Wedding one - who is BU?

[wedding119]

Friend A got married last week. It was a childfree wedding and save the dates were sent approx 1 year prior.

Friend A and Friend B have been friends for around 15 years and are considered quite close. Not in the wedding party, bridesmaid close but good friends.

B has a young child who is 2 and no partner so was relying on family for childcare.

This childcare partly fell through at the last minute (a few days before the wedding) and B was only able to attend the ceremony and then had to leave missing the meal paid for by A and the rest of the wedding.

A feels like B didn't try hard enough to find alternate childcare, B feels like there was nothing they could do. They do have other family members but felt it was too short notice to ask as they arent super close and B refused to ask a babysitter as they don't feel comfortable leaving their child with a babysitter they have never used before.

Who is BU?

Should A just accept there isn't anything B could do or should B have tried harder to find last minute childcare/used a babysitter (or at least tried to find one even if they don't like the idea of using one).

Why should she? If you ban children from your wedding you have to accept it’s inconvenient to a lot of people and several won’t be able to come.

Same as if you get married on a Thursday or in Bora Bora. You aren’t the centre of the universe, the planets won’t align especially for you.

You are not being unreasonable at all. I wonder for the future if any of the staff at thd nursery might have been able to help? Even if you dont want them o do overnight they would at least know your child and you know they have experience and training.

Frankly if A is still chewing over this, it wasn't much of a wedding.

I think you did all you could. I also think it's piss poor of the bride to let you know she's pissed off!

So A is correct that you didn't try to find an alternative. Clearly it is up to you what you consider an acceptable alternative for child care, but can you see why she may have felt that you couldn't be bothered to try?

I think maybe you might have run this by A much sooner as you knew your babysitters couldn't now oblige - you were obviously aware of your dad's condition and your mum's understandable reluctance to have the LO for too long for some time prior to the actual day. Perhaps it would have been better to cancel altogether and allow someone else to be bumped up as per PP suggestion.

On the other hand you've apologised, not sure what more she expects you've to really.

Hmm I think it depends partly on whether B has form for letting her friends down/ flaking/ centering herself & child at other people’s expense?

If not, then A is being unreasonable. But there are a lot of parents with small children like this, and they would be the types to drop out of an expensive wedding dinner at no notice. if this is part of a pattern then A’s reaction is understandable .

The meal was paid for whether B ate it or not, it is unlikely that A would have found a spare hungry guest at short notice. B turned up for the important bit, to watch her friend get married.

A is being unreasonable, but I expect she will change in a few years time if she has children.

@mathanxiety I absolutely disagree. I went to a wedding last year where the couple decided to let people bring kids and there were 15 children out of 100 guests (we are mid to late 30s so everyone has young children)!

The result was you couldn't socialize with any of the mothers, they kept having to disappear to feed and supervise the kids, leaving tables half empty during speeches, and then they all went to bed by 10 pm, while the men stayed up, had cigars and a great time. Really a shame for the mothers, the wedding and for the rest of the guests really. I'm going to a wedding next year and will either arrange childcare for my 1 yr old or not go. It's not an appropriate event for a toddler.

@HotandBigandSwollen has it occurred to you that the issue is useless men not the kids?

I had kids at my wedding. I didn't have mine yet but I see weddings as a family event.

Anyway, we had no problems no crying or kicking off nothing.

And a free bar.

@britneyisfree to an extent, yes, I agree. But a wedding is not an event where you can expect societal issues to be fixed. And it doesn't change the fact that one half of the couple would be distracted at any point and missing big chunks of the event. It really wasn't as lovely and family oriented as people like to imagine it.

Also, it would have been different if there were only, say, 5 kids. 15 out of 100 guests being under the age of 7 is a lot.

If I'm being truthful I don't think I'd even bother going to a child free wedding. All the hassle when my child would love seeing everyone together and the bride in her dress.

We have two coming up and she can not wait!

This. She obviously tried

A is being unreasonable.
For a number of reasons we chose to have a wedding without children there and a close friend chose not to come as a result. We totally respected her decision and she and her children came over to ours for a lunch/BBQ another time and we just had fun then (and I wore my dress for a bit lol!).

I experienced something similar in my friendship group recently.

Friend A is child free and planned a weekend away in a country house with a hot tub for her 30th. This kind of celebration common in our friend group.

Friend B is a single mum with a four year old. Friend B said from the off that she couldn’t come unless her child came too. Friend A gently said this bday celebration wasnt really a kids thing. And if Bs daughter came, then she’d have to allow all the other friends who have children, for theirs to come. Which Friend A really didn’t want.

And in the run up, I was totally on As side. I thought Friend B needed to make more of an effort like we’ve done for her in the past. A showed up to Bs hen do, wedding, divorce party. Spent a fortune on Bs fancy abroad hen etc etc. and all A wanted in return was for B to attend her bday weekend. A was a bit arsey with B over tje fact B couldnt come. And I agreed.

Anyway, I was out for lunch with B a few weeks later and she got upset saying she thinks A is mad at her. She said A has made her feel
like shit for not being able to go. I asked if there was any way she could come, and she said her parents are a bit difficult and won’t do overnight childcare, her ex husband is a prick who now lives abroad and wants nothing to do with her daughter (this I obviously already knew!) and there is no one else she knows/would trust to look after her daughter for a full weekend. She told me that at best, she could get her parents to look after her daughter for a few hours, and she’d come to meet us all for dinner on the Saturday. She also said money was tight and didn’t really have the £200 to pay for the trip spare.

And I really felt for her! I hadn’t thought about it from her perspective at all. I just thought “oh that’s bad form, we all came to her stuff but she’s not giving the same back!” But when she laid out for me her difficulties, I realised it wasn’t so black ans white. And bless her for saying she’d come just in the day time- it’s better than nothing. But friend A could just never see this, and held a grudge for ages.

"and there is no one else she knows/would trust to look after her daughter for a full weekend."

If the child is four years old and the parent hasn't mustered a reliable childminder in all that time, that's on her. I feel no sympathy for her missing social interaction if she can't be arsed to develop a support system.

@BettyBardMacDonald having a trusted babysitter, yes, fair enough. But someone to take care of a small child for an entire weekend? Really? If you have elderly parents and limited extended family, who exactly do you suggest leaving a small child with for 2 nights?? You'd seriously leave a 4 year old with a random relative they don't know well? Or a teenage babysitter? Or do you think everyone has a nanny?

Also note that poor woman offered to come for the daytime but her childless friend deemed that not to be good enough. Clearly not a good friend.

I am only child and my in laws are very, very sick. MIL is dieing. There is no extended family.

Luckily my parents are young, fit, rich and eager to help. If we didn't have them, there is no way I'd trust a stranger or a very distant relative with my small child.

I have a lot of mum friends and we help eachother out in emergencies… like hospital visits, and sick parents. When the partner of my friend had a heart attack i took annual leave to watch her kids(and her). But I just couldn’t do the same for a weekday wedding! I think the compromise to only attend the ceremony is fine! It would be very difficult to find a childminder for overnight on a weekday. If it was a professional it would cost a fortune .

Exactly @HotandBigandSwollen , not everyone has overnight childcare for small DC. There's people I'd ask in an emergency and I know they'd help out (and I'd do the same for them obviously), but not for a wedding.

No one’s really wrong here. But I feel for friend A who thinks OP didn’t prioritise her wedding. OP appeared only briefly and then rushed off for childcare on the one day where A felt that maybe OP might be an involved friend rather than focusing on being a parent.

OP obviously you needed to care for your child and your options weren’t great but you could have sorted a back up way ahead of time given your parents health issues. I think that’s the part you got wrong. In an emergency then your child would come first but this wasn’t really that. I think “I don’t like to ask people on short notice” is not a great reason.

I think you have been a bit unreasonable- it didn't fall through last minute with childcare.

Also, could you not have put child into nursery and got your mum to collect afterwards? It was a weekday wedding as you pointed out.

I originally said A was being unreasonable, but re-reading your posts @wedding119, did you accept the invitation and then just leave before the dinner without telling the bride in advance?

If so then I've changed my mind and YABU. If the ceremony was in a church then any member of the public can attend. She included you in the number of people whose dinner she paid for, and with two months' notice, or even less, she could have invited someone else in your place or even just paid for one less dinner, and you could still have attended the ceremony as you did.

It's really not on to let someone think you are coming to their wedding and then just not show up, which for the purposes of the table plan and the number of meals they paid for, is what you potentially did.

If you warned her far enough advance that she didn't have an empty seat at a table but still had to pay for an uneaten meal then that's marginally better, but still not ideal. I hope you gave a decent present.

Unfortunately for her, all her trusted childminders were also on the weekend away.
We are a group of friends, and often babysit for each other, day times, overnight etc. All the young ch in the group get along nicely. So if one couple want a romantic night away, another friend from the group will have their toddler overnight easily.
But when the whole group are away together, it can be problematic for friend B who doesn’t have her parents to turn to for overnight childcare.

So she can “be arsed to develop a support system” but there’s not a lot she can do if they are all on a group holiday.

Luckily she doesn’t need your sympathy.

Thank you for your backup on this- couldn’t agree more with everything you said !

It was only a wedding, not the flipping Coronation, and the OP went to the ceremony itself, which is actually the only real important bit.

Most people have someone they can call on to babysit in an emergency. A wedding reception is not an emergency.