Brother’s Wedding Would You Say Something?

[GutsyPeachExpert]

Brother announced that he and SiL were getting married in September. She wasn’t even there when he told my mother. They didn’t have engagement or a big fanfare or anything.

When they have been asked about the wedding he never knows the answer but she is more forthcoming.

Once Dad asked for a lift with something but brother said he wasn’t free as they were looking at venues so that was the only hint we got.

We have now got formal wedding invitations through the post and my two little girls 6 and 4 aren’t invited.

My mother immediately rang him as she thought it was an oversite but it is a child free wedding. My mother said that as SiL doesn’t have nieces she thought my girls would be flower girls and could they make an exception as nobody would question the wedding party being an exception to the child free rule. However, he said they already had two flower girls from SiL’s side. We have never heard her even speak about these children.

I am so upset. I can accept logically the flower girl thing but for them not to be even there!

I don’t want a debate on children at weddings I want to know if I would be unreasonable to speak to my brother about how upset I am and to ask that they be invited.

Most of that is really irrelevant. It's a child free wedding, except for the wedding party.
I'm assuming it's a fancy wedding, and a bunch of small children isn't really suitable.
I hope your parents made clear in advance that there were strings attached to their contribution...
Perhaps he's afraid that all the crying is genetic?

The photos is because the op was upset that the children would look at the photos for year after and feel rejected.

Bro's actually treating this very calmly, answering his mum as she tries to force his hand in different ways.

Bringing all the money stuff in makes it very much like your whole family is drama queen's

A 9 year old isn't the same as a 4 year old

Your DB is going to end up getting married with none of you attending at all if you all keep this up!

They’ve made an exception for children in the wedding party. If they make a further exception for your children then they have to do it for cousin’s daughter. That’s three.

What other cousins/siblings are there? Does cousins sister have kids? What about the bride’s side? Maybe they’re afraid of opening the floodgates and having multiple kids, that all take up head count. And need a kids menu. Etc etc.

We do not know the ages of the flower girls. They are blood related but not nieces. I accept totally that who she chooses to be her flower girls at her own wedding is none of my business.

My brother sees my children at my parents’ house and works out where they go to a couple of classes and will wait with me for them.

He isn’t a jerk and neither is she this is why we are shocked

Posters are asking why I want them there. I just do. I can’t rationalise it.

And he's offered the photo outside to try and shut you all up because of the whining and emotional blackmail

If he's going to go no contact with his immediate family then he might have to change his wedding venue anyway, since his parents are part funding the wedding.

Do you know yet what you’ll do next about this?

Odd to be afraid of that but not afraid of causing a family rift.

Well, maybe they weren’t expecting it to cause rift!

You might have better luck convincing him if you can come up with a coherent argument. More logic, fewer tears perhaps?
I can understand your disappointment, but it's surely not that big of a deal? I promise, I can't remember any of the wedding I did or did not attend when I was 4. Pick your battles.

So now there’s a 10k bribe basically isn’t there.

“parents were going to give 10k”

Look they only want wedding party children. Either accept that and go/don’t go or don’t accept it but stop hammering on at the couple for what’s meant to be their happy day. God. No wonder they didn’t tell earlier.

Your mother is still crying? What a drama queen.

Aren't you guys dehydrated yet?

I hope you're satisfied that you've tanked your brother and his soon to be wife's future relations with your family for a very long time by trying to make his wedding all about you and caused a shitload of drama and ill feelings. You are the SILZilla.

I mean, anyone with any common sense should understand that if you don't invite your niece and nephew to your child free wedding and then it turns out it's not even a child free wedding, you're likely to upset your family.

But now they know they have caused upset and they should either own it or change their minds. The very least the OP's brother can do at this stage is stop trying to bullshit everyone.

I hope if your BD & SIL to be have children, they are as unbothered as they are expecting you to be when they start receiving child free wedding invitations for immediate family members! Ask him how he’d feel if it was you doing this to him? That’s what I’d ask my siblings for sure.

Exactly. My parents got very panicky about a family wedding a few years ago because they suddenly thought the bride “might” not pick my niece as a bridesmaid. When I pointed out that there were at least four more obvious candidates I got gasps of horror and “But she already thinks she will be! She’s really excited!”

I said our job was to play down wedding talk and not say anything that might make her assume this was happening until we were 100% sure. I pointed out that children might not even be invited. Thankfully, my brother and SIL were far more sensible about this than my parents were and, by the time she inevitably wasn’t chosen as a bridesmaid, my niece had largely forgotten she’d ever thought she would be.

The OP hasn't tanked the relationship. Her brother has tanked it by excluding his DN from what turns out not to be a childfree wedding.

My brother has texted me this morning. Essentially saying they were getting married at x venue that isn’t suitable for children. Really?

but there will be 3 children there (potentially 4 as no doubt the cousin will tell him it is weird to invite one child and not the other)

@HuffleMyPuffle sorry didn’t mean to quote you there!

but 9 and 4 year olds are in the same age grouping surely!

They’ve fucked up really. Now they’ve invited 3 children, none of them as close as niece and nephews and are picking a boy and excluding his sister. They are going to be pissing lots of people off doing it this way, their wedding isn’t child free and they are ridiculous.

I would have a 9 year old at a wedding over a 4 year old. Looking at my own daughter vs her younger cousin his WILD like blink and he could be up a tree. Even my friends 9 year old vs her own other reception aged child huge difference.

9 year olds are much more likely to actually listen to instructions, not have a toddler style tantrum or want to run off/around. I’d assume the flower girls are also around the same age and considered more responsible/ mature to take part of very littles.

For god’s sake, it’s a few hours they wouldn’t even remember. No one else at the wedding would miss them or remember they were there.

You just want to stamp your foot and get your way.

How about hosting your own event if you want to dress up your kids and show them off??

I like the theory that the page boy is Little Lord Fauntleroy's doppelganger and the girls are Princess Charlotte lookalikes, while the OP has reared two brats who make Verruca Salt look both lovely and good-natured.

Can't spoil the line-up - gotta get those likes!

We all understand really, don't we, even if we wouldn't admit to it.

The mental gymnastics people are going through on this thread to make what is happening acceptable is amazing, it’s a child free wedding but…. It’s a child free wedding except for….its not a child free wedding in any shape of form, is my friends wedding an ‘adult free wedding’ apart from the 100 odd people invited?!
The couple are just plain mean and they well know they are in the wrong, in the normal world what they are doing is not acceptable and would absolutely cause the breakdown in relationships in a family

How do you know they're not as close? OP has stated that her brother sees them if they happen to be at her parents house at the same time and because they're at the gym at the same time. .

Maybe they take the other kids on days out or have sleepovers etc. Closeness is not determined by blood.