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?

I wouldn’t have dragged my kids to the wedding of someone they didn’t know in the first place. Weddings aren’t fun for teenagers. If you didn’t want to go then you should have let your husband go with his children awhile you did something else with your own.

I find some of these responses very bizarre!

You’re married, you’re supposed to be a family. I presume that your DH’s relatives knew he had gotten married and that his wife also had children, if he’s close enough to be invited as a day guest.
In a situation like this, either just the two of you should have been invited as a couple, or your whole family unit. If it was about cost, they should have approached your DH and explained, and asked if it would be okay just his children or he’d prefer just the two of you go.
I also think it’s terrible to put children aged 9 and 12 on a table with strangers, what an awful and uncomfortable experience that must have been for them.
I find it quite inconsiderate on the B&G’s part how they have handled all of this.

OP you did the right thing switching seats. Ignore your stepson having any sort of issue (nothing happened so what is actually his problem?!). Ignore SIL as well.

Don't feel bad for not wanting your children to be excluded, you are their mum, and they are part of your DH’s family now.

The whole thing sounds awfully embarrassing. You should have just gone to the wedding without your children in the first place.

The lack of empathy from so many posters who can't remember what it was like being a child and feeling unconfident and uncomfortable with strangers is depressing and lacking in empathy

Which is another reason why the OP shouldn't have forced the situation where they had to be at the wedding in the first place.
It's not about lacking empathy for a child put in a situation they aren't happy about, it is about thinking the OP is unreasonable in the first place for creating the situation and then even more so for complaining about it afterwards as if it is everyone's fault but her own.

Which is another reason why the OP shouldn't have forced the situation where they had to be at the wedding in the first place.

She didn't. She was going to decline, and her husband was the one who asked if the children could go - see below

I did not throw a strop. Before I could send my regrets my husband asked the groom if it would be possible to extend an invitation to my children which he kindly did.

Your husband should never have spoken to the groom. It was their wedding and they can invite who ever they like. It might rankle that all the children are not treated the same but you need to lower your expectation of people or you’ll be forever disappointed. My DHs hideous parents treated my daughter differently once I produced another daughter that shared their DNA.

Not sure how to vote really.
YABU to have expected an invite for your DC, your DP is not their Dad and his family are not their family. You shouldn’t have refused to go.
But i wouldn’t have thought to sit 9 and 12 year old DC away from their parent. So yes in that situation I would have swapped and sat on the other table like you did.

English wedding invitations are like favours from God. Better to not attend such weddings where they are doing such grand favour by inviting you.

Sounds like the bride and groom felt an obligation to invite your children once your DH had spoken to them, which was kind of them, given it was clearly not convenient. It sounds like it caused a bit of a ball ache with seating plans.

They were very generous to you and, for the waitress to have spoken to your daughter, she must have been disruptive.

If it happens again, may I suggest you accept it and don’t try to wangle an invitation - putting people in that position is really cringeworthy

Tbf they were doing her a favour. Weddings are expensive and it’s the one day in life that the B&G should be able to decide who attends.

Well then you shouldn't have gone!

yanbu to think that putting 2 quite young kids on their own on a random table is weird and a bit rude of the b&g.

Yes, nothing was going to happen to them with you in the same room, but wedding meals drag on for ages, it's understandable they'd want to be with the rest of their family. Also a bit shit for the other couples on the table forced to supervise 2 random kids! B&G should have just chatted to you and DH and said 'Look, we're happy to invite the two younger DC but we don't have room to put all of you on the same table - will they be okay on their own or what's the best way to sort it?'

However trying to get your step son or whoever else to swap was a bit weird - you or your DH swapping with one of your kids would have been the most straightforward choice from the outset.

Tbh I rhink the appropriate action would have been to stick with your original decision that you wouldn't go, and for DH to go with his kids. The invitation extension to your kids was clearly half-hearted and grudging. Having accepted though, your DC are old enough to be expected to sit where they are told and behave themselves without you needing to disrupt the seating plan, unless you didn't disclose that one or both of them actually needs a familiar adult 1:1 at all times (in which case declining the invitation was even more the right thing to do)

Well, I think the bride and groom clearly have no knowledge about children, or have trusted people whose advice they can listen to: totally not ok to sit a 9 and 12yo away from their parents at an event full of strangers. I mean, nothing was going to happen to them, but it’s understandable the younger one came to her mum’s table. I suspect the b&g had two cancellations and that was the spillover table. It would have seemed to them that they did a nice thing for your DH.

Your DH wasn’t wrong to ask for his SDC to be included.

You weren’t wrong to suggest sitting it out.

I think this is just one of those things. Children don’t fit easily into adult settings. It’s not a big deal. I wouldn’t dwell on it, it’s not likely to happen again.

It is an odd one, you’re married into the family then I think it’s only fair for your DC to be treated the same. I think you did the right thing in the 1st place by saying you’d not go, but then you weren’t to know your DC would be sat at a separate table after it all. I’d not be happy/ sad about that. Going forward chalk it up to experience, and work on the relationship bonding between all your kids as your post seems to read that there’s a slight resentment from your DSC

Who invites half a family to a wedding? You either invite kids or you don't. Who on earth sits a 9 year old apart from their parents? That not only caused issue for the parebts and the kids, but also puts the people kids were sat with in a weird position of essentially babysitting. Honestly I think your husband may (inadvertantly) have caused the issue here. He should have accepted his family were othering his step-kids and agreed to at least honour your decision not to go, but probably not gone himself.

If invites aren't mandatory neither is attendance, not going isn't throwing a strop, it's just not wanting to be somewhere.

It's a silly fuss about not much. Sounds like you were ready to be offended.

I think you did the right thing OP in changing seats with your son. YANBU

I'd say it's more embarrassing to treat step-kids as "not really family" they sound awful.

Absolutely this. Poor children being marginalised by a very rude bride and groom.

Given the reoccurence of posts from the same usernames I'm assuming some of his family have found this post and don't like the fact they're being called out on treating step-children as "not a real family". It's really not a good look.

I suppose this all depends on many factors I’m not aware of, and the set up of how often children are where, how long you’ve been married
but I would not dream of expecting my children to be invited to a wedding on my husbands side, and vice versa. We have no children together, and I have been to his family weddings without my children

I’m surprised at the responses from mothers on here who don’t understand why a 9 year old wouldn’t feel awkward sat on a table with people they don’t know! Ofcourse they would come to you when they could. I would have hated sitting on a table of people I didn’t know on my own at 9 yo. I think the bride and groom were weird for inviting you but not your children and only your step children. And then not thinking of at least sitting you together is thoughtless. I honestly would have left with my kids and left partner with the step kids, I couldn’t have stayed and felt unwanted.

But the situation was of the OP’s making. It was rude of her DH to persuade them to invite the extra two guests (presumably costing as much as the guests they genuinely wanted).

Having blagged that, to complain that they didn’t get the seating you would have liked them to have is a whole new level of entitlement. You could have swapped places with one of your children at the beginning.