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.

Absolutely agree

but the defending of being unnecessarily nasty will carry on

What? At you?

Surely the whole point of an anonymous forum is that you get more honest responses than you would from a friend, with no soft soaping?

And I think the other very salient thing here is that there is not really another victim in this situation to defend.

Sometimes you get posts where you think actually OP is really doing something that is seriously harming someone else, and they really need a wake up call to see their behaviour for what it is. For me this is especially the case with threads about elderly and infirm parents ( eg: do I really need to bring my Dad home for Christmas? It takes twenty minutes to drive to the hone and he’s now got so he dribbles which puts the rest of us off our Christmas champagne”); or stepparent threads ( Aibu to take my own Dc to the Maldives because SC is at an awkward age and complains we favour our Dc but they’re just so much nicer.”) In these cases, I can see posters get angry at the treatment of those parties and really feel they need robust defending, and the op needs to recognise the behaviour as foul because people are being substantively harmed by it.

But there is no such justification here . The DIL and DS did it their way, they got the party they wanted the way they wanted it, DS didn’t have to thank his mum and seems to have been quite unaffected and apologetic when she mentioned it. The worst they have had to field is feeling a relative is a bit of a nuisance. They seem quite able to field it. In that circumstance, all that is required is a gentle suggestion to op that she might be best not to make an issue of it and would benefit by realising that lowering expectations for involvement going forward might lead to less disappointment. But the real victim here is op. Her feelings were hurt ( rightly or wrongly) and she is the one who is going to have to adjust going forward. Why does that have to be delivered with a sledgehammer and a barrage of insults? Noone is really being defended. I can tell you why. It’s because she’s in the weak seat and it’s sport for a certain type of poster.

@Calliopespa OP is not a victim. She’s creating a problem for herself and others, and your assertion that the bride and groom aren’t affected in any way by her behavior is absolutely baseless. You have no clue what’s going on on her DS and DIL’s end.

Dealing with family members who try to make themselves the center of things that aren’t about them and value their own preferences and wishes over others is often exhausting and hurtful.

You’re just reinforcing the narcissism.

It’s not reinforcing it if telling her it’s not going to lead anywhere helpful.

But it is. You’re continuing to make it all about her and actively encouraging her to continue to ignore the impact her behavior has on others.

I don’t believe so.

You can understand how people feel the way they do without telling them they are right in their behaviour.

And I do think the DS could have handled things differently without any harm to anyone else.

… and have you thought - really thought - about the impact of the nasty posters on op since you are all about impact?

Have only read the OP’s posts.

OP, you are completely out of order and interfered. Demanding certain people be invited and then telling them not to eat. It absolutely wasn’t your place to do that. And there wasn’t anything to thank you for at the party (which you eeem to think has the same etiquette as an actual wedding).

£75 per child regardless of inflation is pretty unfair, but a good indicator of your very rigid thinking.

Tread carefully. Remember that it’s your son, who is now an adult, that is your child. Not DIL. (DH and I have been married for 20 years and I don’t even have PIL’s phone numbers.

You are deeply judgemental and I fear that will bite you in the arse in years to come.

It has been a throughly depressing read. All the sneers about Morrison platters, DJ Dave, he is 'marrying up op so do get on sm so you can keep up'.

So many missing the very obvious. 2 sets of parents, one set feel excluded and unwanted. This I suspect will snowball. I doubt this high end pair will want a buffet at the local community centre for their reception either, pils will no doubt step up though without any discussion or inclusion of the ds's parents.

It isn't rocket science, for family events if you're making a speech you find a reason, any reason to thank key relatives equally. Not just those who paid.

'£75 per child regardless of inflation is pretty unfair, but a good indicator of your very rigid thinking.'

It was a token gift for an engagement. Absolutely fine.

But it is about her, she's the one who bloody posted, the son doesn't give a flying fuk, let's be honest. But as usual, let's defend everyone else and not try give some advice to the actual person who posted and who is clearly hurt, let's have a go at her for daring to feel upset, the cheek of her to have feelings!!

Exactly

What, how dare she do that, the utter cheek of her, and all those years when you were a kid, bet she never cooked your favourite dinner ever, some people ay!!

2 sets of parents, one set feel excluded and unwanted.

Op didn’t mention anything about her husband feeling excluded and unwanted. Op has made herself feel excluded and unwanted. Her son and his wife-to-be be organised a party where his mother’s suggestions weren’t taken on board. They didn’t need to be, it wasn’t her party. Nobody needed to make op feel included by taking on any of her suggestions. She was thanked for her attendance, alongside everyone else who came.

And I’m not sure what your point is about the ‘high end couple’ (fabulous inverted snobbery there btw!) not wanting a buffet at the local community centre, or her parents stepping up without any discussion or inclusion of op? Why should they be included? It’s her son and his partner’s day. They decide what they want their day to look like and the parents’ decide if they want to contribute financially. Thats literally the extent of their involvement.

You expect to be able to demand the dinner of your choice cooked by your adult offspring, on a day of your choosing, because you fed your children when they were young?

😂

So many missing the very obvious. 2 sets of parents, one set feel excluded and unwanted.

Because that set of parents - or OP anyway - not only refused to accept that their help was not needed on this occasion, but actively pushed to fundamentally change the event just so that they could feel like they were “helping”. The OP openly admits that, had she been more involved, she would have tried to stop them paying for decorations to be done professionally, swapped the catered food for supermarket platters, tried to redirect budget elsewhere because she thought it was a waste to pay for things she could do herself… that’s not help, it’s interference.

You can’t cry over being “excluded” if, at every step, your attempts to be included mean riding roughshod over the existing arrangements and, above all, the preferences of the two people who are meant to matter most here.

If OP wanted to feel more included in things, she could have said early on, “Okay, it seems like you have the party all in hand. Is there anything I could do to help with the wedding? You only have to ask”. A nice offer, her son knows she’s there for him, and best of all, no Mr Don’t from Harry Enfield routine.

Isn't this thread over yet?

Well you've just posted so I'd say no .

Well no because you may only know two men. It is a stereotype it’s the very definition of the word!!

Lol why are you so desperate to make out men care about the intricacies of party planning? I stand by the statement that MOST men don’t.

Ask the men you know and whether they’d be interested in Prosecco bars, balloon arches, canapés etc at a party, and then come back to me.

Ask the men you know and whether they’d be interested in Prosecco bars, balloon arches, canapés etc at a party, and then come back to me

DH is not interested at all in such things, nor am I frankly, however he organised the majority of our wedding, simply because I was too busy at work at the time and didn’t have the capacity to meet/communicate/organise things. A few vendors tried to insist I was present and wouldn’t finalise bless this was the case but he pushed back and said if they delivered what was agreed/signed off in writing and he had paid then that’s that. He got a lot of ‘what if she doesn’t like it’, but too bad, too sad, in such a situation I just had to ‘like’ everything he handed on (even if I didn’t).

My DH is not alone in this, I have friends where similar has been the case. None of the men ‘likes and wants’ to party plan events, but it becomes a needs must thing.

Given the responses here are you willing to accept you over stepped OP?

Also don't just assume your DiL is now responsible for keeping you updated. That's not fair on her.