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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

DS asked to be a pageboy but not included in reception meal

97 replies

beakysmum · 20/04/2008 03:04

What do others think.....?

My DS (3yr 3m) has been asked to be one of two pageboys at a good friend's wedding, which I'm really happy about. However, she wants the reception and meal to be adult only.

Feel a bit bemused by this; on the one hand I understand she wants a child free event, on the other, it feels as if DS is just being used to be dressed up and photographed, but not treated like a person. Also makes for an ineresting logistical problem for me to get someone to pick him up if I want to stay on to the reception.

OP posts:
Original poster
beakysmum · 20/04/2008 11:07

I'm amazed that this is a wedding thread where nearly everyone agrees too! Glad to amuse you icod

Stealthpolar bear - I'm thinking along those lines; go to ceremony and then leave.

Frannyandzooey - I agree; it is only an invite and it has got to the point where I feel I have made enough compromises and it just isn't worth me going.

But it does make me sad . She is an old friend from school and I would love to go to the wedding. Was delighted when she asked DS to be pageboy, hadn't expected that .
Just a shame the dates clash and now it looks like I have to go to convoluted arrangements to get DS there and then taken away at the appropriate point. I'm losing the will to live on this one!!!!!
FWIW, DS is a child who loves being treated as a grownup and would probably be v good at the meal (I hope!)

OP posts:
Original poster
beakysmum · 20/04/2008 11:09

Anyway will go and phone her!!!

OP posts:
tigermoth · 20/04/2008 11:19

Very much like the idea of taking him away before the photos

Hope your phone call goes well.

LookattheLottie · 20/04/2008 11:26

You either have a wedding including children, or say none at all.

This sort of thing happened at my cousins wedding, another of my cousins dd has bad hearing problems so they can't really leave her with anyone who isn't able to communicate with her, which is perfectly justifiable. Anyway they had said no children, except they'd asked if my cousins dd would be a bridesmaid. But they didn't want her at the reception etc! It was so confusing and a complete mess if you ask me.

Anyway my cousin and her family ended up saying we just won't bother going if it's really that much of an issue having our deaf dd at all of your wedding! They changed their minds in the end and let their dd come but at what cost? It really upset a lot of people in the family with the way it was so tactlessly handled.

So no, you're not being unreasonable. It'd be different if they'd said no children at all, but the fact that they're using your ds for their own convenience isn't nice, or fair for that matter.

SmugColditz · 20/04/2008 11:32

Definitely take him away before the photographs

AbbeyA · 20/04/2008 11:37

I think that is an excellent idea-be a pageboy and disappear before the photos! Then smile sweetly and say innocently that you thought she only wanted him for the ceremony! I don't think that I would have the nerve to do it but it is what she deserves!

littlemissbossy · 20/04/2008 11:39

I know someone who actually did this. Took her DS to be a pageboy and then had a friend collect him from the wedding because he wasn't invited to the reception. Well I wouldn't have done it. I can appreciate for budget reasons or if the wedding is a late one that children might not be welcome but you can't have your cake and eat it IMO.

clam · 20/04/2008 11:42

So, beakysmum? Did you call? What did she say?

edam · 20/04/2008 11:46

Oh, this is the best 'child-free wedding' thread I've seen. Bride is clearly barking.

Although, to be fair, she obviously didn't expect you to cancel your wedding anniversary trip. But that doesn't excuse 'piss off after the photos, you brat'.

Trolleydolly71 · 20/04/2008 11:49

Message withdrawn

MadameCh0let · 20/04/2008 11:56

She is mistaking your son for a doll that can be put back in a box!! I agree with pps that you should show that you are struggling to believe that you have got it right!

I have a similar situation this summer. My 5 yr old was asked to be a bridesmaid at a wedding 80 miles away in July, but my 2 yr old was invited NOT TO COME!!! I was given a list of childminders in the area which had been printed off the internet.

I said to my cousin, that's a bit awkward actually, masterch0let doesn't go to strangers.. and how do I know that the strangers are good childminders? My parents are going to the wedding, so she suggested my parents could take my DD and I stay home with masterch0let!! Insulting but I'm relieved.

bellavita · 20/04/2008 11:58

Tell them to get stuffed. These are DH's words when I read the title out loud!

macdoodle · 20/04/2008 11:59

A very old very dear friend of mine got married last summer and children were very definitely invited to the ceremony and the reception and the morning after breakfast....not only that at each table were a child was they had compiles a little box with things for them pens/drawing pad/balloons/little toys - very thoughtful...and it was thr nicest wedding I have ever been too...yes the kids ran around a bit but so what so did the adults eventually

Fullmoonfiend · 20/04/2008 12:08

at my mum's wedding my dc were the only children. We did the gift bag on sundry amusing items for the dinner, and the children had a simplified version of what the adults were eating (ie plain smoked slamon and a plain roast chicken breat with veg etc).

They were so well-behaved and cute it was untrue, they seemed to realise they were invited specially and behaved accordingly.

VictorianSqualor · 20/04/2008 12:13

Tell her to piss off, your son must be invited or he aint doing it.

Beelliesebub · 20/04/2008 12:14

YANBU..... the user bride is though! I think I would have to ring her and say either we ALL come for the whole day or not at all!

MrsMattie · 20/04/2008 12:19

Grrrrr I hate all this 'my special daaaaaaay' shit. Why does it give people an excuse to be so bloody rude? Your friend is being totally unreasonable.

LaComtesse · 20/04/2008 12:23

My cousin's wife had her adult sisters as bridesmaids but for the children invited (about 6 of them) they'd arranged for special desserts and there were bubbles to blow on the tables. This was a wedding virtually in the middle of nowhere though so it would have been really hard to have taken away the children before the reception since I would have had to have driven home and stayed there. Maybe she thinks he would be bored at the reception? Sometimes couples arrange for children's receptions n another room if there are going to be numbers of children there.

nametaken · 20/04/2008 12:32

Why would the bride think it OK to even say that?

I mean, who told her it's OK to do that??

clam · 20/04/2008 12:37

Exactly, Nametaken. And why, when she's undoubtedly regaling her plans for the day to others, has no-one had the balls to say, "WHAT? You can't do that!"

LittleBella · 20/04/2008 12:43

nametaken and clam - the wedding industry has told her it is OK to do that. The wedding industry inducts perfectly sane, rational, nice women at the beginning of the process and then spends a few months turning them into monsters and persuading them that everyone else in the world is just a prop for their "big day".

The reasonable ones gradually come out through the mists a few weeks or months after the Big Day and feel either ashamed of themselves for having been such selfish bitches or proud of themselves for having withstood the absurdity they were encouraged to go in for, and the unreasonable ones get stuck in that world forever - they turn into those "OMG I'm the only person in the whole history of the universe who has ever had a baby, don't you dare come near and breathe on him" types.

Novicecamper · 20/04/2008 12:45

Jesus - she is joking, right?
Don't go at all - go and have your anniversary weekend.

MadameCh0let · 20/04/2008 12:47

Littlebella, so true, in 18 months, this bridezilla will be insisting people wash their hands before they wrap the present they send her baby. the first REAL baby in the world.

spicemonster · 20/04/2008 13:17

I've just had a brilliant idea. Dress your DS up in his outfit, take a photo and have a life size cardboard replica made. Voila! Your DS but without any noise or inconvenience to put in her wedding photos.

StealthPolarBear · 20/04/2008 13:20

lol spicemonster

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