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

Not inviting them to dinner is plain rude, where as it's fair enough to say evening reception 7.30pm onwards is adults only. It means essentially they don't want to pay for the kids dinner!

Exactly. There’s not a cats chance in hell I’d spend SO much money when one person on the invite has to spend the evening stuck in a hotel room. But tbh I would never ever spend so much money on a bloody wedding anyway.
They know the OP has children, this should have been made clear right at the beginning.

This. I wouldn't go, I would take this money and have a holiday... kids included.
So they expect all non-family to be sorting out the kids and only the blood relatives staying back. So so awful knowing people travel and spend so much money and have this rule.

Agree with this. It's absolutely fine for B & G to have no kids but that should have been made clear from the beginning so people can make appropriate arrangements. I just wouldnt go. Not leaving my kids with someone they don't know and I don't know either. If you have a child free wedding then you have to be aware that quite a few people won't be going.

@LouMorris

You can't go a few hours without missing your family and feeling uncomfortable? Even if thee was a room full of people you were looking forward to catching up with, as there is for OP?

Firstly I would see if I could get the money back which was spent on the hotel. If I could I would just ring up/message the bride and groom and say that unfortunately you were only made aware quite last minute that the children were not allowed to stay for the evening and there are no acceptable child care solutions therefore regrettably you will not be able to attend.

But they are invited, they just have to bugger off at 5pm.

I wouldn't go

The B&G have been really stupid with this random DC attendance during the day then non-attendance at night. It's actually the worst of all scenarios.

They pay for the DC at the meal but then say they want to get rid of them at night when their parents are attending - it's bonkers.

I would have a quiet word with one of your cousins in the same scenario as you, see what they are doing.

It could be a numbers thing. They want to invite more people to the evening do but are already at capacity so would prefer it if the DC weren't there so others could attend. It's still weird though

Agree with others that not inviting cousins' children is fair enough, that's a huge number of children in some families. Even though it's the norm in your family it may not be at all on the other side. Perhaps this is their compromise. Agree they probably should have told you this earlier though if there's a precedent but 8 weeks is pretty standard for the formal invitation.

Wondering if the groom is your relative and not the bride?

Sounds like you really enjoy these weddings so I wouldn't cut your nose off to spite your face. Either all go and your DH take the kids in the evening (you'll all still have a great time at the early part of the wedding and probably see family the days before and after too) or you go and enjoy letting your hair down child free (definitely my choice!).

In reality I would be cancelling. I could not justify the expense! I would book Disneyland instead with the money saved, and send my best wishes to the happy couple.

It’s extremely rude to drop this on you - it’s clearly not a child free wedding and has made it too complicated. There is no way I would use babysitters I didn’t know either.

distance and lack of baby sitter aside, i quite like the idea that children are there up to about 7pm ish so that they get to enjoy the day and see relatives, and the adults get to party without watching their language and so on.

For my cousins? I'd probably go alone and DH would have looked after the DCs.

I’m responding to the poster who lives overseas and was recommending leaving the family at home and staying in a hotel in a different country.

Of course a few hours is OK but leaving them at home and going away for a few days without them I would miss them.

I’m going to go against the grain here, I think it would be a shame to miss the whole thing over this, the kids would enjoy it, both the wedding and seeing the family, as would you miss out. It could also seriously sour family relations, you never know it could be a venue health and safety issue that they have said no children after x- especially as it wasn’t mentioned by family at the start. Either go and all leave at 5, or go and hubby takes kids back at 5 for popcorn and a movie at the hotel. I think at this late stage to pull out based on this when your places will be confirmed and paid for is very poor form

Your cousin is an idiot. Who do they think is going to magically appear to babysit all the kids who are hours away from home?!

At best you’d need 2 nights. How much are you paying for the hotel though? I’d say £100 per night hotel, £70 petrol, £150 outfits, £50 gift and £50 for drinks etc. plus the cost of 1 dinner so where you get £1300 from I don’t know.

If you haven’t got childcare and children aren’t invited then you don’t go. Or you DO go and DH looks after them in the hotel on the night of the wedding.

There is no health and safety issue and the couple still have the opportunity to change their policy if they wish for families to attend.
You have given them plenty of notice op! It’s not tomorrow or next week.
We considered our guest’s logistics carefully, anything else is poor form.

And it’s entirely awful to leave your dh in the room from 5pm by himself trying to keep two small children entertained for 6 hours plus!! No way would I ask anyone to do this unless it was an emergency. There will be nothing to do, and they will be climbing the walls after an hour.

What is the reception, as you say dinner is about 5ish?

I have not read all the comments, but have read your updates OP. I agree with at least one pp suggestion that, if you won’t be out of pocket by cancelling, then cancel, and plan a family trip at a more convenient time/ cost.
It’s a shame, but I don’t really see anything else feasible from what you have said.

I would just send them a polite message saying that you are sorry but you cannot make it. No further explanation needed. Don’t let the wider family suck you into ‘well your dad’ or any other such thing.

It's not late stages though is it. If invites have just been issued then everyone has still to formally RSVP and until those RSVP's are sent and received, no one is obligated to go. Fair to assume that B&G are aware of the deadlines they need to get numbers confirmed with the venue and timed the issuing of their invites accordingly.

@LaurieStrode my parents did similar and it worked v well, but times have changed. I don't think many modern parents would be comfortable leaving children with complete strangers

Any evening event that is invite only doesn’t feel like kiddo stomping ground to me. Invites generally specify who is invited (as is the case with this wedding), querying that feels very rude to me.

I think it should be no children at all or children for the whole day, the evening bit is the best bit for children and they're more likely to be actually annoying and disruptive during the ceremony and food - so it makes no sense to me!

@OverTheGrip They’re a family event, and children are very much a part of the family…!

Off topic, but I'm shocked that the OP thinks "the evening do is the best bit of a wedding"! Er no.... The best bit is surely the ceremony, where the couple pledge lifelong commitment? Everything else is just a boozy party and, as the evening goes on, just full of loud people getting embarrassing. The evening do is when I go home.
You can have a lovely time at a wedding pre 5pm, but if the evening bit is so important then the OP can go and her husband can look after the kids. Problem solved.