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.

I see something of both. It's doing the OP a disservice to deny the former, because if she continues in the same vein she is at real risk of doing irreperable damage to her relationship with her DS.

Yes, some of the posts upthread are too much. It's a spectator sport around here to kick people who are already down. But I think it important to differentiate between this form of cruelty and some of the wise if blunt advice given on this thread.

OP has posted here in an attempt to understand and to justify her position and in doing so has received a lot of advice she clearly did not want to hear. As it happens, what she wanted to hear wasn't what she needed to hear. On this occasion at least, MN has been cruel to be kind. That is what this site is for.

Hurt people, hurt people. This impasse is where insurmountable family divisions begin. I appreciate that the OP is hurt. And she will be more hurt in the future, should her DS and future DiL remove themselves at a safe distance from further behaviour of this sort.

FWIW I have no skin in the game. I find the very idea of an 'engagement party' anathema. I can't abide identikit formality, overplanned lack of sponteneity, and dismal, tedious speeches even at weddings, let alone the myriad satellite events people are expected to attend in addition.

That matters nothing. It isn't about what I think, and it isn't about what OP thinks, either. As a loving parent it's hard to let go of the apron strings, but her adult son is no longer a child she can tell what to do. Her choices are simple: either recognise this, or be prepared for a lot of unhappiness in the future.

There is nothing inherently wrong with Morrisons platters, DIY decs or anything similar. The problem is that the engaged couple clearly didn't want that and OP still doesn't seem to get that it really is about their wishes, not hers, as presumably she has had her own engagement and wedding in the past that she did have control over.

I sincerely hope that she works on understanding their POV before the wedding, because at the moment this is very fixable and an opportunity to do things differently (ie their way) It would be an absolute shame for any more unnecessary bad feeling and miscommunication to mar happy events and cause fractures that are harder to put right.

I'm sorry OP, but you sound very much like my mum and mil when DH and I got married. ILs had said they would've us a specific item as a gift but mil didn't like the one we chose and ordered something very different and not to our taste. Unfortunately, it wasn't the sort of thing we could just return so we were stuck with it for several years until we could afford to replace it. My mum, despite not offering to help in any way with our wedding, basically wanted to run it to suit her and was most put out when DH and I insisted on doing our wedding our way. From the food choices to the guest list, my mum thought she was entitled to tell us what to do. It really spoiled the run up to our wedding. She hasn't changed - she tried to do the same when my ds got married and wonders why we tend to keep her at arms length.
As far as your gift to your ds, I think the very least you should have done was to go on one of those websites that calculates the present day value of cash amounts from years ago allowing for inflation. You could have at least give him the equivalent of what you gave your other dcs.
Yes, you have have a bit of a kicking here, but I think that happened because you clearly weren't taking on board the comments at the start.
Hopefully you've had time to think now and realise you have been unreasonable.

I’m going to keep that in mind the next time I arrange catering for a business meeting - they look ideal.

Thank you. But give them 4 days notice and fgs keep the sausages in the fridge as my DH ate a sausage left over from a meeting (NOT supplied by Morrisons) and by gosh did we know about it the next day when we were on the plane going on holiday.

I know this probably isn’t what you want to hear but I have to be completely honest. I have read all of the posts that you have made and you sound unbearable. I could not stand having a mother-in-law that kept interfering like you are. Just leave them to it.

i know what AIBU is about I have been on MN for a number of years

I know what online bullying is and when comments are made with the aim is to be nasty are they are very clear

we shall have to agree to disagree

OMG - massive rethink underway!

I see a lot of posts like this. Certain people like to dismiss any large-scale dissent against the OP as a “pile-on” or similar; as if everyone is out to cause trouble or upset.

This is an advice forum. The OP shouldn’t have come if she didn’t want advice. However, equally so, she is under zero obligation to accept any of that advice. Even if literally every poster on the thread had sided against her, she would have the perfect right to say “Well they’re all wrong; I KNOW I did the right thing”. But you can’t criticise the act of giving advice even if you think the advice is wrong or unfair.

Obviously I can’t speak for anyone else, but personally I don’t think the OP is a horrible person or being deliberately malicious. I DO think that she has a quite rigid way of doing things, doesn’t really like others going against this and thinks a) she is being genuinely helpful by saying so and b) is being “snubbed” because her son and DIL to be said “Thanks, but no thanks”.

Which is the reason for my caveat, "unless there is a poor relationship". Whether or not you do it in your family, it's traditional and polite to include close family members.

You do understand that it's a consideration? Nobody said it was "mandatory". I did invite relatives that we weren't close to when we got married about 100 years ago. It was a courtesy. I wouldn't do it again, but then I won't be getting married again and most of the relatives concerned are dead.

I wouldn't be happy if my siblings were left out of any such occasion but my children are close to them and wouldn't do that.

I agree that it is traditional to invite relatives but where we differ is that I don't believe tradition means it is the polite thing to do.

It would be a bit odd not to invite siblings unless it was an extremely tiny wedding. Even stranger not to invite parents or children - unless there was a postively toxic, abusive relationship.

Telling an aunt, uncle or cousin to fuck off if they ask if they can come to a wedding would be rude. Simply choosing not to invite them isn't.

I don't think the bride and groom should be obliged to invite relatives. If my daughter gets married, I would be hurt if she didn't invite me and her Dad. Apart from that, I want her to invite whoever is important to her, whether that be friends, relatives or a mixture of both.

I don't think anyone is "vociferously defending" the OP. I think some of us are uncomfortable with the avalanche of personal criticism being hurled at her.

I would be mortified if one of my children excluded my siblings, as they have grown up with a close relationship to them!!

A close friend of mine paid for her DC's wedding, but wasn't allowed to invite any of her own closest friends. The DC grudgingly relented and allowed her parents to invite 2 couples. I'm sorry but I think that's downright selfish. But then I don't think a wedding is only about the couple - it's about their families too, or they could just fuck off and get married without guests! The parents needed people to hang out with that weren't just their kids' uni friends!

Unlike the avalanche of personal criticism FROM the OP herself?

This is very thoughtful, well written and true 👌

Yes.

I don't agree. If you offer to pay for DC's wedding it should be without strings, or don't offer. Don't do it if you're then going to whine to invite your own friends, it's not your event. The DC weren't selfish to want to choose their own guests to their own wedding, the parents were selfish to leverage paying to get to input into the guest list. That's like giving me a jumper for an Xmas present then thinking you can tell me when to wear it.

So OP is allowed to criticise her DS? To not get that her help wasn't required as much as she kept suggesting with what SHE wanted?
But, after she has asked specifically about whether she's being unreasonable, posters aren't allowed to tell her she is?

Well I completely disagree with you. My friend did not whinge at all or "leverage" but she was bitterly disappointed. It would not have meant on her DC missing out on any of their guests. It's nothing like your jumper. We're talking people who were friends way before the DC were even born! Are the parents not entitled to enjoy their DC's big day too?? (I guess you will say not!)

I despise the entitled attitude that prevails around weddings. All about the bride and groom with no consideration given to anyone else! We happily invited people for our parents to socialise with during the day. They were people who had been a big part of our lives too.

There's nicer ways of doing it.

'Bitterly disappointed' to spend one day with her DCs choice of guests without her own mates to hang out with?I think it's selfish for parents to say they can't enjoy their DCs wedding without getting to have their mates there, can't they just let the day be about the people getting married? Did they need their mates along with them to enjoy their DCs graduation ceremony too? Or school play, or football awards ceremony? Someone was entitled, but it wasn't the bride and groom.

Bullshit.

You can give advice without being derisory and nasty.

It’s also possible to offer understanding without thinking the op is entirely in the right.

I said to op that I don’t think there is anything worth raising further with her DS, that the bigger picture is to just let it go now. But you can give that advice at the same time as understanding how she felt, even if you don’t feel she was fully justified in feeling that way.

Personally don’t think it required a gifted orator to work in a small acknowledgment of his parents by the DS, and I think it would have been kind to do so. We don’t all have to limit our behaviour to only doing what we are strictly obligated to do.

I agree with the comments about how weddings have shifted from being family celebrations to being a me, me, me fest for the bride and groom. I think that’s a big part of the vitriol towards op to be honest.

Well that well-crafted rebuttal has certainly convinced me of your argument.