To refuse to attend a child-free wedding because I think it’s selfish?

[ZingyJadePombear]

My cousin is getting married and has said it’s a child-free wedding. The problem is I have two young children and no family nearby to babysit. They’ve said it’s “non-negotiable.” I feel a bit hurt because it’s like they’re choosing their Pinterest-perfect day over family actually being there. I understand wanting a certain vibe but shouldn’t weddings be about loved ones more than aesthetics or rules? AIBU for thinking it’s selfish and considering not going?

@B1indEye of course, people can do what they want but wedding guests so often just feel like room meat these days. It's not surprising that so many people lost touch with people after a bad wedding.

I feel hurt to feel excluded - especially as a close family member. That’s not entitlement, that’s just honesty.

No, @ZingyJadePombear , that's very much entitlement.

You have not been excluded. Your children have - along with all other children who potntially could have been invited. You aren't 'due' an invitation (some wedding have cousins there, some don't) but you received one. You have been included, and your husband has as well.

Because you haven't received an invitation for your children, you've snarked about image-conscious, highly curated, anti-family weddings.

Not for a moment thinking "maybe cost was the issue; maybe the venue is more suitable for grown ups than children; maybe they aren't keen on being around lotas of kids at this stage of their lives."

No, you've gone full tilt at "they're so shallow, rigid and controlling, what about faaaaaamily????" like some East End gangland matriarch.

YOU WERE NOT EXCLUDED. You're just throwing your toys out of your pram.

Just wait til the bride and groom have their own special little darlings, and I guarantee they will ABSOLUTELY REFUSE to have them left out of anything, ever... The irony.

Just because some guests don’t manage their kids well doesn’t mean all of us deserve to be lumped in and excluded entirely

This is true, @ZingyJadePombear, but a blanket "no kids" can sometimes be the only way to stop WW3 breaking out if they invited some and not others

The rigidity suggests to me there may be some DCs they're determined to keep out at all costs, the problem being that their parents may also insist how good they'd be (they'll hardly say anything else ...) only for them to create chaos on the day

Errmmm.......

Yabvu.

If logistics of childcare mean you can't manage then don't go. That is not unreasonable.

Yabvu not to see how children may not be included.

Also they are cousins children. Not neice and nephew, not best friends child. Cousins kids. At some big families cousins dont even get a full invite to keep numbers within limits. They cannot allow cousins kids as an exception without allowing all kids. And that can really increase the numbers and the dynamic of the day.

ETA bride and groom would be causing a huge fall out if they deemed some parents good enough at supervising to bring kids but others not. Or some kids well behaved enough to attend but others not. You dont need childcare your dh or his family can do it.

It might not be for this reason at all. People had child-free weddings before social media was on the scene. Its more likely to be that small children might interrupt the ceremony in some way, distracting the couple from the vows they are making.

It is your choice to interrupt that way. Just because you see children like that doesn’t mean everyone does.

Be angry about it, but understand it’s you making go you angry no one else

We had a mostly child free wedding, because if we had allowed guests to bring children we would have had another 30 or so places to find and pay for (mostly for cousins whose children we had no relationship with or hadn't even met) and that would have taken us over the numbers for pretty much every venue within our budget. We had to choose between children of cousins or our circle of friends. It was nothing to do with aesthetics, or curation, purely practicality.

And I have missed two family weddings due to them being child free and not having childcare.

Although having said that I was quite grateful not to have children at our wedding when I went to a relative's and there were about 20 under 5's. You couldn't hear a word of the ceremony.

I'm starting to think the OP is throwing a hissy about the wedding being child-free, because her husband has refused to look after his own kids while she attends her cousin's wedding.

In which case she's definitely angry at the wrong person.

But most of the mothers posting on this thread think that the bride and groom are perfectly entitled to have a child-free wedding. It's not a forgone conclusion that there will be some Damascene conversion when the B&G have their old children.

I had a child free wedding and my
own 1 year old didn’t even come. It definitely ruins a day to spend £119 per head on a child. To have high chairs: to have tantrums and screaming and running around during vows

No, you've gone full tilt at "they're so shallow, rigid and controlling, what about faaaaaamily????" like some East End gangland matriarch.

I laughed out loud at this!

Hard disagree

Also surprising how many people hate on their cousins. I prefer many of my cousins to my siblings and would have been gutted to have no cousins at my wedding. I think op people have different values, I wouldn't go really. I've not been to quite a few weddings been invited to, especially the child free ones on the other side of the country on a term time Thursday. It's disappointing but often the norm these days

I’d go with your family & leave dc with their other parent & enjoy the day. Yanbu to not go but would be but very U & really rude to say you think it’s selfish

Wouldn't you have liked your dc on your wedding photos .

The problem isn't kids it's the parents who can't control them. None of ours ran around screaming at any event.

Fwiw I don't think you'd pay £119 for a dc..

Same with mine. That certainly wasn’t for Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest as they weren’t around then. We just didn’t want children there 🤷‍♀️

How is it reverse snobbery, a child free wedding isn’t class or money specific?

We invited everyone's kids to our wedding, which was about a dozen kids in total. One couple with two kids didn't come at all because of the cost of travelling to the wedding and getting a hotel. One friend chose to come without her husband, who stayed at home with their child. Almost all the others chose to come without their children, including one couple whose second child was only three weeks old at that time (bottle fed).

I was genuinely surprised that the majority were like, "thanks for including our children but we'd much prefer to leave them at home and have a nice time!"

Or they don’t like children and don’t want them there. Might be nothing at all to do with photos

The word 'selfish' gets banded around a fair bit, on this site, often unfairly.

As other have said, OP, it isn't selfish at all for the bride and groom to have the wedding they choose. Whether or not you decide to go is entirely up to you.

People not inviting children to weddings often isn't about the children kicking off, but allowing the parents to celebrate the occasion with less distraction.

I hope you can find it in yourself to be gracious if you decline.

This isn't about you.

I always say people can have whatever wedding they wish for but the same applies to their guests in that they get to decide whether to go or not.

We couldn’t physically invite more DC to ours (we already had over twenty and nearly as many high chairs - needless to say our ceremony was interrupted with a tantrum more than once….!) but we accepted that if anyone was offended as their kids didn’t get an invitation they were well within their1 rights to not come.

Agree I love my cousins. I have 3 cousins. My friend has 15. Plus partners. The groom from a big family also. So sometimes some people dont invite cousins because can't choose between them diplomatically.

I loved my cousins as a child then we became adults and our values and tbh morals do not match.