Family have fallen out with me and not attending my wedding

[Summerinsicily]

I am getting married in 11 months and we have decided on a child free wedding. It has caused awful upset and fall outs to the point where some of my family members now aren’t speaking to me and saying they aren’t coming.

My auntie has 4 very young children and is saying she can’t get babysitters for them. So because she is upset, my grandparents have told me they are disappointed that I’m not inviting my young cousins and that it’s not on, it’s selfish and they won’t be attending.

I’ve been in tears over this, it’s all been very stressful. I’ve come extremely close to just cancelling the wedding and losing my deposits but my fiancé knows that I would probably regret that in the future and thinks we should keep it as it is. I am just wondering, do you think my auntie and grandparents are reasonable to stop speaking to me because of this?

So sorry, OP.
Stand your ground - enjoy your child-free and CF-free wedding.
Congratulations! I hope you have an amazing wedding with the people who truly matter.

A wedding is a day that the bride and groom want. You can’t force them to have a day you want.

I think OP is better off without these abusive people at her wedding.

Your aunt has ELEVEN MONTHS to find babysitters, and says she can't? That's not can't; it's won't. Pure entitlement.

I wouldn't be able to go to a child free wedding because I have 3 young children and no one to look after them. It's not as easy as just asking anyone, it's a big ask. I think you want your wedding with no kids, your aunt can't attend because she has kids and that's unfortunate on both sides. Your grandparents are the ones who are unreasonable. It's not their business.

I guess it's your wedding so you can invite who you want but I'm genuinely curious why do some people find the idea of children (and their own family's children at that) so horrifying? I've been to tonnes of weddings and can't think of a single time that a child has made it a negative experience. In fact the most boring snoozefest of a wedding I attended was the only one I've ever been to which was child free. I just don't get it tbh

We had immediate family children only because we wanted a more grown up affair, we also got married abroad which for most Mumsnetters is a no no!! We had about 25 guests, it was lovely (we'd checked with family first that they were up for it) , when we got back we had a big party for friends and family who couldn't come and children were welcome, it was lots of fun about 100 people, but very different to the actual wedding. I think immediate family weddings with no family children can be difficult because your usual childcare is at the wedding. However I'm sure there's someone on the uncle's side of they really wanted to come. In their shoes I'd either sort childcare and come or if that wasn't possible send my best wishes not go, but not be salty about it. I don't think the grandparents should get involved.

I find child free weddings totally bizarre and not really in the spirit of celebrating love and becoming a family .

They shave shown their true colours. Move on and leave them to it.

I’d withdraw both sets of invites just in case she manages to find a babysitter.

I’ll admit, whenever I get invited to a child free wedding I think “How miserable” and I don’t attend, and that’s before I even consider how hard it would be to sort childcare for my children.
It’s just not worth the effort to go sit amongst a bunch of stuffy adults that don’t like kids enough to invite them.

If they want me there enough, they’ll invite my kids too. If not, I don’t attend and I’ll just be honest and say childcare isn’t possible, because for multiple reasons it isn’t.

If it’s truly important to you to have a child free wedding then that’s ultimately your choice but you have to accept the fact that it will make it impossible for some people and accept they may not be able to attend.

My partner’s dad opted for a child free wedding when he got remarried, apparently he didn’t want any of his grandkids there which we found odd seeing as he rarely gets the opportunity to see them, but it was his decision.
We just didn’t attend.

Yes, I imagine finding someone to babysit four kids is really difficult, we struggled with one! In which case the auntie should just accept that's the situation, and the poisonous grandparents should wind their necks in.

It's fine for you to have a child free wedding.

It's fine for them not to come.

It's very poor form of them to try and emotionally manipulate you into changing your mind by bullying you and ganging up with your grandparents.

You may as well go ahead. If you change your plans or the invite, you'll always resent them and it will be awkward. They clearly don't support you anyway.

It seems so sad to exclude family children from a family wedding.

Your choice , and also their choice.

I can see that your Auntie has practical difficulties, and it is a bit difficult of your grandparents to refuse in solidarity, but you must have known that your family would be upset?

In your shoes I would apologise and invite family children. Aka your family.

My friend got married early this year and the venue were charging £70 per head for children, she had close family children and bridal party children only. If she'd invited all of her friends children/distant relative's children (Johnny's second cousin's girlfriend's child etc) it would've doubled the size of the wedding and cost a fortune. I think because people are getting married later more guests have children.

Why didn’t your partner attend on his own?

Completely agree.

It’s unfair of anyone to manipulate or guilt-trip you over your choices for the day. I don’t really understand the current mania for child-free weddings, I’ve always seen weddings as joyful family occasions to be celebrated by all generations. If it’s purely a cost issue, then fair enough.

You say that you, your aunt and your parents all live in the same village. You must bump into your aunt regularly in a village? Presumably you don’t want that to be awkward. Do you otherwise have a good relationship with her? If so, I would be inclined to keep the peace by saying that her children can come, but the wedding will otherwise be child-free.

it’s 11 months away so you haven’t sent the invitations out yet. When you do, I would suggest wording them very clearly, eg. “Kindly note that the wedding will be mostly child-free. We would be very grateful if guests did not bring children, unless specifically stated on your invitation. Thank you for your understanding.”

That would make your position very clear, but would also hopefully prevent anyone raising an eyebrow when they see that Aunty Flo has her 4 children with her on the day.

Is your aunt trying to tell you that she never goes anywhere without the kids?

I think whatever your opinion is on children being invited to a wedding, you have to love and respect the bride and groom enough to cater to that (if you can of course). I do understand childcare can be an issue but I don't see why there has to be world war 3 and people just can't accept your decision?!

What comes around goes around. DH/I had a sibling that had a child free wedding. We certainly didn’t disagree with their choice, it was their wedding. In actual fact it was better for us as we didn’t feel obliged to take and wrangle kids, as usually only one of us would ever go to weddings and the other would stay home with kids. The hardest bit was me getting time off work (was never easy) and getting a babysitter with a few SN kids. But as it was a sibling we moved heaven and earth to make it work and us both be there. Drove 6hrs there, did wedding, drove 6hrs home straight after. The important bit being we said not one negative word in general, not in front of the kids. The only thing said to them was they were not invited but not in a bad way, just completely matter of fact as to why babysitter coming which was something that had never happened.

Many, many years later, and my kids were young adults and older teens and that sibling/plus spouse were visiting and we were all having a meal at the table and the sibling said something to one of my kids about ‘at your wedding….’ (being hypothetical as child was not getting married). My child said ‘well, you won’t know, given I wasn’t invited to yours, I’ll be repaying the favour’. Yep. Guessing they were not happy not being invited at the time which was not reflective of how DH/I felt at the time or anything we ever said. So, I guess those ramifications go on down the track😁. I have absolutely zero doubt that sibling/spouse will not be invited if that child ever gets married. Fine by me, will not be my guest list and I wouldn’t care either way, but it is interesting what ripples these things leave.

Yeh I get that which is why for my own wedding we drew the line at cousin's children for the day. However to not invite kids at all? Like surely 1st cousins (especially if you get on with them) or nieces and nephews take priority of distant friends for example whatever their age. Also I must have got lucky because for my wedding kids meals were a fraction of the price. From memory adults were about 60 a head children about 10

Apologise for what? For being given the silent treatment and being ganged up on?

When you exclude children, you exclude the parents a lot of the time and that won't go down well with family. Surely you realized that?

I can't imagine being a grand-parent and refusing to go to a grand-child's wedding like that. That's not helping the OP, but they sound awful..

There is an element of choice in how expensive you make your wedding though, childcare costs are childcare costs.

This is what it all comes down to really: the choice between the insta worthy venue and excluding family members or a cheaper wedding venue without excluding people.

Weddings have gone from being family events to a showy event. Of course funds are limited but it stands to reason that some people will be upset at people being culled because it seems to shows more regard for their showy event than the people in their family.

Your wedding, your choices but it's normal and understandable that some people are upset by being in effect excluded because of children. Nobody is unreasonable. it's just that choices have sometimes consequences and if you chose to exclude family member, then dealing with the potential backslash is just part of that parcel. Just accept it and move on. One day you may be a parent and have a different view on things.

I can see both sides fo this. However ultimately I think you ABU. Weddings are a great family celebration- for everyone in the family not just the adults! My family fondly looks back at old wedding videos with my toddler sister stealing treats from the evening buffet, my 4 year old cousins dancing to the wedding band etc.

I used to live in mainland Europe and I genuinely feel they have a much better attitude towards children than here in the UK.