To have expected my daughters to be flower girls

[Notmotherofflowergirls]

Just created an account for people to pile on to me and tell me I am an idiot. I don’t think I can tell my real friends.
I am inwardly cringing!
My brother is getting married in 3 months time to a woman with no nieces or nephews.
My mother and I naturally assumed that my two girls 4 and 6 would be the flower girls. There are no other kids in the family although stepdad has grandchildren.
My mother was feeling left out of all the planning. DB was uncommunicative about the plans and always referred us to SiL and when my mum asked to contribute she was batted away.
Finally Mum insisted that she would buy the flower girl dresses and finally brother agreed. So on Wednesday SiL posted an invoice for three flower girl dresses from a Shop in Dublin. She included a nice note saying that she mustn’t feel obliged to pay.
My mum asked who the third dress was for: it turns out all three are for her cousin’s girls.
Brother came round and said that they will be only kids at wedding.
My brother was asked point blank if he didn’t want his nieces there and all he could say was he would speak with SiL. He did look sheepish.
My dad died and while my mum has not remarried she has been with her partner for 9 years. His kids are not invited. My stepdad isn’t going and is angry that my mum has been made to feel so upset.
I feel as if I have been kicked in the guts. My mum keeps bursting into tears.
My DH says he’s ongoing either Have we overstepped? Would anyone else have made the same assumption?

My DD wasn’t asked to be the flower girls at either of my BIL or SIL’s weddings. I was under NO impression that they should have told me? How far do you extend the news? I didn’t realise all little girls in the family had an automatic right to be flower girls.

You're not unreasonable to have hoped your daughters might be involved.

You're unreasonable to have assumed they definitely would be involved.

And it's batshittery that adults are talking about boycotting the wedding and crying over this.

It isn't very common nowadays for mothers to be heavily involved in planning their children's weddings, and I would say even less so for the mother of the groom.

Not sure I like the hate directed at SIL. It’s up to groom to communicate with his side of the family about arrangements for THEIR wedding. Sounds like he’s being a wet lettuce about everything and doesn’t want to have any difficult conversations or get his hands dirty in any way. Easier to blame the SIL to be. What a catch.

There’s another thread at the moment about a stepson’s wedding and the OP has moaned that she hasnt got her way with the seating plan and that her stepson is just very ‘meh’ but the bride is a ‘Bridezilla’.

I think what happens is women end up making far more decision about weddings than the men, and so far more of the legwork, answering to family, juggling guest politics and weepy MILs etc. in my view - if you are the only one putting the work into organising you get to take charge of the big decisions. Families of grooms should encourage their precious BIL/Son/whoever to pull his weight more if they want a say via him in the wedding

The same could be said about the groom and his nieces about closeness even though they are his sister’s children.

The relationship is closer genetically however close he 'feels' to them so the insult to the family is worse imo.

And if he doesn’t want to get involved in the planning itself he can at least have a clue what the plans are so he can support future wife with managing everyone’s expectations. Doesn’t make for the best start to a marriage throwing your spouse under the bus from day one.

Years ago I was a wedding co ordinator.

never had a bridezilla….any trouble always came from the grooms family, specially the grooms mother…..they always feel left out and tbh were the bane of my life.

specifically

stupid phone.

I quite agree.

Fortunately for me and my DH neither of us gave much of a shit about colours schemes, vows or what our mums would be wearing so we mutually agreed we are lazy and eloped 🤣

I think you need a mediated conversation - get a calm person to help you speak to your brother. This is too much hurt to ignore.

I'd be blaming your brother in all this. Poor comms and disinterest. This is exactly the sort of mess my long term boyfriend gets in all the time as he's a terrible communicator with his mother and sister. I'm sure I get the blame for lots of things that haven't been communicated correctly and assumptions made. It would be a nightmare if we got married, I could envisage the drama and tears already.

Not stand up for them being flower girls, obviously.
Stand up for them being part of the family and being included in the family celebrations - which wedding is so clearly is.

Personally - I'd not attend a wedding in this situation if my kids were not invited.

It does make me wonder how many have organized a wedding here because it seems a lot of people think weddings should be like a family reunion . Where I come from the bride -to-be chooses her attendants . The groom chooses his .
It's about who is close to the bride and groom .It's not a family reunion .
It's also quite normal not to turn your wedding to a childcare centre .

Most likely they won’t though - sounds like the kind of SIL to ban the ILs from visiting for two weeks post birth, but have her side of the family round daily.

OP, this must sting, and you are not being unreasonable to be upset about finding this out less than three months before the wedding. If your brother had been clear six months ago that it was a child-free wedding and your children weren’t invited, I doubt you’d be quite so upset. It’s the fact he’s known full well that you thought your family were invited, and he hasn’t corrected you. He’s made you look like a fool.

I’m shocked honestly that they haven’t sent invitations out yet, they are cutting it very fine.

Yes me too. My MIL and Inlaws blame me for not being involved in DH’s/our lives but it’s because DH doesn’t want to deal with them and doesn’t actually like them enough to bother tell them why they aren’t invited/involved in our various life events.

They have made it very plain they can’t stand me so I shan’t be trying again to push DH into doing things in their favour. They think it’s all me but I was the one trying to get him to call them, ask them about theirs wishes for various events for years. Now I don’t care and have completely dropped the rope.

You are being very unreasonable to think your daughter’s would be flower girls, traditionally they come from the bride’s family. Re guests, that’s for the couple to decide if they are paying and if you want to get cross at someone get cross at your brother.

Is he even close to the step sibs?

Most likely they won’t though - sounds like the kind of SIL to ban the ILs from visiting for two weeks post birth, but have her side of the family round daily.

See I think this is fine. Women are not vessels just delivering precious babies for their ILs, after having a baby they’re having a health recovery that often involved leaky breasts, leaking blood, exhaustion and other manner of unpleasant ailments. They should have whoever they’re comfortable with immediately after birth! They come first not their MIL.

I say this as someone who DID have my MIL visit 3 hours after my birth with DC1 because she spent years cultivating a good, trusting and kind relationship with me and I felt comfortable with her being there. Thankfully my own mum lives abroad, so didn’t visit for months and I was SO glad. she would only have come in and told me my hair looks awful and how when she gave birth she was cleaning the oven later that day so why I felt I could just sit about in bed she’d never know.

It's really common to have weddings be child free with the exception of any children in the bridal party. All the weddings we're attending this year are like this or entirely child free.

@YaMuvva not commenting on the rights or wrongs of it, just replying to a pp to say I don’t think this particular SIL sounds like she is going to be troubling OP and her mum for childcare in the future!

We don’t ask our ILs for childcare either, they’ve made it clear they aren’t up for it. Nothing wrong with that.

"a wedding really tells a person where they are in the value system of the bride and groom."

This is perfect in summing it up. Not in terms of roles, but whether your children are invited when it makes the genuine difference between whether you can or can't go. It really does show how much your being there matters to them. If my presence is so optional to siblings (which it always is really, only the bride, groom, celebrant and witnesses have to be there), I clearly don't mean much to them. How can that message not affect our closeness?

I agree. But I reckon a lot of DILs end up being surprised how quickly they want their ILs to be involved with childcare when an actual baby comes along, and there aren’t many other options!

I've got an alternative thought on this... when I got married in 2022, I didn't think to have kids there, including our niece and nephew (DH's sister's kids) age 3 and 5mth at the time. And it wasn't until DH insisted I even thought about it and included them. Could it be that the bride - who does not have her own children simply hasn't realised that they should be included? ❤️

Crazy - cannot imagine my brother getting married and my young children not being part of the day. ImAnd your step dad not getting an invite is nuts. I’d be pretty peed off with my brother more than anyone x

We have no other options and hell would freeze over before we asked them to babysit. We take it in turns to go out or pay for a nanny who we trust and the baby loves.

I don’t know any of my friends or workmates who would want inlaws that they aren’t close to babysitting or providing childcare for their children.

If you aren’t close to someone why on earth would you leave the most precious thing in the world to you in their care?

That's exactly how it feels. When you explain that anyone local who could babysit will be at the wedding and you can't leave a fully nursing young baby in other city for so long, only to be told they don't care if it makes it impossible for you to attend, you know where you stand in their lives. Of course you naturally don't give people who don't care about you much room in your own life, even if you did before based on mistaken sense of family relationship you thought you had.