Furious about family wedding abroad

[Creamandjamorjamandcream]

A close family member has lived on the other side of the word for the last five years. He met someone over there who seems great (we’ve only actually met her once when they spent some time in Europe) and last year he proposed!

We have been discussing flights and accommodation for a few weeks. We are a family of 4 with a 4 year old and an 18 month old so it was always going to be tricky financially and practically to travel. They live in a major city but the wedding will be about two hours away in a beautiful rural location. We have booked flights and accommodation for the wedding and the two weeks either side to explore.

Last week we received a formal invitation which stipulated that it was an adults only wedding. I immediately contacted my brother to make sure that our kids were not included in the ban - seeing as he knew we had booked flights for us all and this had never been mentioned. Unfortunately he said that our children were not welcome at the wedding however his wife to be had the details of some baby sitters in the city.

I don’t know what to do!! I am furious that we have paid so much money for accommodation and travel which I never would have if I’d have known our children weren’t invited!! I feel very uncomfortable with leaving the children two hours away with a stranger overnight however if we take them with us we have no other alternative as everyone we know in the country will be attending the wedding. I’ve asked if they can be babysat in the hotel on the wedding site as a compromise but have been told no as ‘they don’t want any kids there at all’.

Please help me with what I should do!! I feel like I’m too angry to think straight.

I wouldn't respond to him at all and cancel unless you want a holiday still. What prize idiots ,surprised they are able to hold down any kind of adult life.

Those saying they can’t control who stays in the hotel….my friend got married a few years ago and they booked out the whole hotel. Theirs was a child free wedding and they booked the whole place so no one tried to bring those who weren’t invited.

And the comment about SS being interested if you leave kids with unknown babysitters, come on!

Yes we always joke the more expensive the wedding the shorter the marriage. 😀I agree it is horrible when children are excluded from a family wedding.

Just go on holiday now you have booked it but don’t go to wedding.

Some people think the OP should have waited for confirmation that the groom's own nieces and nephews were invited to a wedding on the other side of the world. I assume they are the 7%.

Personally I think that planning a wedding like that and it even crossing your mind not to fully invite the children in your immediate family is 100% dick behaviour. So it makes no difference if OP had waited or not.

This.

Ps. Do not leave your children with a stranger in a strange country for the sake of a wedding. It’s not fair on them.

My understanding was that DB didn't disclose this information at all, and it was mentioned flippantly in response to op during a conversation. The fact that they want it child free should have been clearly stipulated well in advance.

I'm not sure if DB has dc's, but if he decides to have them at some point in the future, I should hope he would rethink his willingness to leave children with a stranger 2 hours away in the same country, let a lone a foreign one.

Well, you live and learn ... I've never been to a Greek wedding, but always thought they included entire families and were the sort of thing where absolutely everyone's welcome

Has any of the immediate family not booked flights etc, could they do a name change?

Though to be honest i would boycott the wedding myself if someone was as rude as they have been despite not having under 18's now! People are so entitled to think that their relatives will put up with this crap

@Puzzledandpissedoff

I've been to multiple Greek weddings and all have been huge family affairs including inviting quite vague connections children

I'd also go for the holiday option. Look up fun things to do with children in the area. Enjoy your time there, it must have cost a fortune.

I wouldn’t go but I’m petty 😂

They will feel like absolute idiots a few years down the line when they have their own kids.
I would cancel.

It depends on whether you would have a good family holiday there or not. If you would then you could be quite annoying by taking the high road. All go on the holiday. You attend the wedding on your own and whenever anyone asks about dh/kids tell them he has had to take the kids out for the day as they weren't invited. When they say what a shame just say it is what db wanted and it's his day. Everyone will say what a shame it is!
Or just cancel!

It really depends
but they are huge because of ‘owing invites’ and so if inviting whole family of 5/6 then it means another 4 adults can’t be invited as no space.

So usually immediate family children only. I had 4 and they were my bridesmaids and pageboys and were nieces and nephews. I’ve been to some where I’ve taken my mum or mil to babysit!

I’m all for child-free weddings but I’ve always understood that that to mean child-free except nieces and nephews of the bride and groom, tiny non-mobile babies and anyone who’s made the effort to travel long-haul to get there.

I'd be cancelling the lot. What a way to treat your own nieces and nephews - not even allowing them to be at the venue!

If they don't want childcare in the hotel, I bet they won't want your DH to have them in the room, either. That would 100% be it for me.

People put too much into 'their day/we'll have what we want', IMO. It's just a bloody day, FFS. Why would anyone want to make things so difficult for close family members?!

In the U.K.? I’ve been to a handful with dcs and those that do are often on parents laps! The usual wording is ‘due to venue restrictions children under 14 are not permitted’ in other words we don’t want or can’t have kids!

THIS!!

You have a hotel booking for you and the kids, so how do they propose banning your kids from the hotel? Unless they have booked and paid for the entire hotel, there could well be other hotel guests with kids who are nothing to do with the wedding in the vicinity, though not in their reception venue.

So if the babysitter is two hours away does he think you're going to be leaving the wedding venue that night and travelling back, making it a four hour round trip for you (I do realise that's nothing over there), or that you're going book to stay at the hotel, so assuming that your children will be babysat overnight two hours away by some random you've never clapped eyes on before in your life?

It's a hotel. They cannot ban you from booking a babysitter to stay in the room with your kids during the wedding, assuming you can find one that you would be comfortable with.

Go, have a holiday. Don't go to the wedding. If my children can't go, neither can i.

Very out of order if they are close family and they didn't mention it earlier. I wouldn't be impressed.