Invited to party and no one there!

[harlacem0507]

As the title starts basically! My 19 month old got invited to a 1st birthday party by a mum I know from baby group (not close but make small talk every week) at our local village hall. Party started at 3pm, we rocked up at 3.20 as our daughter overslept from her nap and no one was there! Bouncy castle was inflated, along with chairs and tables and balloons organized but no one about! We saw the lady that runs the village hall she said they popped back for something and gave her a call, said u have guests, mum replied we are coming back anyway, so we waited another 20 minutes outside the actual doors (but inside the main hall) then the brother of the mum arrived and let us in, a few more people with kids arrived and it got to 4.10 and we decided to leave, there was no juice to get the kids, no food etc as they obviously hadn't come back, I felt a bit bad leaving but aibu to think wtf was all that about? I mean I like to think I'm chilled but this was on another level? My partner was astounded by it! Oh and we didn't leave the present either as it seemed a bit odd leaving it and not being there so my daughter is currently playing with it!

Have you messaged the mum to check that everything is ok?

What makes you think they were travellers?

Totally agree. Clearly this wasn't planned, they've spent money and I'd suspect something unfortunate has happened. The birthday child certainly had no say in this.

Thank you, I did. Whether you think a 1 year old needs a party at a hired room or not, the expense had been gone to and wasted (for the parents), the guests had agreed to attend and intended for the child to have a birthday gift and the child would have liked her present. Especially if there's some sort of family emergency, it's handy to have something to occupy a little one.

To be fair, if the party was booked for 3pm, and not a single soul was there by 3:15pm, I might be tempted to go home too!

@Liliol The child wouldnt have had a clue! She’s 1

It’s still mean spirited to keep the present though!

Party = present
No party = no present

Something obviously happened, I doubt they set it all up to waste your time 🙄
And you wouldn’t even let the kid have the present. Wow.

Really mean to keep the present.

You were late! 20 minutes late. Which means they saw nobody arrived. I feel so sorry for them.

You did, because you said your own DD was currently playing with it.

Lots of PP have said it was mean to keep the gift like I did, but my post seems to be the one that keeps being replied to taking issue that the child was only 1 and wouldn't know what she'd missed.
But you will. And your daughter has received a present. That's seems odd to me.

The fact that no one else was there when you first got there, even though you were late suggests either
A) something happened, possibly at the start of the party so the other people who were there at the start also left because they assumed it now wasn't going ahead
B) everyone was late and they were upset thinking no one was coming so they left after 15 minutes
C) it's a social group where times are very loose and people aren't expected to turn up on time, so they were relaxed. This seems less likely if you are in the UK though, in my experience kids parties usually run to a much more set timetable than adult parties and the majority of people turn up at the time stated
D) they made a mistake in the time they put on the invitation and thought they'd said later.

You were 20 mins late so I suspect when no one was there by 3.15 they assumed no one was coming and went home upset and then maybe the mum didn’t want to face everyone

i don’t understand why everyone, including you, were so late tbh

You were annoyed?

I doubt she did it to annoy you.

Something obviously happened.

I agree with pp that you were mean to keep the present.

Could this have been one of those situations, frequently mentioned on MN, where despite RSVP being clearly stated on the invitations, no one bothered to do so? If no one was likely to turn up, party abandoned.

OP, you RSVP’ed of course.

Good for you.

Lucky the kids are too little to care, but hopefully they sort themselves out before the children ARE old enough to realise

No one else bothered go come and you were 20 minutes late yet you don't think your being unreasonable.

I would assume something had happened.

Nobody goes to the bother of arranging a party and not turning up for no good reason.

Some people are just chronically late for things! When DD1 was in primary school she went to a party that didn't start until 2 hours after the time on the invitation - we were lift sharing so I wasn't there, but my friend who was dropping and her friend stayed (as she didn't want to leave them) and she said it was so odd!

The same Mum then turned up with 5 minutes left of DD's party (it was an activity with clear start and end times). Just no sense of time at all.

It is bizarre that none of the guests were there at the start time. Every single party I have hosted (and there have been a lot as my kids are now teens) people have begun arriving from about 10 minutes before the start time.

The whole situation it very strange but I still think you should have left the gift!

Tbh, whenever someone describes themselves as being "20mins late", it's at least 30mins. It's most reasonable to assume that the party mum assumed nobody was coming and didn't receive any RSVPs.

Why was everyone so late? I'd have been upset if I were the parents.

Exactly my thoughts.

It’s strange that you and the other guests all arrived late.

There could have been an emergency situation with an older sibling at home which is why the brother turned up to help rather than the parents coming back. I would have just left the present there with the brother or saved it until you next see her.