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?

When we got married we made a lot of compromises to keep family happy. Had a much bigger wedding than we intended ect. To this day we regret it. If we could do it again we would just elope. To be honest, by the time the day came I didn’t really give a fuck. I’m 90% sure some guy wandered in to our reception off the street and just stayed to party. I did enjoy it as a day, but I wish we had stuck to our guns and done it how we wanted. It would have been much more special. Take from that what you will, but my advice to you is not to budge on things.

Your family sound like they’ve made up their minds and to be honest I wouldn’t want people who treated me like that at my wedding. I do understand that your aunt can’t come, childcare for 4 is hard but at the end of the day that’s not your problem.

Weddings are for family celebration! By excluding the children you’re basically saying they’re not welcome and not part of the family!
If you are estranged from your aunt and cousins then fair enough but if your a close enough family then they should be included.
this whole ‘it’s for the ‘gram’ wedding aesthetic that people do now is shallow and immature. Family is forever but friends will eventually fade away. Think carefully about this.

It's still 11 months away. Why would they need an unknown person to babysit?

Her wedding her choice - no one else's

The relatives are giving OP the silent treatment to see if she'll change her mind.

The silent treatment is a well known tactic of controlling and abusive people. OP is supposed to cave and have the wedding they want and then they'll talk to her again.

If everyone she knows, who know the children, is at the wedding, what do you suggest she does?

We had this problem at my nephew's wedding. He didn't invite his female cousins - he had fallen out with 2 of them so didn't invite any of them, including my adult daughter, who has special needs. We couldn't just conjure up someone to spend a day with her. So I stayed at home.

Unpopular opinion but weddings don’t have to be “family events” it’s OK to invite whoever you want, elope, go traditional, go untraditional, wear white wear black do whatever you want! Get married in church or in a registry office. Go small or go big!

Someone is always going to hate what you choose no matter what.

It’s 2025 - people need to let go of the old traditional weddings and realise more and more people want childfree weddings.

They are if they choose not to speak to the Op as a result

Your family aren't very nice people. You've done nothing wrong. Their reaction is over the top.

She does not have to have kids at the wedding if she does not want to! Her relatives should respect that.

Have you considered having a wedding nanny to take the children while the wedding is taking place? They are quite popular these days.

Exactly!

I think people should have childfree weddings if they want to, but I think the “if we invite these children we’ll have to invite all children” is a nonsense argument.

The last wedding I went to my DC weren’t invited (totally fine). There were two children there, the bride’s young niece and nephew, both under 5, and very close in age to my own children. There were several guests with similar age children and no one was questioning why those children were there when theirs weren’t. Everyone understood that our children aren’t the same as the bride’s niece & nephew. And that just because she wanted them there doesn't mean our children are also entitled to go.

As I said, have a childfree wedding if you want. But people should also feel totally fine about inviting close family children and not feeling like they therefore have to invite loads of other children.

I’m not saying OP should invite these children if she doesn’t want to though!

It’s a lot to expect/assume anyone can obtain childcare on a weekend for 4 children of those ages - I have twins and finding weekend babysitters are impossible and hugely expensive

personally for me my wedding was about celebrating with family - all of them - no matter the age

No. I had a (small) child free wedding. Your grand parents are being ridiculous. Can’t your parents intervene and speak to them?

So many things in this post that are weird to me.

'Weddings are for family celebration'- no they're not, they're to celebrate your union with the people who mean the most to you... whoever that may be.

Not inviting children has nothing to do with 'the gram', its simply a personal choice by the couple.

'Family is forever but friends will eventually fade away'- bollocks. My friends mean far more to me than many members of my family. That isn't weird or abnormal, its just different.

Imagine refusing to speak to your grandchild, and boycotting her wedding, because she hasn’t invited very young cousins to the wedding?!

That’s appalling, and I’d ask my grandparents if they really wanted to fall out because cousins aren’t coming.

Many people don’t invite their adult cousins, let alone DC.

The thing is, if it’s a close family wedding then many of the childcare options may already be attending.

if you want a child free wedding then that’s entirely up to you, but you can’t expect parents of young children to attend if so.

Your grandparents can also choose to attend or not, and I can see how they’d be upset that you’ve made arrangements that effectively prohibit your aunt (presumably their daughter) from attending?

They should all be declining with more grace and less spite though, and that is not on.

Of course it's okay to do whatever you want.

But doing whatever you want doesn't mean there aren't going to be any consequences.

Well obviously it is causing a lot of upset and financial cost especially, so it depends if she values the relationship with her Auntie over her want of a child-free wedding.
I wouldn’t personally care, I don’t really see why this would be a strong issue, as having children at a wedding are seen as blessings…

WHY are some people so hellbent on avoiding children at their family event, that is in fact celebrating a union of 2 families and usually is a precursor to having your own children…?
To me it’s just not worth all this upset. I don’t get it.

I can’t believe some of these responses.

YABU

Way too much emphasis on the ‘day’. It’s got to be perfect, perfect atmosphere, colour scheme, decorations and so on. The ‘day’ is soon forgotten about, what’s important is family relationships going forward.

Yes the couple are entitled to have their wedding their way but it doesn’t mean they should. I would be upset if I was the auntie if my children were excluded.

I would have a re-think OP. You don’t have to invite your friends’ children but these are your family members with whom I imagine you’d want a good relationship with in the future.

Yeah, and the consequences should be accepting people can’t go and decline. No one should be bribed, harassed over text and called selfish.

If someone invited me to a wedding abroad I’d decline, I wouldn’t kick off at the bride and groom because it doesn’t fit what I want or need

That's a harsh reaction from your grandparents. I think someone needs to speak to them to help calm them down.

What's your main reason for not wanting children present?. I realise it's a common occurrence at many weddings.

The thing is, YANBU, because you can both have the wedding that you want and not what others want you to do.

Don't cancel. Stick your guns.

You are entitled to the wedding you want (I had a friends child free wedding - only family children invited). But they are also entitled to feel upset about children not being invited.

I think they are unreasonable for their reaction though - a simple sorry I can't come if children aren't invited is all that is required. The dramatics are trying to manipulate you into inviting their children. There is 11 months to solve the child care issue is they wanted to come. Not speaking to you over it is really unreasonable - least they have shown who they really are now and you can invite those that suppose you instead.

I think you can't assume people who have children can get babysitters, especially if all their family are at the event. I definitely wouldn't have had that option as a low income single parent, and really didn't particularly want to spend all day and night without my DC, I liked being with her and have never been particularly keen on weddings. But you can have any wedding you want. People can accept or decline for whatever reason they want too. It's the falling out about it that is excessive and unnecessary by your family. They can graciously choose not to attend and you can accept that and get on with planning your day.