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?

Hey OP, I’m really glad you took the courage to reach out to a potentially more neutral place than existing friends. I haven’t voted as neither option for me is true. I don’t think this is down to be reasonable or not. I think this is a highly loaded situation and occasions like these emotions run high because understandably we each have our own perspectives and just because your bro hasn’t seemed to have advocated for you doesn’t mean that isn’t really hurtful or that he didn’t want to. With the best will in the world, if he struggles to advocate or speak up or influence with his partner, he’s likely to struggle to do that in all his relationships. If you live him, I think it would help your relationship to release this expectation on him and the idea that it’s about you. If you want to have a good relationship with him, try to put hurt aside and work with him on your relationship. It will go way beyond this wedding. You’ll need each other in future and this is potentially a small moment compared to what might come.

I also really want to acknowledge your feelings. Not being invited or included feels wretched. It’s the worst.

I cringed when I read about how your mum insisted. Im sorry but to me i fear It might have been experienced as subtle manipulation. And people will push back against that. It makes people feel unsafe or untrusting. It’s the opposite of building connection in relationships. Giving stuff also needs consent and some people struggle to decline gifts. It can be seen as a way of injecting oneself into an event or buying some rights to it.

The harder and more vulnerable thing to do would be to have a conversation with her DILTB and say “I’d love to contribute somehow if you’re open to that. I can offer £000” but if she only wants to pay for certain things like the dresses, I think that makes the offer conditional, and that’s only ok if she can be clear on that and then the bride can make that call with that knowledge. But I think that would be awkward.

my advice without any expectation and only as you’ve asked would be this:

in difficult situations such as this, guests have no real say on anything, neither should they. That can feel awful and upsetting. The option you do have open to you is to release anger and resentment, and focus on what do want, and what can control (that’s yourself) . You can make the stretch and hold yourselves with warmth and grace, and then put your own wants aside and attend. I imagine your SD’s anger and protest at not going feels good in the moment- in the face of his wife’s upset. like he’s making an affirmative stance and showing loyalty. But I’ll bet what would be much better for your mum would be for him to pull himself up, hear and validate her understandably hurt feelings, and promise her they’ll go and they’ll enjoy themselves. HE’LL be by her side, supporting her and having fun with whoever is there. Staying in that victimy position is good for no one. If you want to explore other ways Brene Brown is great at this. She’s on Netflix talking about vulnerability and connection and I love what she says.

Another quate that helps me is from Michelle Obama “when they go low, we go high” it gives me strength not to lean into resentment.

I hope you’ve gained some support through reaching out. I hope you can take this opportunity to build relationships with your incoming family.

Why would she be? Perhaps it would be wise for Op and her mother to drop their expectations if they don’t want to be the ones pushing the bride and groom away.

And do they? Or do they signal that perhaps the brother prefers a distant relationship with a family of birth he finds overbearing, and his fiancée is doing along with it? Why are you holding her responsible?

Personally I think it’s sad that a handful of family members getting their relative’s wedding the way they want is seen as somehow better than the actual couple getting the day they want.

@OutOfTheHouse

WTAF? 😂 The OP's BROTHER - ya know, the GROOM - has known his nieces a long time. Since they were born! And HE has only known his wife-to-be's cousin's children since he has known her.

Therefore, his wife-to-be's cousin's children should not be allowed to be flower girls either by your reckoning!

I think you have just produced the most ludicrous and nonsensical post on the thread!

There is no situation to smooth. I suspect the bride is unaware.

He’s not the one having bridesmaids though, is he? She is. If he was having bridesmaids and was expected to have his fiancée’s cousins take the role, then you’d have a point.

The point is though, he SHOULD be having his nieces as flower girls/bridesmaids, as he is one half of the married-couple-to be. MY brother had my 2 daughters as bridemaids. And so do many other men - have their nieces as bridemaids! It's not all about the bloody bride!

And the point that poster made about how the bride hasn't known her the OP's brother's nieces long enough is just daft, because he hasn't known her cousin's children any longer! Utterly bonkers statement!

What?

So a woman wanting her flower girls to come from her family, girls that she had known all their life at her wedding is nonsense?

So should the bride’s brother be best man then?

Bridesmaids are indeed about the bride, as groomsmen are about the groom.

Who said he isn’t getting his wedding the way he wants it, and has chosen it to be? You’re yet another person that has decided that the brother couldn’t possibly have chosen to do something that doesn’t reflect his family’s wishes in entirety.

And no, they ‘should’ not be having his nieces as flower girls/bridesmaid if they don’t want them to be. Op and her mother SHOULD be respecting that this isn’t their wedding to control.

Agree.

I see my in-laws maybe 2-5 times a year. This year I’ve seen MIL and FIL once. I had thought we were going to go see the rest (siblings and wider family) so they could meet our daughter since BIL was visiting with his family from another country. This plan changed since his brother is actually going there and coming near us so we won’t have to drive the 5+ hours journey. DH hadn’t planned on going for Christmas either. I pointed out that it would mean that his sister, their cousins, his aunts and uncles wouldn’t have seen us and our children in likely two years (usually go up for Easter, but didn’t this year) and our daughter wouldn’t meet them until she was almost 1.5 yo.

We’re not close but I get on with them and thought that a bit off not to visit. I would hope it wouldn’t be assumed that it was me making such decisions. They do know (at least I think they do) that DH is quite forthright and not one to be controlled by anyone. He is considering a visit now though after pointing this out.

You just made that up. I never said that FGS. I said it's ludicrous for the bride-to-be to not want her husband-to-be's nieces there, because she has only known them as long as she has known HIM. When HE has only known his wife-to-be's cousin's children as long as he has known HER. Yet she wants THEM as bridesmaids!

Sorry, but do people really think like this? 😂 That other people should tell a couple who should be in their bridal party?

And yes they ‘should’ have asked his nieces to be flower girls/bridesmaids, as it's his sister's children. As they are having the bride-to-be's cousin's children as bridesmaids .... THAT is a more distant kin!

Fixed that for you.

When you are directly told, "It is more important to have a childfree wedding than to have my brother there," of course it affects relations. Brother has just been shown in no uncertain terms how much he and his family matters to the couple. Not much.

When told, "Well, you can always come to our weddings and things by yourself," my DH replied, "I am sick of always being expected to come to these things without my family!"

Of course we respected their decision and took the message on board that we were optional extras in their lives.

I think having the bride-to-be's cousin's children as flower girls, and not the groom-to-be's nieces is pretty shitty yeah, but you do you.

Oh and 😂 to you too.

You really didn’t.

blood relationships don’t determine closeness. They have every right to choose their respective bridesmaids/ groomsmen. Hell, he could have them as groomsmaids if he wanted.

They don’t want his nieces to be part of the wedding party. They are under precisely zero obligation to have his nieces as part of the wedding party. That’s it, get over it.

Anyway, as a number of posters have said, it sounds like the bridezilla is doing her level best to erase the OP's brother's family out of their lives anyway. I don't envy the brother truth be told.

You don't know anything about the OP's relationship to his brother. He very likely DOES want his nieces there, he just has a bossy bridezilla of a wife-to-be. who doesn't want his family there. Poor bloke.

Yes, and if the bride and groom have the temerity to say no and continue to plan and pay for their own wedding, then she alone is a cross between Lady MacBeth and Hitler.

Oh, and being controlling is bad, except not really.

✨cognitive dissonance✨

You don’t know anything about his relationship with his fiancée, yet here you are…

You need to read the OP's posts better. Rookie error hun.

I feel sorry for the OP AND her brother tbh!

Yes, because OP definitely said ‘my brother really wants them there, and is really stressed and sad because his big meanie of a fiancée said no’

Now I do get how ludicrous it is that great auntie Linda was peeved at missing your DH getting married (when she hasn't seen him since he was 12.) What I don't get, is people actually just getting married and leaving out parents and siblings, (and other close family members, like grandparents.) Just going off and getting married with 2 randoms as 'witnesses.' I find that quite sad. (Especially if it's your first marriage/wedding.) The wedding would be like a non-event to me.

Ours was not a massive wedding, but we had everyone close to us there. We invited both sets of parents, our 2 brothers (we have 1 each,) and their partners. Also my one cousin who I have always been very close to as we are 3 months apart in age, (and her partner and school age children.) Also my aunt and uncle (that particular cousin's parents.) And an elderly aunt and uncle. Aunt had never never married/never had children, and uncle was widowed and had never had children either.

I did not invite my cousin's brother as we had not spoken in 15 years (he is just an anti-social grump who hates everyone,) and didn't invite my other 2 aunts and 2 uncles (and their partners,) or the other 5 cousins, because I rarely saw them (never see them now,) and I didn't want them there. None of them cared. Oh, and we invited 8 friends and their partners, and several neighbours. Around 40 people altogether. All people we wanted, not randoms we hardly know, or people we do know but don't like/don't have anything to do with. (No grandparents came, as sadly they had all passed away at that point.)

But yeah anyway, I get not inviting people you don't have much to do with/anything to do with, but I don't 'get' eloping and leaving EVERYone out. Especially if it was your first wedding/marriage like you. If my husband-to-be had insisted on this, (knowing how much I wanted a proper wedding,) I think I would have thought twice about marrying him. I don't understand why his wishes trumped yours.

@InterIgnis You are 100% WRONG about this. And my point was that it's a DAFT argument to say the bride-to-be has not known her husband-to-be's nieces long enough. He has not known her cousin's children any longer. Bridezilla can't have it all about her. MY brother had my nieces as bridesmaids as I said, and so do many other men (have their nieces.) It's not the 1920s anymore. It's not just the BRIDE who can pick the bridesmaids FFS!

And the OP did not say her brother does not want her children there. He has not been bothered to include them coz his missue to be only wants what SHE wants, and he is a spineless wuss who is scared of his wife to be and her family.