To un-RSVP to this wedding?

[SaltySallyAnne]

Not sure if I’m being a bit dramatic or entitled to feel a bit put out

context -
We have been invited to DHs cousins wedding. It’s in a remote area of Scotland and on a Thursday. To attend we need to take 3 days off work and it’s child free so will need to leave DD at home and my aunt is coming to look after her and drop off at school etc.

The bride and Groom have no family that way and are all southerners so travel is quite a lot for everyone. (Grooms family is Devon based)

Due to the remote location and being in an area of outstanding beauty hotels within an hour radius of the wedding venue are expensive. The cheapest we have seen is £250 a night (for a B&B over a pub…)

Now, although it’s annoying having to take so much time off work, and the hotel costs, we RSVP’d yes as we can just about afford the hotel and it’s a family wedding, doesn’t happen every day etc. plus there are some family members that are relatively old and it might be the last big family celebration they make it to.

Now onto the AIBU.

The wedding venue is a castle type location, and in the grounds there is accommodation as part of the wedding package. 50 rooms. The cost to guests is only £120 for the 2 nights needed (night before and night of the wedding) FIL and his wife were given a room, which we expected since aunt and uncle are immediate family.

However we have just found out that they have also offered one of these rooms to DHs brother and his wife, in addition to his step sister and her boyfriend.

This has rubbed DH and I up the wrong way, we had assumed on site accommodation was for immediate family and cousins were a bit far removed. But to find out one of DHs brothers and his step sister were given one is a bit shit. (All siblings are adults, in well paid jobs so it’s not due to that)

In my view they have decided who in their families they want to ensure attend the wedding, by offering cheaper lodging and (as I’ve found out yesterday) putting on transport for guests staying on site. I begrudge paying over £500, taking 3 days off work and leaving DD for 3 days to go to the wedding of someone who clearly isn’t too concerned about us attending.

DH is annoyed and a bit hurt, but says since we have already said we are going and were fine with all the inconveniences until finding out about his step sister and brother being offered a room, it’s a bit unreasonable to now back out. (The wedding is over the Easter half term next year, so I think that’s still plenty of notice)

AIBU to not go purely because of who they allocated on site lodgings to?

Maybe they thought you would turn the invite down based on all the faff which everyone knows is harder with kids. As per DHs other sibling. So maybe they offered the rooms to those they felt more likely to attend? I think now is plenty of notice to say you can’t make it. It would be too far for me, if no kids and in the school holidays.

THIS

What @goingdownfighting said.

I think there is plenty of time to revoke your RSVP, and it does sound like a lot of money and inconvenience, but I think in your place I would still go. My brother is closer to several of my cousins than I am, and it would not bother me in the least if said cousins gave him preferential treatment. Your DH feels differently, though, so I think I would defer to him in this instance.

I have s friend with a castle in Scotland that gets rented out for weddings so Im a bit agog at all this angst.

I think you are reasonable to feel hurt but unreasonable to emphasize that its a “step sister and boyfriend” who got the room. Its just someone close to the bride and groom and her plys one. Its not an insult because step is a lesser life form.

The other sibling doesn’t know about the room situation as they RSVPd no at the start due to childcare

If you don't want to go just decline 🤷🏼‍♀️ the response @BeardieWeirdie suggested was perfect.

You know what you need to pay / put in place to go so weigh it up.

In the nicest way the bride and groom probably have a million things to worry about and will just want to know final numbers.

I think you're overreacting to the room thing. They'll have had an obvious list (parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, wedding party etc) and then a few rooms left over.

Yes allocating them to DH's siblings does imply they're closer but I'm sure that's not news to DH. Are they closer in age, location, share interests etc? Or even just have more similar personalities.

You were willing to go before, and all the reasons you were willing to go still apply. I think not going giving the distance, time and expense involved would be fair enough but I think YABU about the rooms.

This 👆

I believe that it shouldn't be up to you and you should follow your DH's lead on this as it is his family. Personally, I would ask to be first in line if any rooms are freed up (Easter 2025 is still quite far away).
For me the opportunity to see the whole family together esp. the older generation would be the most important factor. Not whether I was one of the chosen in preferential accommodation.

They may be close to those siblings. Or they may want the castle to be party vibe, who knows. My dsis did similar but I wasn't in the castle part because I had small kids and we both felt it wouldn't work, I booked my own accommodation.

So yabu to be insulted in the accommodation stakes but yanbu to decline now on the grounds of cost

Probably depends on how much you love the family and want to see them get married. If you're starting a Mumsnet thread in Oct feeling slighted by room allocation for an Easter wedding maybe that answers the question

You ought to have done the same since it's entitled and rude to expect prople to travel, take time off work and pay expensive lodging to attend your precious wedding. They are being cf and since you are not on their vip list as your DHs brother and stepsister I would say so sorry, can't make it. Blame it on no childcare if they can't find out. I would never have made so much effort for someone I don't even feel close to! Save your time and money for a minibreak with DD!

Well that’s the issue. It is news to DH about them being closer.

Let DH go alone, I wouldn't be putting that much money, time and effort in to be treated like shit.

To give the on site accomodation to a step sister but not your DH is an insult. I bet once you add in present, card and outfits, plus your hair being done no doubt, it's going to hit £1k.

I would tell them why you won't be attending as well.

I get the same all the time with DHs lot. I ceased to attend anything after my SILs last birthday party ten years ago. Was treated like utter shit the whole night. Never been to anything since and won't be changing that.

This

Deffo send this! Maybe a room will appear 😂

They probably didn't expect you to attend as you have children. I don't think I'd give up 3 days to go.

But you've said he felt left out as a child. I don't think it's unusual for the cousins you were closest to as children to be the ones you're closest to as adults.

Don't go and back out gracefully as the PP suggested texts above. You’ll have a sour face in all the wedding photos if you do go and not be any fun so best stay at home.

To me the question is: will you and DH enjoy it when you get there, or will you continue to feel aggrieved and left out at the different accommodation situations? If it’s the latter, don’t bother.

Since it's the two cousins with children who were not included in these rooms, is it possibly something as innocuous as they thought you might need to bring your children along with a baby-sitter to be nearby (since a child-free wedding) whereas they knew the other two would just be adults bringing themselves with no complications?

People have all sorts of motivations for these sorts of things, some completely illogical and sometimes no real motivation at all. I'd tend to try for graciousness and looking forward to the wedding for all the reasons you previously were.

PP's suggestion of sorry, can't find affordable accommodation, wish you well etc is perfect.

It's possibly not as personal as you feel. If there are 50 rooms it's not cherry picking 2 out of 4, it's picking X out of all the cousins across both families, which is potentially an awful lot of couples all at the same "level". Say I have 14 cousins and only 11 rooms available after aunties, parents etc. What should I do? Not offer them to anyone? Not offer to aunties so as to get all cousins in, in the interests of fairness?

There is a very good chance not everyone will take up the offer and they will have a room to offer you, but they can't guarantee it until people RSVP. Sure it doesn't feel great to be lower down the list, but try not to take it too personally. Someone has to be.

Yes as a child, by his father and mother. Even the other sibling not invited. Since his FIL remarried and had his younger brother he didn’t feel this way. Hence this is rearing its head again.

We can’t all be ‘A guests’ at all weddings OP, it’s okay that the B&G are closer to some cousins and not others, that’s just life. My DH has so many cousins we could have filled the entire guest list with just cousins so he had to ‘cherry pick’ a handful to invite, some of which stayed at the venue and one of whom was a groomsman (shock horror!). I sincerely hope the rest of them didn’t get their knickers in as much of a twist as you, but I guess we wouldn’t have known either way 🤷🏻‍♀️ actually one of his uncles refused to come because we hadn’t invited his daughters but I always just thought that made him really immature 😂 wedding guest lists are hard, and assigning limited venue accommodation is really hard. Honestly, I thought the only people who got butt hurt about that was maybe the people who haven’t been married yet so don’t understand what it’s like (or maybe so long ago they’ve forgotten). But if you don’t want to go, don’t go, plenty of time to change your RSVP. As Mumsnet always says, ‘it’s an invitation not a summons’!