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?

If they had asked nicely and left it/ or said really sorry but without childcare I can't co e I may have made an exception. Now they have ganged up and dug their heels in no chance. I would probably message them to say sorry you don't feel you can come. If this isn't the case please let me know by X date so I can have final numbers ( then invite someone else). If they don't want to celebrate with you that's on them.

I have always thought it was a little bit mean not to invite dc until we went to a wedding with multiple young children, and they screamed so much throughout the service, no one could hear a thing. It completely ruined the wedding, and it continued at the reception, running around and varying degrees of unravelling. I felt so sorry for the wedding couple.

I remember someone saying something similar to me when I was single and there was drama about a child free wedding of a relative.

Now I have kids, I feel exactly the same. It is the bride and grooms day to decide what they want. It has been a fucking nightmare to arrange childcare for one wedding but I would never have had a go at them or a falling out if I couldn't have organised it.

All those ‘your wedding, your choice’ people, do you not care about close family members who are upset because they really want to be with you on your wedding day?

In the OP’s case, I agree the emotional blackmail and involvement of the grandparents is not good, but at the heart of it is surely an auntie who is upset and confused to be excluded from her nieces wedding.

Because she loves and cares about her niece.

Who lives in the same village.

I’ve never understood why people do this. Is something very adult going to happen?! Or do you think a child is going to push over your wedding cake or something? I must have been to at least 20 weddings now and can’t think of a child ruining one.

Fine but that wasnt what you said. You said the grandparents would change their mind and go, I didn't change my mind and didn't go. The grandparents were invited and I was invited and you can't say they will change their minds because they might not. You can change it round now but it wasn't what you originally said.

Agree with this.

This is sad for you OP, YANBU. Try to rise above the silent treatment and nasty things your grandparents have said. They are doing this to themselves. Tell them their invitation remains open, there is a place for them and it is their choice to make whether they come, you are not the reason for any of this upset or drama it is a choice that they and they alone have made. What have your parents said about this?

For what it's worth as a Mum of young kids I completely understand your reasoning for wanting a child free wedding and think it is perfectly legitimate.

Did you not read about the stone throwing feral scrotes they are wanting to avoid?

She’s not excluded though. She was invited. She says childcare is difficult but that’s not the same.
Still wondering why the dad can’t look after them?

My dad was a marine engineer and away at sea for months on end. He was from the other end of the country - my parents had decided to live in her town because he was away so much.

So we had little day to day support from my dad or his family, who we saw twice a year.

My mum's siblings had all emigrated so we didn't have much there either, just elderly great aunts and my mum's cousins.

Not everyone has hands on, local family.

I have. One princely 6 year old ran up and punched the tiny 4 year old flower girl in the head mid ceremony. He spent the next few hours screaming and running about until his grand finale when he threw himself in a pond and had to be rescued by the head chef who was having a fag. No SEN we did wonder but no. Just ineffectual parents

Haha now that sounds far more entertaining than your average wedding 😆

Then it behooves them to cultivate babysitters.

You’d have thought with 11 months still to go, she could sort something out. Eg babysit once a month for a mate who would then wrangle the young’uns for the night in return. Hey ho

OP,

Maybe there can be some compromise, after all you have almost a year to plan.

How about a child-free service and then immediate family only children (i.e. nieces and nephews from both sides) at the reception?

Everyone is chatting and there is music and dancing so I can't see how children can ruin a reception especially if the kids table is at the back of the venue close to the doors so any little ones melting down can be quickly taken outside.

You can approach family members to share the cost of 1 or 2 babysitters depending on the number of immediate family kids. I wager that the kids will prefer to watch Frozen rather than be shushed at a wedding ceremony!

Not necessarily. Maybe they can't afford it.

That the aunt would be a grown up and realise someone else’s wedding shouldn’t be changed to suit her, you know like any mature adult.

Honestly the “I can’t find a babysitter” is often “I won’t find a babysitter and I want everyone around me to suit their celebrations around my needs”. It is mostly on here I see or read about that level of entitlement, in my real life all parents would organise a babysitter because they are not afraid of getting one like most MN people are (and since I am in London most are away from their families but still manage to hire someone for an evening)

And all the it’s just about the Instagram comments are nonsense. Child free weddings have been around for years, definitely since the 80s as two of my aunts on opposite sides of the family had them and there were no dramas like you read about on here

I got married on a Friday, told the people we wanted there the week before, all eight of them managed to attend plus us and my two kids. I didn't book flowers but one of our guests turned up with a bouquet for me. Didn't have a photographer but one of the guests brought his camera. Booked a lunch at a local hotel. When we arrived they could see we had just got married and asked us to wait in the bar and they quickly arranged a small meeting room into a beautiful flower filled room with a table with beautiful linen. Very stress free, very cheap, still together , 40th anniversary later this year.

Weddings seem so stressful.

Far easier to sulk...

I didn’t really want to go but was bloody glad I had. When the news came that a kiddy had got unexpectedly wet, we were all terrified (still eating! Kids in a separate room, he’d legged it obv) until the words “it was “name of naughty kid” and then everyone relaxed and went back to their pudding. His poor mum though. He looked just like his dad, weirdly, who didn’t seem very nice either.

This is not a bad idea OP. Why did you want a child free wedding? Because you don’t want the ceremony to get interrupted? Because in that case one solution is to say no children in the church/registry office please but children invited to the reception can stay with the wedding nanny while their parents watch the ceremony. You’d need to set up an area at the venue for them and provide some kid-friendly activities. You’d still get a child free ceremony and smooth things over with your family. You wouldn’t have to invite everyone’s kids either - you could just invite family members kids.

Then they should get going on that babysitting circle! Plenty of time to earn some favours before next spring.

They are allowed to be disappointed. They are allowed to disagree. They are allowed to not come in protest. But not talking to you is childish, immature and cruel. Is your auntie the favourite child? Who does she have her 4 children with?

If you've got four under five you probably haven't got the time or the energy to look after other people's kids.