To not want to go to uncle's fancy dinner anymore

[gollyimholly]

It was recently my DD's 2nd birthday. The plan was that DD's favourite people come for dinner and playtime with DD (grandparents plus mine and DH's siblings - 11 people in total). Unexpectedly my uncle texted (at about 4.30pm) asking if he could come over - he wasn't aware I was having a family dinner but I was more than happy to have him over as he lives a 100 miles away and so it isn't often he is down. He then said he had some colleagues with him and would there be enough food or should he tell them to eat elsewhere. I was astounded - explained it was literally DD's birthday, I had cooked a nice meal for the family and it would be best if his colleagues ate elsewhere. He then replied they were 10 minutes away (about 5.45pm) and that his colleagues were small eaters. I replied I wouldn't have enough for his 3 colleagues but if he just came on his own that would be fine. I was furious.

I told DH I wasn't coming out of the kitchen and that he was to only serve them juice and biscuits and my uncle could sort out their food. My house is organised so that I have a through lounge where the living room and dining area is one massive room. I felt like it would be so awkward if the colleagues were sat in the living area and my family were sat in the dining area having dinner. Anyway they arrived around 6pm, uncle came into the kitchen to see me and apologise and say he didn't know how to get rid of them. DH panic ordered two pizzas. I had made a roast dinner for my family. Soon after mine and DH's families arrived. My roast dinner was ready, DH took all the food to the dining area. I then went into the room to greet my family and ILs but saw that uncle and his colleagues were already sat at the dining table. I wanted to burst out crying. The colleagues were all very appreciative that I was doing so much and how kind I was. I have no idea what my uncle said to them but it was fairly obvious it was a birthday party (balloons and decorations everywhere) and that it wasn't a dinner for them. I left the room and stayed in the kitchen until uncle and colleagues left.

Anyway fast forward the evening, they ate dinner, not enough space for the intended guests to eat at the table, not enough starters for the intended guests, uncle and his colleague stayed until about 8.45pm which meant our cake cutting etc was delayed as I didn't want them present for something that is supposed to be a special family moment.

Over Christmas time last year, my uncle invited us to a charity event (£70 per ticket) in his constituency about 100 miles away (he is in politics) to which we (myself, DH and DD) said we would come. The event is next month. It will cost us about £600 for a one night stay factoring in travel costs, hotel room, ticket cost and costumes (themed black tie event). We haven't paid for our tickets yet but my uncle has booked a hotel room for us at the venue (for which we will also pay for after the stay as is normal with hotel stays). He might be out of pocket with the hotel if we decline the invite.

AIBU to make an excuse and say we won't come?

Today he messaged me to say the food was delicious. But no apology or anything. I haven't replied. He literally gatecrashed DD's 2nd birthday party with 3 strangers, who came uninvited, ate our food and then there wasn't enough for others. And then stayed for ages and wouldn't leave (on a weeknight too!). At one point after dinner my uncle came in to make them tea!! I just wanted to literally tell him to fuck off now because we would like to cut DD's cake and not have Tom, Dick and Harry loitering about.

I would say that you’ll be at the fancy dinner, but you’re going to bring the whole of DD’s toddler group and their parents who would all like to be put up in the hotel and have free food!
(But tbh, I would not go!)

Agree with this, if your family is from elsewhere sounds like you are rapidly becoming acculturated to a not nice aspect of modern English culture. Especially in festvals it should be good to be welcoming to strangers. If your uncle is an MP he needs go on an assertiveness course to be effective in his position though

Does being welcoming & feeding people mean that they get priority over invited guests?

Your uncle sounds really rude to me.

The Muslim uncle plays her (and he knows...) and she can't say no as a Muslim? Of course, she can.

Religion doesn't excuse the uncle's behavouir. Don't accept to be f*cked by religion in 2025 in UK.

OP I’m just in admiration of the fact you’re even able to type that all out so clearly, I’d still be too furious and there’d have been a lot more expletives. 💕 What complete CHEEK.

Well to be honest it was your decision to manage it this way to avoid discomfort for yourself.

Sorry that's harsh, I get it, I would've been at a loss too but it's quite liberating to remember that. It was your decision and the wrong one for you (although nothing bad happened and you'll probably look back with a laugh and an eye roll). You can do it differently next time. Uncle didn't mind about making things awkward, why should you not politely say 'how lovely of you to call by, it's a shame we didn't know in advance or we'd have made a bigger roast!'.

You, with evidence, can remember from now on that some people have the hide of a rhinoceros and your dear old uncle is one of them. If you don't want to go to his dinner, he can more than withstand a 'no, thanks for the invitation but £600 is too much to spend'.

Until I became a manager and regularly had to have challenging conversations I wouldn't have known what to say either.

What a dick move from your uncle!

Perhaps try and practice your assertiveness generally. Your uncle was 100% in the wrong but you could have easily and politely resolved it with "Hi, I'm not sure what my uncle has told you, but this evening is a family event. I won't be able to accommodate feeding you tonight and you need to go now. Lovely to have met you though! I recommend - insert local place - for dinner"

It get easier the more you do it.

He had no problem ‘asserting’ himself over the OP’s attempts to tell him not to bring his guests.

I’m Irish, and while absolutely, it’s a culture of being hospitable to a fault, that doesn’t include accommodating people you’ve specifically said are not welcome. I would have had no issue with telling uncle very clearly that he and his guests were gatecrashing a child’s birthday and that quite part from anything else, there wasn’t enough food to accommodate three total strangers he’d been warned not to bring.

You should’ve said no from the outset.

if you had left the kitchen you could’ve managed the dinner and given uncle and colleagues the pizza. Standing back meant it was left to run its own rather than you directing the situation.

its a bit weird as colleagues to go to someone’s kids birthday ????

Don't go to his dinner. Don't pay him a penny for the wasted hotel room and for God's sake don't "make an excuse" about why. Tell him the truth. "Your totally inappropriate behaviour in bringing yor colleagues to gatecrash my party for DD's birthday, after I repeatedly told you not to, was totally unacceptable. I have no intention of spending any money at all on coming to your event."

I wonder if the uncle sold it to his colleagues as 'let's go and join in this wonderful Ramadan dinner as a cultural experience; it's all about hospitality and plenty and my niece will welcome you all with open arms.'
So they thought, 'How generous and charming' and he got to be the one with the fascinating family and boundless hospitality.
What I'm saying is I don't think I blame the colleagues, I blame the pushy uncle.
And, honestly, rather than skulking in the kitchen to make some kind of point (which obviously went over his head), you should have met them at the door and headed them off, maybe pointed them to the pizza place down the road.

The best way to take control would’ve been to greet them at the door

“hi uncle, colleagues. I don’t know if uncle told
you it’s DDs birthday today! So we’ve got a bit of a set up going :). We’ve order some extra food for you which will hear in a bit. Take a seat on the sofa and I’ll bring over some drinks and snacks. Toilets upstairs to the left :)”

Ramadan usually means lots of of unexpected guests and dropping in or out to break fast. If it was sunset it’s pretty normal
to pop by someone you know in the area if you need to eat and community is encouraged.

Your uncle is in politics and couldn't say no to his colleagues?

Is he a LibDem?

WTF have I just read?! Normal people do not behave like this. Obviously your uncle was completely, outrageously, unreasonable but you really should have put your foot down, first of all when they turned up at the front door “I’m so sorry, we’re having a birthday meal and I can’t accommodate any extra people” but once they were in and migrated to the table “so sorry we only have enough food for the people we knew were coming but we’ve order pizzas for you if you want to come and sit in the lounge area.”

Don’t spend time and money going to your uncle’s function. You seem to want to avoid confrontation (btw you’ll continue to be walked all over if you don’t start to get comfortable with it) so just tell him your plans have changed and you can no longer attend.

😀

You need to learn to stand and look people, even members of your family, squarely in the eyes and say "Look, I told you no, now fuck off."

Actually I think there are generational AND cultural overlays here. I think the OP has absorbed aspects of British culture having possibly spent all of her life and fir her and herbDH the cultural expectations have become diluted. It happens. The pressure was not just cultural but also her parents and uncle have different expectations about hospitality.

It's a difficult situation but possibly not worth a huge stand off.

I was just thinking what kind of ill mannered twat is your uncle, and his colleagues must be dense thinking they can impose on people's homes like that...what kind of business could these people possibly be in? Who would act with such pompous self regard and be so oblivious to others' needs and wishes?

Then it made sense....He's in politics.

Definitely don't go to anything of his. Rude tosser.

Of course it's worth a huge stand off.

I’m sorry your Uncle upset you. He was bang out of order.
Assuming he’s either your Mum or Dads Brother, and they were present for your DD’s Birthday, I’m surprised neither of them told him to leave??
I wouldn’t go to your Uncle’s event now and would tell him in no uncertain terms why. He will carry on being rude like this if he goes unchallenged.
We had similar on Mothers Day a few years back. We’re planners so booked for Mil to come for lunch. DH’s Sister isn’t and just phones her Mum or Dad on the day and asks if she can pop over. She phoned her Mum whilst we were sitting down to eat and asked to come over. MIL said that she was at ours and to come on over!!!! She shouldn’t have said that as it wasn’t convenient for us as we wanted a peaceful meal. My DH phoned his Sister back and said not to come as it wasn’t a convenient time, but she said she was coming anyway!!
She turned up with her DH and Children and the atmosphere was strained to say the least. I wasn’t at all happy and basically ignored them.Thankfully they didn’t stay long, but the father was so defiant annoyed me and relations have been strained since. She has form!!!!
It wasn’t my problem that she hadn’t planned to see her Mother on Mother's Day well in advance.

You’re not unreasonable not to go to the black tie event but you need to tell him why. I also don’t understand why you let any of this happen. You could have turned them away at the door but if you didn’t want to do that, you should have made it very clear that they were not to sit at the table.

Who is this uncle related to? Why didn’t your parents tell him to go? This all seems to have happened because no one had the balls to call him out on his rude behaviour. A simple ‘sorry
it’s DDs birthday celebration we can’t host tonight’ would have prevented all this. Crying in the kitchen and letting uninvited guests take over is biazzare behaviour. This is YOUR house and YOUR party. It’s not confrontational to ask uninvited guests to move to allow invited guests to sit down at the table.

The upside is… your daughter is 2 so won’t have noticed any of it.

I then went into the room to greet my family and ILs but saw that uncle and his colleagues were already sat at the dining table.

I don’t understand why you didn’t just tell them that you’d ordered pizzas for them and that they can eat them in the front room.

I understand not wanting confrontation but you and DH should have gone into another room to have a chat about what to do and then both said in a nice way that you weren’t expecting extra guests, so you have ordered them pizzas.
I would have been nice to the guests but I wouldn’t have let the uncle inconvenience me any more than he already had.

Your uncle seems so rude.

I would tell him how put out you were and that it’s not ok to invite people to your DDs birthday, especially so last minute.
His reply would make my mind up about whether I wanted to go to the other event.

Is he a politician? Please tell us his name so we know not to vote for him. Is it Sajid Javid? 😅

Your uncle is in politics and he and the three associates can afford to go to a restaurant on their travels. Why would they choose to come to your house for tea, beautiful as I'm sure it is?

I wonder if he was all about the bunce here. Could he have claimed a generous allowance for four people's meals at a fancy restaurant on his expenses, but figured that, if he could get you to provide the food, host and do all the work, he was quids in?

In fact, if I were being cynical, and if that was his plan, I'd be thinking that he might have engineered a 'colleagues meeting' with as many people as would fit in his car to maximise how much he could claim. He might have claimed for four people's petrol as well

I'd love to know what he told the colleagues about the set-up here. They may have been just as CF as he was, but I'm guessing that they were led to believe that they were genuinely invited and truly welcomed.

@RosesAndHellebores hit the nail on the head. Another PP described the Irish culture and it sounds very similar of what my parents' generation will be like when presented with unexpected guests

My (not very dear) uncle is my mum's brother. Mum is the eldest and not usually quiet or avoid telling her siblings off HOWEVER I think the reason why she might not have said anything is because she was conscious my uncle was with work people and didn't want to do anything to jeopardise or show him up and so was trying to be professional too. That said, I did vent to her and she said she would speak to him.

And some other PPs said why DD had a party of adults. DD spends most days seeing her grandparents (she is not yet in nursery - we tried settling in recently at one but it didn't work out). She does absolutely adore her grandparents and has a lot of good fun with them. We have a group party with our baby club friends soon (they are all born around now) but for DD's actual birthday day we spent it with family.