Wedding disaster advice wanted please.

[Poodlelove]

Our son got married yesterday.
A big wedding in a stately home, son and daughter in law paid for own wedding.
My Dad was invited but he is difficult, he is 80 but is active and well, but my sister and him do not speak and haven't done for 20 years.
Her children who are teenagers have never met him.
He was invited to the wedding on the condition that my dad did not approach my sister or her children.
Dad arrives with his wife and I greet them and introduce them to people and then I see him watching my sister.
I remind him of what was agreed previously and what I had said when the invitation went out and his wife also asks him to respect our wishes.
He then asks what time the food is coming.
This was at 11.45 am but the ceremony was at 1pm .
Around 30 minutes later my sister goes out onto the terrace to speak to other guests.
My Dad gets up and strides across the room and heads straight out there and corners her .
The best man steps in and asks him to move away and is warned to keep away.
He sulks on a sofa in the bar area and everytime my sister is escorted to the toilet by one of the ushers my Dad leans over and tries to wave.
He is given a final warning and then he strides up to our son and daughter in law during the couple only photo session in the grounds and says they feel out of place and unwanted.
Best man and ushers say just go or have your meal then go.
He decides to eat , nobody sees him leave but I am glad to see that he is nowhere to be seen.
I told everyone including my new daughter in law my other son's partner and nephew's that he had promised to behave and he was only there to see his Grandson get married.
I am waiting for an operation so was not at my best , my Dad knew this and was concerned , biopsies being taken etc ,but I feel he has let everyone down and he has spoilt what was a very special day for all of us .Why did I just not let him come ?
Please advise me.
TIA

You had the choice of upsetting your dad by not inviting him or upsetting your sister by inviting him. It was never going to work to have him attend but not approach your sister. Maybe reflect on why you chose to avoid upsetting your dad above your sister? Of course I have no idea the back story but can we assume the sister had good reason to cut contact?

It doesn't sound like a disaster or that it spoiled the day. Focus on the nice bits and forget about it.

Sorry but it all sounds like a ridiculous amount of drama and to be fair maybe he hoped at a family occasion that he could chat to his own daughter? To have people warning him threatening him and heading him off seems ridiculously ott

Congratulations on your son’s wedding and marriage!

It is understandable to feel let down by his behaviour, but please focus instead on the overwhelming positives. Son and wife had a great day, largely ran smoothly, son has excellent choice of best man/mates who have his back…

We can each only control our own actions. It sounds like you did all you can to accomodate a potentially difficult situation, and really successfully managed to mitigate a lot of what could’ve gone awry. Like Pp says most guests (and the bride and groom) would have been mostly unaware of what’s going on; you are naturally more aware of it. You might have some choices to make around future family events, but for now just accept this one was pretty successfully done.

Wishing you well in your own health.

@Poodlelove It sounds to me like this was handled in the best way possible.
He let himself down.
It sounds like there was no massive scene so other guests likely will not have realised. It's really not a disaster.
Honestly try to let it go.
I bet the rest of the day once he'd left was marvellous. Dwell on that bit.

It sounds as if the best man and ushers coped really well. If the bride and groom enjoyed their day, and your sister isn't upset, I think you should focus on all the happy memories you have. Obviously, your father is less likely to be invited to similar events in the future, as he can't be relied upon.

Surely it depends on the reason why his daughter is no contact with him?

How did your sister feel about him being there? Honestly, I think the most important thing for you to do now is to tell her that you understand and respect her decision to go No contact and that you will not put her in this position again.
And then forgive yourself for that, and place responsibility on him for what he did, which is completely horrible for your sister mainly. And secondly everyone else that had to deal with it

This is all on him.

Typical male entitled behaviour.
Never burden your son and DIL with his company again.
It really is that simply.

Step back yourself too.

He has shown you that all that matters is what he wants.
Learn from this.
"Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me".

Do not ever include him again in your sister's company.
She is entitled to her peace.

I hope you feel better.
Forget about this.
Don't dwell on it.
Just focus on it NEVER happening again.

No advice but sympathy OP - this will be our family if my dad is still around when his grandchildren get married although in this scenario I will be your sister as I don’t speak to him but my sister does. He is in touch with my sisters children but not mine. I would completely understand that he will have to be invited when the time comes and will just avoid him even if he does try and approach (he is very unlikely to). I won’t love the day but it is up to my niece as to who she wants to invite!

Indeed. We don’t know what caused the rift in the relationship (nor do we need to know).

I haven’t spoken to my uncle for 25y. We can attend family events together and both keep a respectful distance, but if I was encouraged to have ‘a chat’ or if he approached me that would not be ok, particularly as it draws focus away from the main point of the day and would be performative.

What a load of drama … with all these people “stepping in” and making it even worse. Your sister was perfectly capable of saying “I don’t want to talk to you” without all and sundry.

Sister “escorted” everywhere … best man and usher “telling” him up eat then leave, your beady eye on him all the time, “reminding” him how to behave.

You all made a difficult situation worse.

I don’t know background as to why sister didn’t want to even speak or see your dad, but I’m struggling to understand why that was needed- it’s a pretty nuclear option to effectively set an exclusion zone around herself.

i was in same situation as your sister. Nephews weddings . My dad invited. Him and I were not in contact for 20 years. My view was that it was nephews day and if my dad approached me I would not do anything other than polite niceties like I’d do with any one I was meeting for first time. If dad tried to engage further or make any attempt to raise our relationships first response would be to excuse myself to powder my nose, if he persisted to say clearly it was nephews day, I wanted to enjoy his day, and that if dad wanted to tlak about our history and catch up on my news we would discuss that after the wedding at a different time. My third option was then my other sibling (not father of groom) to firmly direct him away. But I wasn’t going to ignore dad, or refuse to acknowledge or speak to him. I was his daughter, and fankly it would be a bit unrealistic to expect him to pretend I was invisible.

I also made it clear to other sibling, that my sons (his gc who’d he’d not seen for 20 years) were interested in meeting him. And that he could direct dads attention to them

and that’s what happened. We said hello, how are you, and I drifted politely apart to let my sons engage with conversation and that kept dad more than happy.

it’s way too late to do anything about this now. My point is I think your sisters approach was unrealistic and bound to create an issue. She could have just been icily polite and grey rocked him so he’d get bored and moved on. She was frankly making a point at him and creating a reaction form him by her exclusion zone stance. So, not your issue. That’s on your sister.

if the issue for your sisters approach of an exclusion zone was becuase your dad was abusive to her, then frankly wtf ? Why was he even invited? He simply should not have been invited if that was case, and it was cruel to do that to sister.

Unless there's some major reason why your sister needs to be protected from your dad, it sounds like drama for no reason. Couldn't she be a grown up and acknowledge him? Why did she need people ushering her or him away?

You are NOT responsible for your father.

I'm sure your son and DIL has a fabulous day. It sounds like the ushers and best man did everything to make the day run without incident

Your Dad left. There was no massive drama.

Move on

Your sister is a grown woman. She is also not your responsibility.

Engage your brain and consider what might have happened in the past between the sister and the father, meaning that he had to be managed in such a way on the wedding day. Use your imagination.

Your father was remarkably unkind to attempt what he did despite giving his word he would not.

I would not easily forgive him for this. What did he do to your sister? She sounds very afraid of him.

Focus on the happy day, at least he left when he did, and the day was a happy one.

Would I ever forget this? No. You can’t trust him an inch.

The waving is sinister and was not about being friendly.

Honestly, 95% of the guests wouldn’t have noticed and others ensured he couldn’t cause a problem, he left without too much fuss. I’ve seen way way worse - this is nothing!

Weddings for extended family growing up always ended in a fist fight! (Needless to say i haven’t seen any of them since becoming an adult)

You are not your father's keeper. Unless it was solely you who advocated for your father to be there, none of this is on you. Tell the bride and groom how sorry you are for what happened and if you were solely responsible for his being there then apologise for that and say he agreed to the restrictions and you believed he would comply with them. Go NC with your father.

In the absence of any explanation from OP, it seems very dramatic for no reason

She doesn't need to provide an explanation, it's not relevant, but use your imagination if you must. What would your father have to do in order for you to decide NC and everyone be on side with protecting you? Nothing good, that's for sure.

Maybe she doesn’t feel comfortable admitting that her father sexually abused her sister, let alone family friend molest her, treated her badly because he thought she wasn’t really his child, stole from her, or otherwise abused her. These are all real things that happen. Don’t be all faux outraged on behalf of the dad. Its quite common for people to abuse one child and pretend nothing is wrong to the world.

I think you need to reevaluate why you have advocated for him, this is probably from a sense of fear obligation and guilt because of your role in the family dynamic in childhood. Time to be furious with him and not guilty for what is not your fault. He is responsible for his past and present actions and the consequences that flow from them. You can choose your own actions in response.

Assuming the reason for your dad and sisters NC is nothing serious/abusive (or he wouldn't have been invited at all). I think everyone is being drama llama about the whole thing.

Your sister just had to say a civil hello, yes I'm fine, hope you are well, make an excuse and walk away then not speak to him for another 20 years. All this escorting her to the toilet because she is so helpless so your 80 year old dad can't talk to her all seems like too many people feeding and enjoying a bit of drama. I guess all day weddings can otherwise be a bit boring.

Learn from it for any future occasions and move on.

Congrats to your son, OP. think you did the right thing. You have the moral high ground of being able to say you invited him and had made arrangements for him and he went against what he had agreed. He wasn't excluded- but he excluded himself through his own behaviour.

My MiL is not in contact with any of her children bar DH (very low contact), nor her now ex-h, my FiL. We invited her to our wedding. She chose not to come. This was honestly a relief- but we had discussed how to keep everyone comfortable on the day if she did come and we had talked to FiL about how he would feel before she declined the invitation. We tried but it was her choice not to join in, she can't say WE excluded her.