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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

A ‘children at wedding’ one….

1000 replies

TemporaryName123 · 05/01/2024 00:14

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

OP posts:
ChristmasSugarplumFairy · 05/01/2024 02:17

I'd not be spending all that money and taking my kids all that way to attend the most boring and tedious parts of the wedding only to be kicked out when it starts to get more enjoyable, not a chance.
Honestly this sort of fuckwittery when it comes to weddings is just so irritating. When we got married we made our guests comfort/ease/enjoyment a priority because they are our favourite people in the world (or they wouldn't have been invited!) and they were taking time to be there for us on the most important day of our lives.
I'm afraid "it's their day, they can do what they like" doesn't wash. It's a bullshit attitude.
I'd sack it off and spend the money saved on a more enjoyable trip for the family.

TheShellBeach · 05/01/2024 02:18

Declining is fine but snarking is low class and tacky

No. Child-free weddings are low-class and tacky, actually.

InfraredMarbles · 05/01/2024 02:18

Oh, I didn't realise it was the @LaurieStrode person again who has been posting rather... interesting (!?) comments on other threads these last few days, including how children should not be allowed in first class carriages on trains. 🤣

HirplesWithHaggis · 05/01/2024 02:19

InfraredMarbles · 05/01/2024 02:08

I am aware of all of that, and then some. But your statement was that "single parents" were being "excluded from all family weddings", and while it might be true in your case (and I'm sorry if it is, genuinely) it's not a universal truth. Plenty of separated parents can do this sort of thing reasonably.

Errr... no. Read it again. I was responding to a poster who stated that she thoroughly recommended her approach to family weddings, which was that the related parent should go and the children should "stay at home" with the other parent and pointing out how - if this was adopted as a "thoroughly recommended approach" as she suggested - this would exclude many single parents from every attending a family wedding. I've explained this several times now, even though my point was quite clear in the first place if you actually read the words.

It would be helpful if you would quote me, rather than copy and paste my words. But here are the copy and pastes we started from:

InfraredMarbles · Today 01:37

EconomyClassRockstar · Today 01:34

We live overseas but I highly recommend our approach to weddings. If kids weren't invited and it involved travel, the parent who was actually related to the bride and groom would go and the other parent just stayed home with the kids. No drama, family representation and you get to sleep in your own bed without fighting your kids in a hotel room! That said, I really do love a hotel room to myself. It's my idea of Heaven 😀

Excellent way to exclude single parents from all family weddings. 👏👏

How does that exclude all single parents from all family weddings?

(Apologies for the derail, OP, totally support you!)

LaurieStrode · 05/01/2024 02:20

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

InfraredMarbles · 05/01/2024 02:21

TheShellBeach · 05/01/2024 02:18

Declining is fine but snarking is low class and tacky

No. Child-free weddings are low-class and tacky, actually.

Exactly.

And you can almost guarantee that those same couples a few years later will be the ones being so very precious about their own baby. It's ALL about them. Too exhausting. Send a card OP and use the £1300 for a nice weekend away with your children.

LaurieStrode · 05/01/2024 02:22

TheShellBeach · 05/01/2024 02:18

Declining is fine but snarking is low class and tacky

No. Child-free weddings are low-class and tacky, actually.

Nonsense. Many people prefer elegant, adult-centric evening events without children.

InfraredMarbles · 05/01/2024 02:22

Great way to show you as classless, boorish, inconsiderate and ignorant, frankly.

One would think that these characteristics belong to someone who throws such insults at a complete stranger on the internet simply because they disagree with their opinion.

Personal insults are against the talk guidelines, by the way.

Perhaps you should apologise to @TheShellBeach

InfraredMarbles · 05/01/2024 02:24

Nonsense. Many people prefer elegant, adult-centric evening events without children.

Perhaps, but I highly doubt you'd be invited to any of those, unfortunately, given you are so unnecessarily rude to people for no reason.

LaurieStrode · 05/01/2024 02:27

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

LaurieStrode · 05/01/2024 02:28

InfraredMarbles · 05/01/2024 02:22

Great way to show you as classless, boorish, inconsiderate and ignorant, frankly.

One would think that these characteristics belong to someone who throws such insults at a complete stranger on the internet simply because they disagree with their opinion.

Personal insults are against the talk guidelines, by the way.

Perhaps you should apologise to @TheShellBeach

Perhaps you don't understand the subjunctive case. I was referring to a hypothetical scenario, as that poster no doubt understands.

InfraredMarbles · 05/01/2024 02:30

How does that exclude all single parents from all family weddings?

Hi @HirplesWithHaggis. Apologies for not tagging you, there seem to be IT issues with that.

I think it wasn't what you meant, on reflection. The way it was phrased - to me - seemed that you were recommending this as a norm that should be established as you'd found it better, but it would mean that many lone parents could never go to a family wedding or would feel even more awkward about making arrangements for their children in such circumstances if your approach was widely adopted as the norm. That was my point. It was not meant as an attack on you. More the assumption, I guess, that all parents have a partner/ co-parent/ extended family to make this viable, so this being a norm would make them even more excluded and make things even harder for them. Thank you for replying to me though and I can see - having read your comment again - that the tone was light and it was meant in a more jokey way so this aspect of this issue had probably not even registered when you wrote it.

InfraredMarbles · 05/01/2024 02:32

Perhaps you don't understand the subjunctive case. I was referring to a hypothetical scenario, as that poster no doubt understands.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Please continue: this is highly amusing.

Is there anything else on your mind that you'd like to share or are you content with having regaled us all with the comedy value of the juxtaposition of your misapprehension of grammatical rules combined with your attempts to be a pedant?

InfraredMarbles · 05/01/2024 02:37

It's not up to hosts to ameliorate or accommodate any prospective guests' shitty life choices.

The fact that you believe that the parents who raise children singlehandedly - doing the work of two people - are to blame for the fact that the other parent is absent or has died reveals a lot about you.

How unpleasant. Encountering people with your views always makes me hope that religions that claim reincarnation to be true are correct.

HirplesWithHaggis · 05/01/2024 02:43

InfraredMarbles · 05/01/2024 02:30

How does that exclude all single parents from all family weddings?

Hi @HirplesWithHaggis. Apologies for not tagging you, there seem to be IT issues with that.

I think it wasn't what you meant, on reflection. The way it was phrased - to me - seemed that you were recommending this as a norm that should be established as you'd found it better, but it would mean that many lone parents could never go to a family wedding or would feel even more awkward about making arrangements for their children in such circumstances if your approach was widely adopted as the norm. That was my point. It was not meant as an attack on you. More the assumption, I guess, that all parents have a partner/ co-parent/ extended family to make this viable, so this being a norm would make them even more excluded and make things even harder for them. Thank you for replying to me though and I can see - having read your comment again - that the tone was light and it was meant in a more jokey way so this aspect of this issue had probably not even registered when you wrote it.

Thank you for all that, but I think you have conflated me with another previous poster. I responded to your "statement" that single parents would be automatically excluded from events because they are single parents, (because no-one on the other side of the family would ever step up?)

And that's simply not true in my (fairly extensive) family experience.

I am really sorry that it seems true to you, though.

TheShellBeach · 05/01/2024 02:50

It's not up to hosts to ameliorate or accommodate any prospective guests' shitty life choices

Whoa @LaurieStrode

Since when is having children a "shitty life choice"?

This is Mumsnet. The clue"s in the name.

InfraredMarbles · 05/01/2024 02:51

@HirplesWithHaggis ah, apologies. Another mistake from me! I don't think that one was IT, just me being overtired.

I understand your point. It's great many single parents have support. But many do not.

Apologies OP, also, for the derail onto this topic.

Time to sleep I think!

Whitegull · 05/01/2024 03:01

Were the bride and groom both on the WhatsApp group that discussed kids dancing the night away OP?
I suspect not as they're not both your cousins?

I do think it was a mistake to assume your children were invited. It's not just your family customs that are relevant here, but those of another family too.

If I had invited cousins' kids to my wedding there could have been 30 extra small children running around, which would have completely changed the dynamic. It wasn't child-free as nieces and nephews were invited, but that was enough for us😅

If it were me I think I'd still attend this wedding Perhaps DH could spend the evening with your children while you catch up with family. It would be nice if your dad or a babysitter could come to the hotel to watch the children for an hour or two while he eats dinner.

If you're staying 2 nights you'd still get a lot of time together over the weekend. It is expensive though. Weddings always are.

Also, like a pp, I've often attended cousins' weddings alone while DH stays home and vice versa.
It really is an option worth considering.

TheShellBeach · 05/01/2024 03:05

LaurieStrode · 05/01/2024 02:28

Perhaps you don't understand the subjunctive case. I was referring to a hypothetical scenario, as that poster no doubt understands.

Show quote history

No, love.
I saw it as a personal attack.

There was no subjunctive mood in what you wrote.

LaurieStrode · 05/01/2024 03:10

Whitegull · 05/01/2024 03:01

Were the bride and groom both on the WhatsApp group that discussed kids dancing the night away OP?
I suspect not as they're not both your cousins?

I do think it was a mistake to assume your children were invited. It's not just your family customs that are relevant here, but those of another family too.

If I had invited cousins' kids to my wedding there could have been 30 extra small children running around, which would have completely changed the dynamic. It wasn't child-free as nieces and nephews were invited, but that was enough for us😅

If it were me I think I'd still attend this wedding Perhaps DH could spend the evening with your children while you catch up with family. It would be nice if your dad or a babysitter could come to the hotel to watch the children for an hour or two while he eats dinner.

If you're staying 2 nights you'd still get a lot of time together over the weekend. It is expensive though. Weddings always are.

Also, like a pp, I've often attended cousins' weddings alone while DH stays home and vice versa.
It really is an option worth considering.

Good advice, @Whitegull

LadyDaisy42 · 05/01/2024 03:15

saraclara · 05/01/2024 01:06

Eight weeks is absolutely not enough notice. Who sends invitations/instructions out that late?

If a bride and groom want to restrict child presence, then they need to make that clear well before hotels are booked etc.

This! B&G will have known full well that people would have made arrangements and plans by this point, they should have made clear way before now what their intentions were regarding children attending the wedding.

user1471481356 · 05/01/2024 03:26

Who sends invites 8 weeks before for a wedding 😱 I wouldn’t even consider booking anything or taking time off until I had a proper invite. I wouldn’t bother going, too much hassle for a few hours

PieAndLattes · 05/01/2024 03:42

TheShellBeach · 05/01/2024 02:18

Declining is fine but snarking is low class and tacky

No. Child-free weddings are low-class and tacky, actually.

They’re really not, but if a couple chooses to have complicated arrangements they must accept that not everyone will be able to attend.

Nanaof1 · 05/01/2024 03:42

Ellmau · 05/01/2024 00:31

Or you could all go together to the daytime bit and then all go home/to hotel. A shame to miss the evening but perhaps fairest on the children?

That's a lot of money to spend for a few hours at a wedding and then to sit in a hotel room for the evening/night. Unless there are things the OP's family can do, swim, sight-see, etc., it just seems a waste.
I know I would rather save that money to spend on a fun holiday where the whole family can do things besides sit in a hotel room.

Nanaof1 · 05/01/2024 03:47

TemporaryName123 · 05/01/2024 00:40

@Msmbc Because they would be going off with their own family members from the other sides of families, so our kids wouldn’t know or be familiar with my cousins kids other grandparents (I wouldn’t even be familiar with them!) x

Plus, it is asking a lot to expect a grandparent to have 2 more children they don't know. And presumptuous to think they'd be "ok" with it.

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