Wedding Aftermath

[Greenhairedmonstor]

I have been mulling on this for a week. I only want opinions as I don’t know what to think and I am not going to say anything to anybody.

DH, my step-children 13 and 17 and I were invited to a wedding on DH’s side.

My children 9 and 12 weren’t.

While I don’t blame groom and while my children have their own father and I have lots of childcare I felt weird about going to a family wedding without my children so I decided not to go,

My husband however, contacted the groom and very generously they invited my children however when we got to the reception my children were on a different table. They were on a table together about four tables away from me, with two couples and a baby. They were pleasant people.

My daughter kept coming over to me and a waitress asked her politely to sit down as they were going to bring out the main course.

My husband asked my stepson to swap seats but he refused and my sister-in-law was quite sarcastic. I didn’t know what to do so finally I swapped seats with my own son.

My stepchildren appeared to be annoyed by this.

What would you have done?

Ah yes - ‘sorry we can’t invite any of the children…’ Then OP would be complaining about that.

It’s definitely less offensive than ‘we’ll only invite half of the children.’

Unsure why you’re so vehemently defending it. Would you genuinely not feel a bit hurt in the OP’s shoes if your dc were the ones being left out?

It's not. The children not related to the bride and groom have their own relatives.
They might be at their father's every other weekend.

And if they weren’t? The polite thing to do would be to invite them anyway. So what if they have their own relatives, doesn’t make them any less part of their mother’s family.

My dh is not my son’s bio dad. His family are no longer with us but I’m so thankful I never had any of this bullshit with them and they treated him kindly and included him from day 1.

Well OP/DH got their way and the event was disrupted - I don’t think they will have to worry about navigating this situation again.

So should the actual relatives of the couple have been excluded if they didn’t want to have all of them (presumably the extended family isn’t that close with OP’s children)?

@froglet46 , we don't even know what relation OP's DH is to the bride or groom. He might be a cousin.

I would not be inviting my cousin's step-children to my wedding. I wouldn't be inviting my cousins' children to my wedding, or their children. The wedding would be the size of Glastonbury!

And I’m defending it because the idea of basically wangling invitations for completely unrelated children is just 🙈🙈🙈. I’m AuDHD and even I’m more socially aware.

The people on here saying that not only should they have been invited, but people should have effectively been moved as the younger one apparently couldn’t manage being away from her mother (to the extent that the OP wanted an actual relative of the family to move 🙈🙈🙈

I'm not surprised so few couples are getting married.

I never realised that inviting children was even a thing.

I don’t think you have much social awareness at all, actually. You’re aggressively defending some weird position you have of being offended on behalf of a stranger to anyone that you think might mildly have a different view to you - you even started insulting me as being entitled but have yet to explain quite way. You sound like a bit of a piece of work.

I didn’t insult YOU - it was the level of entitlement on the thread.

I don’t believe I was asked to explain myself

Still don’t let stop you commenting on me personally. My AuDHD gives me black and white thinking but I really would be ashamed to behave in RL like some people on this thread.

As I’ve said numerous times, I don’t think they should have requested an invite for the kids. That’s bad etiquette too. Handled badly by all sides imo.

I know the general MN stance is that we should all be too edgy and cool to be bothered by people’s choices and that it’s ‘entitled’ to expect a bit of thought and compassion from others. However in the real world I think it’s fairly normal to feel aggrieved when your kids are being excluded from something.

You are right that everyone handled it badly but this thread is crazy!

Compassion works both ways though. 🤷‍♀️

And it isn’t about being ‘edgy and cool’ - in fact, if this thread is anything to go by, the idea that you don’t invite yourself places is a new one!

It's a whole new thing for me. I thought it was up to the bride and groom to invite who they like.

I've sometimes wondered why I didn't get a +1 invite, or why was only invited to the evening part but it was usually to do with numbers being limited.

saying she had a previous commitment isn't exactly a lie, she had a previous commitment to spend the day with her kids.

its a tiny social 'lie' to save her partner from feeling like a chump (Apparently people feel like chumps if they have to go alone?! )

it saves him discomfort and the bride & groom. It's really no big deal.

Would you genuinely not feel a bit hurt in the OP’s shoes if your dc were the ones being left out?

They're not the only two kids in the class not being invited to the birthday party. It’s the wedding of a distant relative. Given that they were seated away from their mother, it’s quite possible that the couple couldn’t even remember how old (or rather how young) they are.

She was invited as her husband’s partner. She’s essentially a plus one. Why would her family be invited along with her?

Last wedding I went to, I was sat with a 11 year old, 7 year old and a 5 year old as their parents were on the top table. They do know me but not well. They were all fine and stayed seated for the whole meal. Shame you didn't know before hand as you could have helped prepare your daughter. You weren't wrong to change seats with your son if that was the only way for your daughter to manage. But you shouldn't have asked your stepson to swop.

But the children were invited too. That’s less of a plus one situation and more of an ‘invite the whole family minus the step kids’ situation. Depends how you choose to view it I suppose.

The older children are relatives of the groom though. The younger children aren’t. They probably barely know them.

Yeah but once you do invite them surely most people would sit kids that age with a parent?

Very odd to place a 9 and 12 year old with strangers.

Your dh was rude to ask the groom as they’re not his family. Sounds like they were very accommodating and fitted your children in. At their ages I’d expect them to be able to manage sitting at a table for an hour or two.

So much unkindness about a shy 9 year old who wanted to be near her
mum. Are you all mothers?? I’m a bit shocked.

Having read through this post I find it difficult to reach an opinion without more information about the precise relationship between the various parties. My first instinct is that all the adults behaviour was less than stellar including B and G, SIL, OP and H. However the children, both bio and step, seem to be being unfairly criticised for their perfectly normal, expected and reasonable behaviour in a situation outside their control particularly the little girl.

This is quite a reach. And very callous towards a shy nine year old to call her behaviour ‘appalling’ if she was simply distressed in a room full of strangers, seated away from her mum.

It's embarrassing and awkward when only half a family is invited.