Aibu - BIL's wedding

[CordlessHoover]

NC - but regular poster

We want outside opinions as following a conversation with MIL we are left asking ourselves... are we being unreasonable?

Sorry its long
Trying not to dripfeed...

• BIL and SIL live an 8 hour flight away.
• Their big fat wedding is next July.
• for various reasons they got legally married this year in March. (Sil wore white, they had a photographer cake and a party attended by Sils family and MIL attended but its wasn't a "big" wedding. SiL wants a big wedding with all the bells and whistles. Her parents are really wealthy so its no problem there)
• We have a 3 and 1 year old who will be 2 and 4
• We had initially planned to go as a family and make the best of it and turn it into a family holiday (estimated total cost would have been about £11k all in)
• BIL has told my DH he and SIL want the wedding and wedding venue to be "over-21s" only but there are some parts our children would be permitted to attend (a pre wedding dinner the day before and a section for 2 hrs or so on the day)
• we were (understandably?) a bit / quite shocked.
• They like / want kids themselves!? our DC will be the only cousins their children will ever have.
• we digested the news and went back to explained that we respect their choice, its their day and they should have it how they want but that does make things tricky for us logistically so most likely my DH will likely attend solo and go for a long weekend.

We thought this was pretty reasonable...

Bil replied and said he wants "both of us" there and suggested maybe my mum could fly out with us and watch the kids. I dont know where to start with that suggestion 😅
Beyond the obvious... my DM is in not great physical health basically only babysits for us when the kids are asleep or for 2 hrs max.

Dh replied and said look its okay. I don't want you to stress about this, please don't change your plans. We've discussed it further and decided best thing for us as a family is for me to come solo.

Bil then phoned MIL... who the next day phoned DH for 90 mins or so.
She was pretty clear that she thought DH was in the wrong and he was going to cause a family rift. She also suggested he was looking for a way to avoid paying for going to the wedding. There was also a lot of chat about her being caught in the middle. Dh said she wasn't as it didnt really involve her...

Bil now is requesting a call to "discuss further".

DH left the call confused and unsure and I am now doubting myself as very honestly...we were willing to spend the money / take the annual leave / go through all the hassle before they told us our children weren't invited.

But then it seems wrong to
a. Drag the kids across multiple time zones to an event they arent welcome at. It means the 3 of us basically wont attend the wedding so why are we there? I don't get it...
B. spend so much on a holiday we dont especially want / wouldnt ever choose given the circumstances. (Our financial position has become significantly more unstable in the last 3 months.)

We looked at everyone going for the weekend only but that's even weirder / less practical than making it into a holiday

So the OP travels half way around the world, spends most of the time away on her own, looking after her two children? The majority of the events are no children so her DH will be attending and she’ll be left with the kids.
£11k to be practically a single mum in another country? Nah.

Your BIL is a cheeky fucker.

His wife's family wealth has likely gone to his head, and he's lost all reality of how expensive this trip would actually be for you.

As for inviting you half-way across the world and then excluding your children, that's the ultimate audacity. Sure, yeah, just fly in your mother for how many extra thousand?? As I said, he's lost all fucking reality.

I think if he keeps up his entitled attitude, I'd end up telling him about himself.

Entitled, cheeky fucker.

It's not a wedding, it's a party strung out over a few days.
They are married already.

How will the OP find it memorable or enjoyable when she spends the majority of the time on her own, looking after the kids? She’ll miss just on all the good bits.

They're already married.
Don't waste your money or time on this.

Hahaha. You are so not being unreasonable - and this one I REALLY want to hear the outcome of because (1) it’s a groomzilla situation and we don’t often see those (2) MIL obviously under his thumb and/or in awe of SIL’s wealthy family and worried you’re making her side look like the poor relations (3) BIL obviously under the thumb of SIL and/or her wealthy family (4) I want to know how this enormous culture clash is going to play out with YOU being the designated unreasonable ones…for not blowing £11,000 on a party only half the family isn’t even invited to 😂

I’d also love to hear the language BIL uses to suggest that YOUR mother fly overseas to babysit your children 😂🤣

This is so utterly batshit!

OP has said they wouldn't really pick the area for a holiday location, and also that their financial position isn't as good as it was. Sounds like unnecessary stress rather than a great holiday. I'm sure they would rather pick a location they really wanted to visit for a holiday, for less money and where the whole family could be involved in all of it.
DH going for the weekend is the perfect solution. Much cheaper and easier.
For MIL to blame THEM for starting a rift is outrageous. Imagine not only expecting someone to spend that amount of money, but to also spend thousands more on flying out the OPs mum to babysit for a few hours 😳 paying for return flights, insurance, food and accommodation. Unreal levels of entitlement.

These are people that 1) want TWO weddings 2) want a destination wedding that they know will cost their guests thousands and 3) want to avoid children at their wedding despite being told that would make it difficult for the grooms own brother to attend in full.

They are clearly incredibly entitled people with a huge sense of self importance. There is no way I’d be doing anything inconvenient for them. They sound awful. And I’d normally love the idea of a family destination wedding.

What if you’d decided to kick off about your children not being invited, as people on here sometimes do? Would MIL put pressure on them to invite her grandchildren, or does your MiL favour your BIL?

It’s very insensitive of them. It’s hard enough for people to leave behind children of that age when there’s a wedding in the UK. You say you’re crossing multiple time zones. I wouldn’t want to leave children of that age behind.
If I was inviting people to my wedding, as I have actually done in the past, I have sorted out local childcare for people who have young young children. Recognising that they probably wouldn’t attend unless I made it easy for them.

I think you should be open about your finances and say it was always going be a stretch, and having to work out childcare makes it even more difficult

Thanks for the responses - Feel fairly relieved reading these....

I've specifically tried to be neutral because I am very hurt bil/sil have gone down this route. I feel like it shows a massive gap in our values and the whole thing makes me quite sad.
Also there isnt much love loss between myself and MIL (partly because she's selfabsorbed as makes everything about her and partly because bil is mr. golden balls) so I wonder if thats colouring my view.

Regarding the money...
Yes I know it's slightly crazy money BUT family is very important and we saw this as welcoming SIL and I suppose the start of something... the next generation type thing? So we were prepared to just make it happen...
this thread has reminded me it is in fact more than we spent on our entire wedding! 😅

In terms of childcare...We just wouldnt be comfortable leaving our children with someone they dont know. Separately knowing them I'm skeptical they'd settle with "a stranger".

If we all went to the country in question... On the day itself we would all be able to be present for 2 hours max - for the rest of the day i'd be in a hotel room with 2 small kids... well I say that... actually i could be anywhere i wanted as we won't be able to stay at any of the rooms at the venue ( I can't think if the word but its sort of like a "great house" on a 400 acre estate type thing) so we'd need to rent a car and stay offsite which creates some logistics issues.

Remind them of this when they have their own kids and watch them cringe with embarrassment. YANBU at all, they can have whatever kind of wedding they want but your family is a package and so you are entitled to decline. They can lump it and MIL needs to keep her nose out.

When my nephew got married, he and his bride organised a children's menu for the wedding breakfast and a childminder at the venue. It seemed like a very good idea to me.

I wonder whether the OP's BIL would be prepared to organise something similar?

I wouldn’t be spending £11k to be going to a wedding under any circumstances anyway but to spend all that and be left most of the time with tiny DC on your own? Fuck that.

I would just stop engaging on it tbh. Decision made no further discussion.

It's not just the 8 hour flight that would put me off. Its the travelling time to the airport, the check-in time, the wait for the call to the boarding gate, the sitting on the runway, the passport control, the baggage reclaim, the onward travel....all with 2 (potentially miserable) DC.

Gosh, it get worse! I’d point out to MiL if she pushes it any more that you are not kicking off and complaining about family rifts even though the plans deliberately (and unnecessarily imo) exclude you or make it unreasonably difficult and expensive for you to come.

Point out that ‘family is important’ cuts both ways and as they are the ones making the plans, THEY are at liberty to make it easy for you to go, or not.

For 11k you could have the most amazing family holiday of your own choosing.

You’re being generous sending your DH and given the reaction I’d probably just withdraw completely. Did BIL expect you to pay for your mum’s flight?

In short, BIL/MIL are insisting that you do xyz with your children in order to both attend a party - and if you don’t do what they want you will be causing a family rift. It’s beyond laughable!

Not a chance would I be going, unless they made the children welcome to the whole event. Although I wouldn't be spending 11k on attending someone's fancy party anyway, unless I had cash to throw away.

I like a wedding and try to make an effort for abroad weddings too. What you have offered is very reasonable.

They are being total arseholes.

I definitely would not go without my children in those circumstances.

YANBU at all. Logistics just don't work. BiL wants you both there, it can't happen.

Don't go.

Take the kids on a nice holiday that week.

I think this is mostly right except

1. My BIL is passive and goes down path of least resistance in life where it suits him... however he'll happily argue or kick off it if it's worth his while / impacting him. As such my take is SIL is driving it and he has decided we arent "valuable enough" to be worth the thrash of arguing for his nephews.
2. 💯 Without going into specifics mil couldn't crawl further up their bum holes if she tried.... They are private jet wealthy! 🤩
3. Probably 🤷🏻‍♀️ he can be lovely but he is also "the baby" and has shades of MIL self absorption.
4. I'd love to know too! will update should there be interest.

Re: my mother flying thousands of miles at our expense to babysit for 10 hours...
I paraphrase but Bil said "so....one idea i had was..." then when there was just silence our side he said "well it was just one of the ideas i had" 😵‍💫😅

You’re so not in the wrong!
Kids aside, it’s unreasonable of them to ask you to pay £000s to attend their wedding. But to then insist that you both come even though the way they have arranged things means that will cause difficulties with your children is just outrageous.
Stick to your guns and DO NOT RELENT. If your husband’s family start going on about about a family rift then he needs to let them know that the only people causing a rift are the ones making it a big deal that he’s having to attend by himself - for completely legitimate and understandable reasons which were of their making.

But but but it’s not a wedding
they are already married
it’s just big party

if they want you to come SIL wealthy parents can pay

or just tell them to fuck off