Crashed a wedding brunch with son. Evicted by Sister-in-law

[Weddingbrunchcrasher]

Partner’s sister got married on Saturday. Partner asked if my 8 year old could come but was told no.

She only wanted her other brother’s daughter as a bridesmaid. Her other brother’s three stepchildren were not invited, the youngest of whom is thirteen.

I then asked her directly if I could bring him in the evening, she said that she wasn’t having an evening do but the invitation clearly went into the evening, what she said was she meant a separate evening do. No extra guests were coming in the evening.

Ex wasn’t available to look after son but he had a sleepover with a friend but they were heading off at 9:00 in the morning so I had to leave hotel to collect my son. Partner didn’t have a separate car and it didn’t occur to me that it would be a problem to head back to hotel with my son for the brunch they had arranged.

Again just did not occur to me that it would be a problem.

So we arrive and queue to get into breakfast area where I assumed brunch was but it was in a separate room and only my name was down they refused to allow my son in. I refused to leave him to go into brunch to ask if he could come in.

Partner had left phone so finally the brunch spilled out to the lawn and we joined them. We were both starving so I went to get plates. His sister came over to my son and essentially asked him to leave, sort of gently by asking him to go out on lawn with my partner. Partner left with us and we had breakfast in the pubic bit.

I actually started to cry over breakfast, then my son did. I am ashamed of myself for this.

I get I was unreasonable over wedding but the Brunch surely I wasn’t. Did I make too many assumptions?

Bride and groom have met my son. We have lived together for a year.

Partner is a bit shocked but obviously it was their actual wedding.

It's absolutely disgusting the way this boy has been treated.

This “treatment” is entirely the fault of his own mother. He never had to know he wasn’t welcome at the brunch - she could have picked her partner up when it was all over.

So why not just get a plate of food for yourself then take it outside to where the guests were and give him some off your plate? Why take him in with you and get him a plate, knowing full well he wasn't on the list to be catered for?

That is what I would have done. Stupid thing is it would probably be the same amount of food.

With his mother right there who not only put him in this position in the first place but who has the ultimate responsibility of feeding him?

Yes

WTF? Deny him food? I’m sure that his Mother is quite capable of feeding him. He’s not some starved street urchin who was about to faint from hunger because he hadn’t eaten for a week.

@Lucelady - yes, the partner could have taken OP and her son for breakfast.

The bride and groom have paid per person and the hotel will charge per person. That’s what’s going on here and it’s a problem if additional people turn up. Not all married couples pay for the next day’s brunch so that in itself seems generous to me. And after all, the OP was included in the wedding and a beneficiary of all the free food.

I am an inclusive person but I think the parameters here were very clear and OP ignored them. I agree that other cultures may be more generous with the whole village being invited etc. I’ve known weddings like that here also but this was not one of those weddings and the OP knew that.

"I don’t know why people think I did this to get one over on the bride because my son wasn’t invited to the main event the day before".

Because it's hard to understand how you acted unless that's the case. It would have been very easy for you to have picked up your son and not gone back for the brunch. That would have been the obvious thing to do. Knowing how clearly your SIL had said NO to your son attending, it's not really a 50/50 'maybe she'd mind, maybe she wouldn't' situation about the brunch. It was far more likely than not that she would not want your son there. A wedding brunch is usually a pretty lame affair anyway (people hungover, and deflated after the big day), so if you'd already left the hotel to get your son I just can't see why you'd go back if there was any doubt at all that he wouldn't be welcome. Your SIL's clear indications on 3x occasions that your son was not included on the invite should have provided exactly that level of doubt in your mind!

Hence why a number of people can only conclude based on the facts that you either consciously, or unconsciously, were out to prove a point to your SIL because you thought her position was fundamentally unreasonable to you and your son, and didn't want to stand for it.

And again you're making it about your feelings. Rather than focusing on how upset you feel, think about how upset the bride may have felt (having to ask for a child to leave her own wedding event, and her brother's partner's child at that, after having made it clear he wasn't invited), and what an awkward situation you created for your partner and your son.

You need to take responsibility, apologise to everyone and adjust how you act in such situations going forward. But don't make the apologies about you. Make them about the people you've embarrassed and inconvenienced.

So where does it stop then? If you go by that logic you could try and snuggle untold amount of people in, because they will only eat a sausage and a bit of melon. Or you could jump on a train and refuse to buy a ticket because the train is going there anyway. It's cheeky. The op embarrassed her son with her behaviour. She could have taken him to the public part of the hotel for breakfast, to McDonald's, or fed him at home and picked her dp up later. She chose to do none of those things and she embarrassed him. It's on her and her alone.

Oh come off it, this isn't Oliver Twist. The child could get food, I am sure, in any of a number of places, including in that very hotel, if the mother paid for it. An eight-year-old isn't going to starve in the time it takes to either look for a McDonalds or whatever, or order a paid breakfast in the public area of the hotel.

OP I think you are getting a tough time. You accepted he wasn't going to the wedding itself, and sorted a sleepover for you son. It would not have occurred to me that the brunch the next day would not allow a child in.

Obviously it would have been better if you'd just got one plate and shared it with him but even that wouldn't have been enough for the bride and groom who just clearly didn't want him there. I come from a family where step children are just a part of the family and if you have some children at an event then you'd have them all. And no one would expect a child to not grab a snack from the brunch the next day.

I guess at least now you know that they don't really see your son as family. And they don't see the other step children as family either. Which seems a pretty horrible way to treat children

"I didn’t attempt to load up on free food."

Then why didn't you feed your kid after you picked him up? Why did you keep trying to take food from a private buffet? Why didn't you tell your son to wait while you got a plate you could share with him? Why did you start crying after being asked to leave?

You were told no multiple times and you just kept on. Now you're going to be that girlfriend who nobody in your boyfriend's family wants around. Was your little scene worth that?

She's not your sister in law and not likely to be if you keep acting rude and entitled.

Don't talk rubbish. There is no way on earth if OP gave her son some food from her plate the hotel would charge an 'extra head' charge. They wouldn't even know. It wasn't a buffet in a restaurant so irrelevant.

You’re still trying to make it sound like the bride stumbled across a starving orphan in a shanty town. And ignoring the fact that this child’s own mother could have fed him herself before the journey.

It wasn't a breakfast it was a brunch. I've worked in wedding planning for 18 years and I've never heard of venues offering free child meals after breakfast. Regardless, said child had been at a sleepover, surely he was fed breakfast there.

Because the bride was mean-spirited?

Just because some people have different opinions and wants doesn’t make them ‘low life’s’ and you the mother superior 🙄

Because this is the way people are these days. Me culture and bloody Instagram.
I've been on mumsnet for over twenty years and it is full of nasty mean spirited people. It also has kind helpful posters too otherwise I wouldn't be here.
I wouldn't give this bride the time of day but I never go to adult only weddings.
I don't agree with the bride it's unkind. My opinion, you don't have to agree.

I wanted to offer the OP some support.

Lol, just as well.

I disagree entirely. I reserve that title for someone that thinks bringing an uninvited child to an event they know full well said child is not invited to, who then cracks out the violins for the ‘poor child’ to paint themselves as hard done by when they didn’t get pandered to, is reasonable.

I denied a child food yesterday. He was about 6. I had sticky tofeee pudding with ice cream. He kept looking longingly at my plate. I did not offer him any. What a terrible human being I am.

(He was sitting with his parents and was in the middle of his main course.)

I apologise if the child somehow wasted away overnight from hunger but I draw the line at sharing sticky toffee pudding with children I do not know.

You shouldn't have gone @Weddingbrunchcrasher if your son couldn't go and you couldn't get child care the you don't go. If that meant you OH had to leave with you or find an alternative way home, then that's what you do. You say you have been together 1 year. That's not long, and considering the other step kids weren't invited, its not a slight on you. It's just they wanted immediate friends and family.

I think people have mis-read this and think you took him to the wedding. You should have put:

I complied with child free wedding but thought son would be welcome at brunch the next day and he wasn’t. I think it’s a bit weird to keep excluding children the day after the wedding.

She didn’t give him food off her plate though did she.