day.

Someone up thread said that babes in arm count towards the venue capacity, so would be a health and safety issue.

That's fair enough.

I'll assume that the wedding was booked and the guest list sorted over 8 months ago - she wouldn't even be able to make an exception even if she wanted to.

Why all the angst? Bride doesn't want kids there and that is a perfectly reasonable decision. You feel unable to leave your baby, and so don't attend, another perfectly reasonable decision.

I can understand child-free weddings now in certain circumstances- like when you know actually your guests will be able to get babysitters for older children and will enjoy attending and be able to attend without children. Or your guests don't have children or they are grown up, so it's not an issue. I have been to and enjoyed them.

But so often (on MN, I've not come across it IRL) there seem to be couples who have given so little consideration to their guests or really don't seem to care whether their lack of childcare, - or the fact they have a newborn, will make it impossible for them to attend. Even when it's really close friends and family. And some also have the cheek to then get upset about the close friend or family member's non-attendance.

It's not unreasonable that you are upset to be missing the day, it is unreasonable to expect her to allow you to take the baby when she has decided to have no children. Even taking the baby out of it cries would cause some disruption.

It's your friends day and it's up to her who attends. It's sad you will miss it, but that's the choice she's made.

YANBU to feel sad that you can’t go to your friends wedding, but you would be unreasonable to say anything because at the end of the day it is her choice.

In your shoes I would be quite disappointed as I would expect a very close friend to make an exception for a small baby to attend to enable your attentions, especially seeing as you made plans for ensuring there was no disruption.

All the child free weddings I have known have had exceptions for very young babies and/or babies of very close friends/family. My brothers wedding was child free however he allowed me to bring my 3 month old when I pointed out that I wouldn’t be able to attend without him.

Maybe take it as a good out. I had my best friends wedding (was child free) when my baby was 4 months. My parents came and stayed at the hotel in the day, and I went out every few hours to breast feed in between bridesmaids duty. It was an absolute nightmare and I would
never do it again. Would have been much better to either not go or have been allowed to take the baby.

🤣🤣🤣
Usually people want to celebrate with people they love, but spoiler alert it actually is about the couple! I take it you know people often have very small weddings, and some even elope.

Feel sorry for you, I've never felt like this. I enjoy the speeches

Can you explain why you don't?
I love to dress up, eat some posh food, have a boogie (without having to worry about kids on the dance floor) and a piss up. Maybe even snog a hot bloke. This is the type of wedding I enjoy, not everything is appropriate for children.
A boring church wedding, maybe some sandwiches for lunch. Maybe that's more your kind of vibe?
Two very different events.

No worries. I've survived.

Well in fairness it's the choice OP has made too. I do think 4 weeks is very young, but if she really wanted to, she could work something out. But it's no big deal, go or don't go, it really doenst matter

I wouldn’t want any other than my own kids at my wedding either and I am a mum!

I have however been in this situation with a cousins wedding and I had a newborn. I simply stated that DP would be able to come but I would be with newborn as I’m unable to leave them for so long.

Bride actually sent me a really harsh message saying along the lines of ‘fine you can bring newborn but that now means we have to allow grooms cousin to bring their newborn too!’

I didn’t decline to change her decision as my priorities lay with my newborn. But anyway in the end, newborn barely made a peep all day.

The type of wedding I enjoy too.

Having children changes the vibe which is fine if you want that for your own wedding but not everyone enjoys that.

Congratulations on your baby. YANBU to be annoyed. We are off to a relatives wedding soon. My children aren't invited which is normal in our circle of family and friends but I'm assuming the nieces and nephews of the bride will be there who are same age as mine and if the bride had a friend there with a newborn it would never cross my mind to think "oh why weren't my children invited ". Newborns are completely different. Being honest I wouldn't personally have been pushed to get all dolled up so soon after having a baby anyway so fair play to you for wanting to .

Sad but you cant go unfortunately

When mine was 3 weeks, I barely left the house. Not sure i could have handled a wedding. Let alone fitted into a nice outfit

Three week olds mainly sleep all day but she obviously clueless about newborns and is being unfair but what can you do?

We had a "no children between 6m-12y" rule for the ceremony (and provided a professionally staffed creche). This fortuitously meant that there were no babies between 8 weeks and 8m old. Parents were invited to stay in the creche if they didn't trust the nannies, and could drop in and out through the cocktail hour if they chose.

Babies in the ceremony were given a spot at the back, with my BIL (father of one of the 4 week olds) was militantly ready to chuck them out.

Was the best £250 we spent at the wedding. Everyone could hear us do the vows and parents could relax a little whilst still having no childcare.

parents could relax a little whilst still having no childcare
It sounds like you organised everything very well at your wedding.

It is worth pointing out a common misconception though. For some parents, removing their child might relax them and be fine for the baby. For others that just doesn't work. DS was a clingy baby; could be virtually silent as much as needed when in our arms (especially if given a boob quite soon after he patted for it), OR yelled the place down with anyone who wasn't mum or dad. Tolerant of favourite grandparents, aunts, uncles and one friend for about half an hour max. Tolerant of anyone else for about 5 seconds max. Telling me there was a nanny keeping him outside would have meant I still couldn't attend. Not a problem for me, but just to point out separating babies isn't necessarily "relaxing".

DEAD CLASSY.

Why not just go out to dinner then on to a club?

Damned sight cheaper than a wedding, and there definitely won't be any dreadful babies or children there.

Can you not express so you have enough milk to leave the baby with your dh, family etc for the day? Or even just give it a cheeky bottle of formula? One day won't hurt. That way the baby is happy and you can enjoy the wedding.

Not at 3.5 weeks, no. HTFH.

Fair enough being disappointed to miss it

but YABVU to expect anyone to make changes/exceptions to their wedding when the day is not about you

Unfortunately occasionally missing out on things is part of being a parent

A breastfeeding mother should not offer a bottle from day 1. Her milk isn’t even established. So 3 weeks is still early days and really the absolute lower end of the timescale to introduce a bottle. I introduced dd at about 6 weeks to ensure she wouldn’t refuse a bottle later.

Making reasonable changes to your wedding for your best mate is part of being a good friend. She had at least several months notice that her mate was likely to have a newborn around the time she got married. It's not like OP went "Oh, I have a baby now" in the last week is it?

When we got married we had a few friends who had already had a child and knew there would likely be a couple more, with the age we were, by the time the wedding came round. As we really wanted all of those friends to come along it was never going to be a child-free wedding. Not that I had ever even heard of a child free wedding 20 years ago. All weddings had children there as far as I was concerned!

I get where you are coming from but not necessarily

I couldn’t breastfeed my son for the first 6 days of his life because I was in a different part of the hospital in isolation.. and we are still going strong on the breastfeeding at 22 months

I remember being desperate for my first child to sleep and literally being in tears about giving him a dummy in case it “ruined” breastfeeding.

I so think all this “you shouldn’t offer a bottle/dummy etc until xyz” makes people worry unnecessarily and add to mum guilt

just let people get on with whatever bottle/boob combo they like

Sit this one out & go to her next wedding. Weddings with no kids are boring anyways.