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

I'd either go and your dh take kids at 5pm and you stay.

Or I'd reply declining and state childcare issues.

If you are going to exclude family children from all or part of a wedding you really need to be clear as soon as possible. A few weeks beforehand is not really very fair, especially after folk will have made travel plans.

Of course bride and groom can invite who they like to what they like, but I'm a traditionalist - weddings are family events and children should be accommodated for in my eyes and you cut your cloth to fit. Sadly many couples want a glamorous high-end wedding that they can only afford with a very restricted guest list and paying for children start looking expensive in such circumstances.

Whose traditions?

I am 60 and kids were never invited to weddings in my childhood. My mother had six younger siblings & we never attended any of theirs, or those of cousins, etc.

All of my peers had childfree weddings, too, from the 1980s onward.

I agree. . Weddings are public events historically and when you had to marry in a church or registry office only, effectively anyone could come - part of why you had ushers to ensure family and guests got seats, and not filled up by curious randoms. Ok, parties and evening dos were private, but I never heard of kids being kicked out of that until social media came along.

Last few weddings I’ve been to I’ve been shocked frankly how very drunk adults got, including grooms. Is that what weddings have become? A very very expensive chance for photos in hugely expensive locations with hugely expensive themed decor all for instagram, followed by getting plastered? And is this why these folks don’t want kids around as they expect adult behaviours become loutish and obscene as the ending goes on?

marriage is all about creation of new family - even if kids won’t be a product of that. It is a family event. Dear god when did that change for this hedonism at the expense of your guests ? I’m not a prude, or someone who thinks drunk parties are an abomination, but there is a time for those and a time for a wedding, which is not one of same thing.

id be replying that if theirs is the sort of event they wouldn’t want children to witness or be present at, then it’s not the sort of event I will enjoy. It’s too hard to justify travelling that long distance just for church do. Thanks but after careful thoughts that can’t work for us, and we will have to decline . Have a good time.

Ugh, what a nightmare! And how presumptuous of them.

I would just RSVP no.

Get your money back for the wedding outfits, cancel the reservation, and put the money towards a nice break with the family.

You've been invited to a function. If you can't go, for whatever reason, you just decline the invitation. Same as you would any other invitation. You will not be the only person who declines. You don't need to go into a reason. If you start by saying you'd love to be there but can't due to the children not being welcome etc then you are fishing for a response, or you are trying to make a point to the bride.

The invitation has come out. There is usually an RSVP and that is when B&G get their final numbers from. Just RSVP "unable to attend", wish them well for the day, say you're looking forward to seeing the photos and leave it at that.

Fair play to you for letting it go. But it would probably have caused more issues and hard feelings to say anything. Least it was only one child.

I think kids too you for evening do (either enjoy it themselves or let you enjoy yourself!) can you share babysitter with other family members with kids or can they have them sleep over with their kids?

Im same age…never ever came across this amongst family or wide set of friends,
Didn’t start seeing it until rise of internet and then social media,

sure clearly in some circles it happened, but it wasn’t “common” and would have raised guest eyebrows in shock. Maybe happened more in weddings that had local guests only and no one travelled.

evening dos after wedding with separate guest list weren’t that common. You went to wedding in church or registry, went to hotel/local village hall for reception, ate a formal meal at some stupid hour of the afternoon, and bride and groom left for honeymoon some time late afternoon or early evening. Party wound up pretty much immedately. Mainly cos church or village halls needed to shut up shop. Evening parties were still pretty rare, unless you were pretty wealthy.

Sad? My family is extremely close, I adore my neice and nephews, we often spend holidays together and a very tight-knit. I just didn't want 20 under 5's at probably the one and only 'party' I will ever have that we spent £25k on, it would have been completely different and basically a kids party. It was such a fabulous day, the whole family loved it. Many comments even from the parents about hiw it was the best wedding they had ever been to. I think it's sad to judge so quickly!

I think the idea of one night to cut costs is tricky. My DC probably wouldn’t cope with 10h minimum in the car across 2 days with a stay in a new place in the middle. It’s a 5h journey, which usually takes much longer when factoring in wee stops and driver breaks alongside any traffic issues. I think we’ve only had a single journey in a huge number of long distance drives across a couple of years that went to plan with clear roads. It easily becomes a much longer drive home, so leaving around 5pm when all children leave (unfed) means stopping for dinner at least (already lengthening times) as well as the 5h after a busy day and could well be something some drivers aren’t able to manage.

I’d do the plan of going, but also doing a family bit too. Go to hotel at 5pm, have a relaxed evening and go somewhere nice the following day. Or decline, as others have said. Those seem the simplest options.

This is probably an unpopular opinion because lots of people seem to dislike children at weddings now but … if I choose not to bring my children with me to a wedding then that’s fine but I really don’t like being told that they’re not invited/welcome. We come as one package and my children are an extension of me so if they’re not welcome, I don’t feel welcome either. My cousin didn't invite my kids and we just didn’t go so YANBU in my opinion. I just messaged and said that we were really sorry but could no longer make it as we didn’t realise children weren’t invited and we had no childcare options. One of my good friends did the sane as your cousin and said they didn’t want children at the meal and evening reception so they arranged a nanny to come and look after all the children in a cottage next to the hotel. Parents could pop across and see them throughout the night and they had food and lots of activities to do. This was a lovely idea but I still didn’t really feel comfortable leaving my little one with someone they’d never met before so we decided to leave him at home with grandparents for the weekend.

it’s a tricky one but I love kids at weddings and don’t see what the problem is!

I think you're being unreasonable to cancel completely. It's such a shame to miss out on having a big family catch up for a few days because your children will need to leave early the wedding a couple of hours early. If your children weren't invited at all I could understand but they can literally go to the wedding and part of the reception. I don't see why they would be that disappointed.

I had this same situation with a friends wedding and my partner. He wasn't invited to the reception but came to the church ceremony and cake reception straight after. Then he chilled out in the hotel, had dinner and then came to pick us up. We had a great rest of the weekend catching up with friends.

Most small kids keep going and going at weddings.

Then they crash out on someone's lap or in the corner.

Never known anyone leave because their kids had to be in bed by 6.

Even babies can sleep in their pushchairs

I would definitely not go if I was you. And I would also have assumed that my kids were invited to the wedding. It's a family event.

I would just be honest and say you hadn’t appreciated that kids were only going to be invited to the day part of the wedding and as you have no one to watch said kids after 5pm due to them all being at the wedding you sadly won’t be able to attend anymore But you hope they have a fantastic day bla bla bla.

end of the day it’s B & Gs choice as to who & when they invite people but they equally have to accept that their choices may mean some people can’t attend!

Where has she complained that it would cost that much?

If the wedding was as she expected, it was absolutely worth it to them. With no childcare the wedding will finish at 5pm.

Not worth it

I just wouldn't go. We're a family and I wouldn't dump my kids last minute.com with strange babysitters. Politely decline and treat your family to a weekend away together..that way everyone's happy.

You lost me at upside down pineapple?

Weddings are whatever the bride and groom want them to be, ultimately. Our wedding was an adults only event.

People are simply different and want different things when it comes to their wedding.

I only have three cousins on my mum's side of the family, and my sister's and my DC were invited to their weddings. In fact both my niece and DD were asked to be bridesmaids at one of them.

They've messed up big time on this one. Either they thought lots of people wouldn't come if they had to leave at 5 with the kids so they've deliberately not mentioned it before to not put people off, or they:ve invited massively too many people and they need to cut some from the reception to not exceed Venue numbers, so they've gone for all the kids. Either way it's their huge mess. Either cut your losses and explain you can't now go, or book a nice tea out for hubby and kids after 5. I don't think you'd be unreasonable to drop out at all.

No chance. Email your cousin now and say 'really sorry, I hadn't realised it was child free, unfortunately we won't be able to make it as we have no childcare'.

Of course you don't want to drive 5 hours to leave DH and kids upstairs, especially at that cost. B&G should have made things much clearer from the start. Don't feel guilty in any way.

It's such a shame you can't attend but that's life when you have DC. We had to miss my stepbrother's wedding for the same reason - DTs were about 6 and DS has ASD and couldn't be left with a random childminder in the hotel (and we have no-one at home) plus the cost of all going to a hotel just for most of the group to sit there all night is crazy!

There will be other parties......

I assume you were planning on staying at the venue to make life easier? Won't your parents want to maximise the time with their dgc given they don't see much of them. I imagine they might well be popping up to see the dgc once the meal is finished. The B&G aren't likely to notice you're having a family get together in your room.

They clearly just want the children as props for the photos. If they're serving canapés while endless photos are being taken, they generally aren't that appetising to children. If you're all hanging around for the photographer to finish taking shots of the b&g, it's easy to imagine all the parents taking their kids away long before 5pm. Locally based parents could shoot off, get kids fed, get changed and come back. Which is fine unless your dc were buddying up with theirs and then get split up.

I'd just decline without giving a reason and then go up another time when you all can socialise with family together.