Not thanked at engagement party

[Whoisunreasonable]

To cut a long story short it was my son’s engagement party recently. Marrying a lovely girl. After they booked the party we were sent details and times, not given anymore info. We turned up and party was very extravagant and fancy. Turned out the brides family paid for the whole thing. We gifted them £75 as an engagement present.

Son made a small speech and cheers with champagne thanking everyone for coming and for presents and then thanked brides parents for all of the efforts they’d put into planning the party and for paying for it. No thanks to any of his side of the family at all. I raised this with him and he didn’t see my problem at all. He told me it wasn’t a wedding speech where he was thanking everyone individually, just a few words and it would be rude not to thank them. AIBU to think he should have thanked us too? It was very embarrassing not to even be mentioned. I asked if he needed me to do anything for the party and was told no as they had vendors doing it.

It’s all conjecture really. You’re imputing how conversations went that you were not part of, you’re assuming motivations.

There is a chance you’re right. We can’t know because we were not there and we’re not in her mind.

But why go all out mocking and deriding the op?Why not just say “ it’s possible they felt you might insist on doing it your way if you were involved more, and that’s a warning worth considering as the marriage goes ahead.” If it was balanced, constructive feedback people would let it go.

But no, we’ve got snide conjecture about op opining on an Aunt Rhonda’s digestive tract - yet you say it’s “all true.”

I don't understand you think the arrangements were any of your concern. They are adults who are able to organize what they want at a price that works for them.

Telling other guests to eat ahead of time because your son won't be providing hospitality is overstepping. It wasn't your place to intervene. Why do you feel the need to be in the middle of everything?

I don't do much social media either but it sounds like you're going to have to, if you want to stay in the loop.

"I was telling son about a christening we had gone to which had Morrisons platters and suggesting them for the party. He said they weren’t having a buffet."

Yep. There we go.

Yes, we agree on the OP’s unreasonableness.

I just meant that I don’t think the blame of miscommunication lies with her son, from the various comments by the OP, but in her own inability to listen.

From her (second?) post claiming people are misunderstanding her, I don’t think she is listening to what is actually said, she’s got her preconceived ideas too firmly set in her mind.

@Calliopespa I'm almost 60. It's been standard practice around these parts for as long as I can remember.

No one is saying thank you for spending x amount of money for goodness sake. They say thank you for providing/putting on/hosting etc.

You may think it is gauche but I'm curious in what circles it would be considered gauche as the circles as I am aware of this sort of gratitude being included in a speech being standard etiquette across all demographics from landed gentry to family garden parties.

Unfortunately to the poster who asked I cannot post pics on here of party without being outed but I could so you could all see my point

What point is that then?

That the food wasn't a Morrisons platter?

That the food was in some way boastful?

I'm struggling to understand your point @Whoisunreasonable

@Calliopespa

And as for the royal events comment… I honestly can’t imagine Charles got up at William’s wedding and traced the intricacies of the funding. I mean loads of royal events would essentially become “ thanks to the taxpayer…”
Discussions about the relevance of the monarchy aside, have you really never seen a foreign dignitary stand up and thank the then queen for hosting/putting on an event? Really?

OP I think you need to take a step back and read through your messages here. Each one makes you sound more frustrating and meddling than the last. And yes, judgmental.

How do you know for a fact you have more money than the bride’s family? Are you going to give your older children more generous gifts now that you have more money?

There's nothing wrong with parties where the organiser does lots of the catering herself (or himself) or if the organiser asks her friends to make things.
I've held parties where we made our own food, and had fairly simple buffets.
I think the guests enjoyed them, too.
But the OP is unable to countenance that her son and his fiancee wanted something different. Her input was not required, and she was told this in advance.

This is exactly it. Those few defending the OP have become bogged down in the criticism from some posters of “knees-up” type parties.

I actually don’t think there’s anything wrong with the kind of party OP was expecting. It’s not inferior to a catered event (as long as you
enjoy it) - just different. You can still enjoy Pizza Express even though it’s not a Michelin star restaurant.

However, you’d have to be a bit of a killjoy to go to the Michelin star restaurant and spend the whole night saying under your breath “I could have made this at home for 15 quid” and tutting that you don’t really need a waiter to top your glass up. Which is essentially what the OP did.

Absolutely. It’s the fact that the OP does seem to be dismissive and sneery because it wasn’t her thing. It does seem her DS try to explain to her it was an organised catered event but she chose not to hear it.

If under different circumstances they’d said ‘fantastic mum we’d really appreciate you helping with the buffet and doing the hall up’ then that would have been totally different.

However it does feel like the OP would have been miserable even if her drinks were served by a rainbow unicorn with elves fire juggling on their backs, Gordon Ramsey doing the food and Beyoncé was performing a live set.

The thing is though, OP, you may have thought your homemade decorations and Morrisons platters would be fine and money saving. What's clear is that your DS did not want that.

Your DS didn't ask you to help because he knows you well enough to know that the kind of help you were offering wasn't the kind of help he wanted.

Your DS got the party he and his future wife wanted paid for by his future in-laws who likely said here's the budget do what you want.

Your DS is adult enough to be getting married, and part of that is you accepting he is an adult who has his own thoughts and views, which can't be overridden by you.

You weren't thanked publicly because you hadn't done anything to be thanked publicly for.

Yes absolutely. But it’s never been a financial thing. It’s been “hosting” and generally part of a gracious acknowledgment of all sorts of various contributions - not just limited to it only being relevant to include people who actually coughed up money.

Have you really never socialised with people who don’t give thanks more widely than the event funders?

We do have the funds to pay for half if he had asked but I’m not sure we would have wanted to pay for something so fancy when it didn’t really need to be like that. But he didn’t give us the choice.
He knows you. He KNOWS you wouldn't want to contribute. YOU know you wouldn't want to contribute. But you still wanted him to ask you???? Are you always this awkward? You are upset because he didn't ask you to do something both you and he knew you wouldn't want to do.
This is bonkers OP
If he had said we’re buying this this and this I would have said I could handle it myself and saved money
And created something THEY DID NOT WANT. If someone wants Gucci then an home made frock isn't going to be the same is it? They didn't need to save money as the in laws were happy to pay.
The party was beautiful but I can’t help but think if we all banded together like I wanted we could have achieved the same outcome.
Like YOU wanted. This is the crux of it. You can't understand that t wasn't about what you wanted. It's not about you. At all. They got what they wanted. You wanted to do some home crafted job. That's nice. BUT IT IS NOT WHAT THEY WANTED. They wanted a cohesive, designed, beautiful event. Not Morrison's platters and Amazon balloon garlands.
Can you not see the difference

The fact that you apparently can't see the difference is in no small likelihood WHY they didn't want you involved.

And you wanted thanking 🤦🏻‍♀️

'If someone wants Gucci then an home made frock isn't going to be the same is it?'

What an awful, condescending attitude and why all the caps? You do realise that reads as shouting don't you? Stop shouting.

But people do now say “ thanks to Bob and Wendy who paid for all this.” Im not nearly 60 but I’m old enough to remember my grandmother popping a gasket when my father thanked someone for “ paying for” the wine at an event: for her era the correct word was donated. I distinctly remember my dad saying “ well he sent a cheque to the wine merchant. You make it sound as if he tripped over the cases of it in his hallway and decided to pass it on.” But several people were agreeing with my GM that you don’t mention money the behind an event. That all came later with corporate sponsorship etc.

And I agree with you that thanks for “ hosting” is fine because it is oblique about the payment of money; but equally other contributions can be scooped up with it - or even just an acknowledgment that you were thrilled they were there to celebrate with you. I mean would that have been an issue?

sounds like DS is really crap at communicating with OP

is there anything in OP’s posts here that might lead you to think she may have form for interfering in DS’s life and so he is consciously keeping her at arms length?

So maybe not crap at communicating but making a conscious choice to reduce opportunities for conflict.

To me this ‘pro’ level of control is something you’d have to work up to - no one just wakes up like this one day, and it’s clearly not a one off as OP is doubling down and planning to ‘press’ STBDIL in the run up to the wedding! OP is a habitual offender IMHO.

She doesn’t do SM but is on mumsnet? Likely she is not engaging with FB because that’s not how she thinks party invitations should be sent, along with everything else she disapproves of about this party that is not her party and that she is not paying for but apparently wants thanking at because the people who did pay for it all got a shout out. She’s just butt hurt she didn’t get her own way and has embarrassed herself.

I hope this doesn't come across rude but you mentioned there isn't much wealth difference. I wondered why you didn't contribute financially to the party like the brides parents.

Also I thought £75 seemed a strange amount. Would you not give £100.

Well to be fair we don’t know what they are…

Wow. Are you personally invested in attacking this woman? I just feel sorry for her the more you go at her …

I don’t like Gucci anyway. Think I’d take the homemade frock …

Wow. Are you personally invested in absolving the OP’s? I feel sorry for all the posters you are having a go at…

The OP buggered things up, hasn’t apologised to her son, has been condescending about the party and still can’t see that her type of help isn’t what the bride and groom want. She’s also penny pinching when she claims to be better off.

All her subsequent posts show she still hasn’t understood what she is doing that is wrong. It’s frustrating.

It’s clear she loves her son very much. She needs to readjust how she expresses that love if she doesn’t want to push her son away.

By putting what she wants - and what she thinks is The Right Way To Do Things - she’s causing problems rather than solving them.

I think it’s more about OP being deeply snide about her son and fiancé’s choices, trying to control the guest list of not her party and moaning about not being asked to contribute financially despite saying she would not contribute if asked even though she could afford it. Then painting herself the victim.

We got married a long time ago.

We had two lightweight Antler suitcases on our John Lewis gift list.

My FIL said to me that instead there were some really nice-looking suitcases for quite cheap in Aldi.

I said thank you but we really wanted the lightweight antler ones because we knew we'd be doing a lot of long-haul travel over the years, and that we'd wait and get them eventually.

He bought us the Aldi ones.

We bought the antler ones with gift vouchers in the end.

We used the Aldi ones as storage for a few years, the handle snapped on one just getting it in the loft and eventually we got rid.

Antler ones still going strong with a lot of air miles done.

The Aldi ones were a complete waste of money because they were not what we wanted!!

OP, please only give gifts/time that is wanted, otherwise you're just imposing yourself and seen as an irritant, not a generous family member.

A DD is a DD for all of her life … a DS is a DS till he finds a wife … as the old rhyme goes …