A ‘children at wedding’ one….

[TemporaryName123]

First off, 100% accept that wedding is about bride and groom, not my family and I (before I get flamed lol!). My conundrum is as follows:

• 2 kids (4 and 8)
• Cousins wedding
• save the date was almost a year ago, wedding now in 8 weeks
• 5 hour drive away, hotel booked. Total cost of attendance will be around £1300 (petrol, outfits, gift, hotel etc).
• this evening cousin messaged to say official invites in the post. Fab!! However in the same message, said that our kids welcome to the ceremony and reception but from dinner (5ish) onwards it’s adults only…

We were all so lookIng forward to it, especially as we only see my extended family once every few years. But don’t feel comfortable travelling all that way to have our kids only enjoy half the wedding day. Plus our whole family at the wedding so we would need to get a babysitter or someone they aren’t familiar with to mind them in the hotel. Which seems rubbish for them to have to leave the fun (very social kids!!!!) and sit up in hotel room.

So as not to drip feed, my dad lives close by (parents seperated so he won’t be at wedding) but my girls see him at best twice a year for a couple of hours and while I know he’d offer to have them, we wouldn’t be comfortable with this as he doesn’t interact well with them and they don’t know him enough to be solo with him for 5 hours or so. So this is not an option really for us.

We have said all along we would go, my AIBU is:

Would we be BU to politely say we can no longer make it (and please, any short and sweet suggestions of how to reply much appreciated!)?

YABU: suck it up and go to the wedding and find a babysitter
YANBU: the goalposts have changed and it’s fair that you change your mind and RSVP no

My god it’s not rocket science .. your partner just looks after the kids after 5pm
and takes them back to the hotel. At that age they will be starting to get tired and bored anyway.

Cousins kids and friends kids are never a given at weddings. Few people are very close to their cousins kids.
Neices and Nephews are different.

People seem to think B&Gs are up themselves not wanting kids, the majority of the time it becomes a pure numbers game, either capacity at the venue or cost.
You need to draw a line somewhere - friends with 4 kids ? cousins step kids? Friends 19 year old son, technically an adult do they need a plus 1?

Sometimes it just becomes much easier to say 'no kids' we were amongst the last of our friends to get married in a venue with a capacity of 100 we could easily have had 36 children from aged 20 to 3 month old! Which adults are making way for the kids?

Absolutely this. It's one thing saying it's ultimately the B&G's choice, but these days so many people seem to interpret that as being exempt from all relational fall-out and not giving any consideration at all to their so-called loved ones.

This may shock you, but it's not about the kids! It's not about what they can or can't see. Children aren't allowed in pubs (after a certain time, in some cases) or clubs because those are venues where adults drink and have a good time. Similar to a wedding reception

Well if all the preceding weddings have included cousins kids then for this family they are expected to be invited, and not inviting them is deviating from the norm. Obviously that’s not the case for many families. Hope that helps.

I have zero problem with a child free wedding.

BUT

Surely they can see that if the entire family is there, there's no one to actually mind your kids?

I did do child free, but it was friends that had children and they all willingly left their kids with their parents and enjoyed a great child free time. Also gave them 18 months of the fact so it wasn't a suprise with 6 wks to go.

I'd just bow out.

It's one thing saying it's ultimately the B&G's choice, but these days so many people seem to interpret that as being exempt from all relational fall-out and not giving any consideration at all to their so-called loved ones

To be fair, cousins children are at quite a few degrees of separation from the B&G usually and could run into quite high numbers. I don't think this should be an expectation unless they have a particularly close relationship.

Well if all the preceding weddings have included cousins kids then for this family they are expected to be invited

My family's weddings have all been wildly different and people would be wise not to 'expect' anything, rather check and clarify.

It IS bizarre but to be (slightly) fair to the b&g it seems like the vast majority of guests are local so perhaps have family members (on the other side) that can pick up etc. not the case for OP except for her df which has been discounted. Although the save the date was not explicit it should have been made clearer at an earlier stage re the children

also to be (slightly) fair to the b&g I’m totally guilty of not really understanding what it’s like to have kids before having kids. They might think it’s fine the send them the the room and have the 8yo in charge! Obv it’s not.

I think not going is the best thing to do unless someone comes up with some unforeseen solution.

OP i’m astonished you were going to spend £700 on a hotel though. Presumably this is where the wedding takes places. Is there no premier inn?

What's self-absorbed about having a budget and limits to the number of people you can have in a venue? It's not always about not wanting them there, is it? Sometimes it isn't practical. If you are really honest, are you going to knock a couple of your close adult friends off the guest list to ensure every single child of family members can attend, even if you barely see them? You can't pick and choose which relatives get to bring their kids without a row, so you say, 'no kids'.
Are the family all chipping in and paying for this wedding? If not, then no, I don't think it is in the least bit self absorbed to expect to be able to choose the guests one has at an event one is paying for and has numbers to consider. It tends to be children who get excluded because the B & G don't know (for example) the 4 year old child of the cousin, but spent a lot of their own childhood with said cousin, so it's important the cousin comes, but they simply can't afford the relative stranger that is the cousin's child.

People are acting as though children being welcome until 5pm means that if you attend your children also MUST attend until 5pm. My guess would be either that it's a church wedding so they can't turn away kids from the church and know that some people are planning to bring theirs, or for some of their local/key guests this works well as a solution to childcare issues, and rather than have a situation where some people are told children can't attend and then be put out by the presence of some children, they've made a blanket invitation to the bits they can accommodate children at.

You can still just leave your children at home with a suitable carer whilst you attend, as you would if they hadn't been invited at all.

Please spend a fortune to come to our wedding (that we’re going to make attending as difficult as possible)!
Don’t forget our gift 💝
Kiss Kiss!

I’d still go if you only go home once every few years. I’d go to the wedding and drinks bit wish everyone well and then leave. That gives you an evening with your family to do something else than a full day on the 3rd day so you can have a little break.

Money side of things I’d also only give a £30 voucher to bride and groom as you aren’t even having a meal so that frees up £170 to cover your evening meal and the day out on the third day. I’d also not bother with new outfits as only there for a couple of hours so that would save £200

So would drop the price down to £800 for hotel and fuel, £30 for gift so £830 which is more affordable and in line with a weekend away. Also if the hotel is £700 for three nights I might check if theres a self catering cottage option instead for the same price so I’d not have to eat out and would feel like a proper holiday with my family and then the wedding is just a couple of hour sideline on one of the days.

@notlucreziaborgia I tell you what I'm definitely not craving - an invite to @NoCloudsAllowed 's farty-church-hall-ham-sandwich-and-packet-of-crisps wedding do. Do you think there will be jam tart and squash for afters, followed by a dance around the may pole? Whoopee! COME ONE - COME ALL.

You are right, it is not about the kids and I never said it was. Adults drinking to such an excess at a wedding reception to the point that they don’t want kids to see or be around isn’t exactly something to be proud of. A wedding and a nightclub are two very different things.

One thought, would having your dad sat in the hotel room with them (assuming it’s the same place as the wedding) be unthinkable? As you’d all be in the same building. Order in room service etc. not ideal I know.

We don't know the norm for the brides side, you cant invite one lot of cousins kids and not invite the other.
It could also be a couple of years from the last wedding - the number of cousin's kids may have grown!

It's easy if your the first in the family and first of your friends to marry when there's only a handful of kids who potentially need invited, yes include them.
Once you get much more than that it just becomes wild.

Oh yes, I think it’s fine for B and G to exclude children from wedding, although odd to have them at service but not the meal. Usually the dividing line is between the wedding reception and the evening reception.

This B and G appear to be using semantics to get around that by saying the reception is a glass of wine whilst the photographer finishes up, but not the sit down meal.

Anyway, B and G should have the wedding they want, but it’s poor form to tell people this late that it’s child free, and also, B and G need to be gracious about any declining RSVPs that result from their decision.

assuming the other parent is dead?

Right. Because there couldn't possibly be any reason that the children can't be left with the other parent except for them being dead? 🙄 You're not being goady at all of course, you are genuinely, innocently oblivious to the fact that some parents are abusive and not allowed contact with their children, that others don't want any contact or vanish entirely, or would refuse to have them stay overnight, or live in a different country. Ok then.

Helps what? @Outthedoor24 made some excellent points. None of which you addressed.
Also the kids have been invited to the wedding itself and can stay until 5pm.

OP -
Make the decision you would have made if you'd been told this from the outset.
If you would never have gone given this information, then don't go.
It's not your fault that they have told you this at the last minute - it's terrible planning on their part.
I imagine there will also be other people struggling with the short notice.

.

8 weeks is nowhere near enough notice. You were not unreasonable to assume kids would be invited to the whole thing given the previous context and messages etc. Also, the kids are leaving before dinner so whoever babysits them would have to give them their tea, which will make things a lot more complicated if they're in a hotel with a complete stranger or your dad who isn't great with kids. It's not like you can just get them straight into their jammies and tuck them up in bed while the babysitter watches telly.

As for the suggestion your husband minds the kids, that's a hell of a lot of effort, time and money to spend going to a wedding that he'll only enjoy half of (and, let's face it, the boring half). Assuming he'll be doing half the driving too.

"Thanks for the invite, I'm really sorry but given that children aren't invited after 5pm, it's going to be too tricky for us to sort out childcare for them in the evening, what with all the logistics and expense of travelling so far away from home and staying in a hotel."

Depending on how much you want to push it, you could add:

"It's such a shame we didn't know earlier, as we might have been able to sort something else out, but with 8 weeks' notice it's a bit too tight.

All the very best wishes for your big day, I hope everything goes smoothly and you have a wonderful day, lots of love, xxx"

You did, and are still making it about the kids! I think you misunderstand me - I'm saying not inviting children to a reception is nothing to do with their best interests, or what they can and can't see. They're just not invited, not welcome. Nothing to do with drinking to excess. Obviously pubs and clubs are different, but they are examples of environments where children aren't welcome.