Nieces and nephews not invited to wedding.

[EugenieGreen]

I want to ask my brother why he hasn’t asked my children to his wedding, not ask for an invitation for them, it is his wedding but I want to know why they are not invited and if he considered them. What does he think of them?

Right I have three children, almost adults, youngest is 16. My sister has 2 who are slightly younger. All well behaved.

I was very upset when my husband’s brother did not invite my kids to his wedding 17 years ago.

Now my own brother is getting married for a second time ( SiL’s first trip down the aisle). His children are obviously invited who are same age as mine give or take).

No money is being spared and space is not an issue.

Who they invite is up to them so all I want to do is ask him why he doesn’t want his nieces and nephews there. Do they mean nothing to him?

Well done for proving such a clever point 👏

Cheers 😊

why are you bringing this up? Ate you deliberately trying to be horrible to the op? Or are you trying to g to help her in some way.
stop being so bloody goady

It wouldn’t happen in my ex husbands Eastern European culture either, weddings are always big family celebrations and it would be unthinkable to do this.

If guest numbers was the issue he could have explained this which might have mitigated bad feeling. It’s his wedding though, he doesn’t want them there and that’s his choice and he can live with his close family being pissed off presumably.

This poster has no positive or interesting input to add to the thread. Just picking at stuff without adding anything useful herself.

Yes. It seems for many these days, having the ‘perfect’ wedding is worth alienating family for. As you say, their choice.

Whereas this was a top quality contribution! 😆

North Western European here and it would never have happened in my family. I invited any and all children and didn't even think there was a different option.

Sib in law did though and it was the beginning of the end of our relationship with that side of the family.

That’s sad. Wonder if they felt it was worth it.

I would ask. You want to understand the reason and I think that's fair enough.

My brother didn't invite my kids to his 50th (which was in a child friendly venue a long way from where either he or I live and or only babysitting options would also be at the party) and wouldn't let them attend for even the first hour. We didn't go. That was 4 years ago and I still think of it and how hurtful it was to the kids (although they were not aware there was even a party happening as I didn't want them to know they had been excluded, harder for a wedding).

Agreed.
it’s nasty and not helpful

“Who they invite is up to them, but…”. It is UP. TO. THEM. My daughter wasn’t invited to my brother in law’s wedding. Wouldn’t be my choice but it wasn’t my wedding. Wouldn’t have dreamed of asking “WHY????”

But you are being deliberately unkind.
You didn’t need to go digging into Ops old posts, but you did to try to make a point.
Why?
Op is upset about this and whether you think she should be upset is neither here nor there. Op would like advice. If you haven’t got any then bugger off

Were you close to your brother?

He isn't dead, we get on, there's no issues between us and he loves the kids. He doesn't have any himself and he tends to spoil them.

what was his reaction when you didn’t attend the wedding?

If your relationship with bro is relatively good, just ask him. He's going to know more than we do ....

I feel strongly that children are as much family as adults. I know people can have child-free weddings if they want to, but unless it was the world’s smallest wedding (like parents and 2 people to stand up), I would be insulted if my teen children weren’t invited to their own uncle’s wedding. It shows a breakdown of family tradition and cohesion. And for what? An Instagram pristine event doesn’t seem worth the long-term alteration of family connections.

Also come from NW Scandinavia and now live in the States. Everyone invites children to weddings here and in Norway where we come from. The only exception was a great-uncle who lived in Arizona and got married at 60 to a woman from his senior community center. He had no kids and we assumed he married her so she’d have sex with him. lol

It wasn't a wedding, it was his 50th, he didn't react, I said we couldn't go because we had no childcare options and he just said ok. I was hurt about that too to be honest! I've withdrawn from him a lot since then.

I actually don't understand why people continue to ask this question on here, where the standard reply is, your very selfish and the devil himself if you expect members of your family to be included in one of the biggest days in that person's life. Where as we all know in real life this is not the case and of course it is utterly abhorrent that family members exclude each other like this for no other apparent reason other than they are nasty.

That's understandable. It says a lot about where you rank in their life.

We lost contact with a sibling who wouldn't let us bring a newborn to their wedding, which was far from our home. It wasn't so much the exclusion as what they said, which was basically that they didn't give a rats if we couldn't come as long as their wedding was childfree.

We figured our children weren't important to them, so why involve them so much in our family? We were also not that important to them, so why make much effort?

On the other hand, we didn't go to my parents' big wedding anniversary. We had a six week old, it was a good drive away and there wasn't anywhere we could go with them during the party. We both mutually agreed it would be too hard, no hard feelings. We weren't excluded, it was just the situation.

So it looks like maybe he regarded his relationship with you as not at all close and so was indifferent as to whether you attended or not?

Are you being deliberately unkind?

Maybe he doesn’t like them.