To not want to invite my sister to my wedding?

[keepdrivingg]

Fully aware that this is a delicate topic on Mumsnet so I know I might be flamed here.

My fiancé and I are currently planning a child free wedding.

For context, we are both on our 20s with no kids of our own. None of our friends have children yet either.

As such we’d like our reception to be child free in order to have a big bash where we can all freely drink etc without having to worry about any kids running around or knocking things over etc! I am also not generally a massive kid person (neither is partner!).

Anyway, as I said most people we know don’t have kids yet. The only real caveat to that is my dad has a much younger child. I have two brothers who are also in their 20s, dad got remarried a couple of years ago and as such now has a 2 year old.

Some additional info here is that I’m not massively close to dad and his idea of me spending quality time with sister is to babysit for free effectively. I question his and his wife’s parenting which involves essentially letting sister do what she wants so she doesn’t kick off. if we are ever all together at family events this usually involves my grandmother having an awful time trying to keep sister at bay whilst her parents do nothing. I love my grandmother dearly and therefore don’t want her attention taken up doing this on what she will view as my special day

Further context here is that when deciding about our wedding we agreed that it we wouldn’t mind family children attending the church ceremony. The reasoning being that they can then be in family pictures and be a part of the day. Then when we move to the reception this part will be adults only and kids will not follow along here. To add, dad’s wife’s parents have sister regularly and are happy babysitters, so not really an issue on the childcare side.

Anyway, dad has majorly kicked off. He said it’s completely unreasonable to not invite sister all day, she’ll be left out and upset and I’m being a horrible sister as it’s not fair to exclude her. We sort of went back and forth on this and he’s eventually said if she can’t come to the reception then they’ll all leave after the ceremony.

im hurt that he’s effectively chosen his younger daughter over me. I’d understand if she was say, 10, and would genuinely understand what’s going on and remember going home early, as well as knowing when to sit quiet etc. but at 2 all she’ll want to do is run riot and they will allow her to do so!

My fiancé has basically said stick to our guns and if my dad shows his true colours by leaving then we know where he stands in terms of valuing me and my wishes.

id like to know Aibu to follow through on this? Or should I give in?

We had a similar ish issue. We have a primary school age child and a secondary school age child. Close family member (sibling) has invited secondary school age child but not primary school age child. Primary school age child fully comprehends that auntie/uncle has not invited them to their wedding and is upset. As a household it’s caused a bit of upset.

however, as its family we have said absolutely nothing to the bride / groom despite it being a pain and a bit unequal. They don’t want young children at their wedding. Their choice.

we had to decide if the 3 of us would go to the wedding or just the relevant sibling and secondary school child. We decided in the end the three of us would go and the unrelated grandparent would do childcare for two nights (only one needed) and make it a bit of a weekend away / treat etc so primary school age wouldn’t see everybody getting ready for the party etc.

Your wedding, your choice. Your dad should just suck it up and attend - like we have. Also shouldn’t say anything.

Thank you, this post sums it up perfectly

Oh, I thought she was talking about having a bunch of children at the church.

and judging by the lack of parenting, the children's entertainer would be spending more time on behaviour than entertainment.

YANBU OP.

I wish there was a smelling salts emoji! Talk about over dramatic!

I don’t think you are wrong to want a childfree wedding, I have children and don’t always take them to weddings because I wan’t to have a break and, yes a drink!

If you do relent, I’d say to your dad and Stepmum that your nana is not to watch your sister at all, deffo would seat her on a different table as well.

Your sister is only 2 so I imagine she won’t sit quietly or may get bored so I agree/like the suggestion a PP made about inviting Stepmums parents. Just invite them to the evening and they can take your sister home for bedtime.

So what’s the issue with her coming then?

I understand wanting a child free wedding because you don’t want loads of kids running around and having to feed them etc but if she’d be the only one then I don’t see the problem.

I think it’s fine to want a child free wedding but that may mean the parents not coming.

Your attitude about your dad choosing his other child over you sounds very childish.

You are not excluding multiple children, as you say no other children would have come anyway.

You are only excluding your sister and it seems intentional as you imply she’d be getting more attention than you.
I can see why your dad is annoyed.

I'm going to disagree with most. Sorry but I do think YABU. Your father has a child, he perhaps won't have alternative childcare. Your grandmother should not be expected to do the parenting, I agree, but it seems quite cold to me to leave your father's family out, whatever their ages. You and your friends can still enjoy a fair few drinks, children are not really an impediment to that. I found the comment about having them at the ceremony for the photos bizarre. They're kids, not props.

If it was me, I would invite her. She would be my baby sister, after all, and I would want her there. But what I would do isn't very helpful to you. Family is very important to me, while it may be less so to you.

That depends a very great deal on the child. Some children of two are frankly horrendous. I think the OP (who has been dragooned into babysitting this one before now) probably knows, better than anyone here can, just what sort of two-year-old she has decided she doesn't want to invite to be the only child at a party for adults.

OP has already said that the toddler is welcome to be at the ceremony and be in the photographs so that in future years she will be able to see them and feel she was included – she won't actually remember the occasion, so photos will help with that – and if her dad wants to run away after the ceremony because he's having a snit about her being treated the same as any other child her age and not invited to a grown-ups' night-time party, that's his call.

There would only be one small child at the wedding, whose parents won't look after her properly. The toddler will then become the responsibility of the bride's grandmother, from past experience. Both bride and grandmother would rather toddler wasn't there.

Perfectly reasonable. Stick to your guns

It sounds like you might have been happy to
have her there is she was likely to be well behaved. 2 year olds rarely are and 2 year olds with no boundaries never are.

We had a childfree wedding and would have made an exception for dhs (much younger) sister but we weren’t asked too so didn’t offer as DH had very little relationship with her and she’s somewhat “attention seeking”.

you want a day without a 2 year old taking centre stage with her screaming or running g around (during the speeches) while the parents sit on indulgently asking “what do you expect, she’s only 2?”

I think children of immediate family (at least) should be invited to the whole day personally. The parents can then arrange early finish / babysitter / sleep in pushchair in the corner / etc depending on what works best for them.

schoolsoutforever
Your father has a child, he perhaps won't have alternative childcare.

OP has said that "dad’s wife’s parents have sister regularly and are happy babysitters, so not really an issue on the childcare side." So he does have adequate childcare available. if he hasn't worn out their patience with importunity.

Seems to be a trend to have kid free weddings. Fair enough, do what you want.

But for me, I love seeing kiddos running about at weddings. They’re never the problem, it’s always the adults.

We had tonnes of kids at our wedding before we became parents ourselves. They were beautiful and no bother. All the drama came from the adults.

As the parent of a 2 year old, I'd be bouncing off the walls with excitement to have an excuse for a night off. Taking her to a wedding sounds like a nightmare, and for all intents mine sounds far more chill than your sister.

Do not budge an inch.

I’ve posted about this before as a warning to people about inviting poorly behaved children to weddings and in your case OP I think this is something that could happen to you so I’ll share again…

A friend who used to be my hairdresser wanted a child free wedding but her whole family fell out with her to pressure her into inviting her 6 year old niece and 8 year old nephew.
In the end so many of her family refused to boycott that she felt she had to invite them but she was worried they would ruin the day as they were spoilt and badly behaved. Her sister and parents promised they would keep an eye on them but of course they didn’t and the day did end up ruined.

My friend had her best friend as a bridesmaid and made it clear she didn’t want any more or any flower girls but her niece was dressed in a bridesmaid/flower girl dress and had a huge screaming tantrum she couldn’t walk down the aisle. Her grandparents tried so hard to settle her but she sobbed all the way through the ceremony and wasn’t taken out.
Both kids kept pushing each other and fighting and all you can hear when you watch videos of the ceremony is the two of them as they were so loud.

Someone gave the niece a carton of Ribena and she was being annoying trying to get under the brides dress and standing on the train before the photos. When the bride tried to stop her she ended up with Ribena squirted over her hair and dress and that didn’t come out despite trying to sponge it clean for half an hour.

The kids didn’t like the meal and were crying and having tantrums about wanting chicken nuggets. The nephew pushed his plate violently away when being asked to try a bit and food went flying everywhere.

During the speeches both kids started running round so the brides new DH said they needed taking outside, their mother refused so one of the guests ended up insisting on taking them out and missed being thanked in the speeches and being given a gift as she’d made the cake.

The bride asked her sister to take the kids home for the evening ceremony but her mum, dad, grandma and brother said they would also leave and promised they would watch them better so she reluctantly agreed they could stay.
All of her family were more interested in drinking and socialising then watching the kids who were running round getting in everyone’s way and her nephew pulled the edge of a tablecloth to steady himself and pulled all the drinks off the table so there were spilled drinks and broken glass everywhere.

Her bridesmaid best friend ended up spending so much of the evening trying to stop the kids running riot and trying to entertain them by dancing with them or taking them outside, my friend was really upset as she actually wanted to spend time with her best friend and felt guilty her night was also ruined but with no one else watching them they both felt it was the only way to reduce chaos.

The kids had to be stopped from poking the food at the evening buffet and their mum told them to go up first as they hadn’t eaten the wedding meal. They absolutely piled plates high, picked up food and put it back then hardly ate anything.
Her nephew was throwing prawns around screaming how “gross” they were until an older relative slapped his hand away from them and told him to cut it out 🤣.
This caused a big argument with the bride’s parents saying it was child abuse.

The icing on the cake (literally) was when the cake was brought out to be cut and there were multiple deep ridges where the kids had put their fingers into the cake and run them round to scrape off the icing. Lots of sugar flowers and decorations had been removed and eaten.

The bride’s parents had promised they would be responsible for keeping the cake safe and laughed when they saw the damage and said it was “obviously just too tempting for little hands not to touch”.
The friend who had spent days making the cake as a present was in tears as my friend never even got to see it before it was destroyed.

My friend had been gritting her teeth and holding it together till then but ended up breaking down and sobbing and said she knew her day would end up ruined and it hurt her so much to think she didn’t matter enough to her family to just have one day for herself.
There is a bit of a backstory that her parents helped raise her niece and nephew as her sister was a single mother who resented her situation and she felt she always came last after they were born so she felt this proved it.

My friends DH arranged for them to go abroad on their first wedding anniversary to “renew their vows” and they had another small low key wedding ceremony with his parents and sister and a couple of friends. They class that as their real wedding but my friend is very low contact now with her side of the family and they refused to pay for any damage including to the dress, cake, the broken glasses from the pulled tablecloth and the kids had apparently ruined some flowerbeds in the garden of the hotel that held the reception.

I would be firm about not inviting your sister OP or it could lead to a lot more arguments and resentment if you back down and your day is ruined.
If your dad refuses to come without your sister then I’d just say if that’s what he wants then it’s up to him, if you don’t back down he’ll likely come anyway and is just giving you an ultimatum to force you to give in.

I wouldn’t even be rushing to have your sister at the ceremony (the most important part!) as pp have pointed out it’s possible your sister will be wearing a bridesmaid/flower girl dress and shoehorned into the wedding party. Your dad and stepmother will try to make your sister the centre of the day and if they don’t get their way then all 3 will have tantrums and sulk.
There have been a couple of threads about the damage badly behaved unsupervised kids can do at weddings were I’ve posted this before and it’s always those parents who are most insistent they attend and are blind to their behaviour.

Have the day you planned and want, it’s one day of your life that should be focused on you and your DH and anyone else that tries to make it about them is better off not coming, if they are comfortable making demands now then they will be worse on the day!

Having a child free wedding, for whatever reason is fine, but you need to be mature enough to understand and accept that some people won't attend because of it. Even close relatives, even your own dad. I also don't agree with them being allowed to come just to be in the photos. Children are not cute props, to be wheeled out to for photo opps. You could solve it by deciding that having your dad at your wedding was more important than you wish for it to be completely child-free. You have chosen not to do that, which is your right, but you can't dictate how people respond to the conditions that you have laid down.

So your dad is prepared to miss your wedding reception and presumably making a speech just to keep this toddler and his DW happy. I hope you have your DM or even better, your DGM prepared to make a speech.

Our circumstances sound eerily similar, with the only difference being that I’m about 15 years ahead of you!
Genuine question- how much do you value your relationship with your father? My father was a malignant narcissist who was only interested with the children from his 1st marriage when they were providing free child care for his second family or massaging his ego.
He kicked off when I chose not to invite my significantly younger siblings to my wedding, which resulted in him deciding that he wasn’t coming at all, which tbh I was relieved about as his toddler aged kids were heathens and his behaviour wasn’t much better. It was the best thing I ever did.
i haven’t spoken to him since, but have maintained my relationships with the rest of his side of the family. Every so often my gran or aunt mention that he’s been asking about me
& wante to get in touch, when he’s reminded that he can’t as he’s blocked. Interesting refers to his behaviour regarding my marriage as ‘a storm in a teacup’.

Your father is a manipulative idiot, a 2 year old will have no idea and will not feel left out.

Absolutely stick to your guns.

It doesn't sound at all like your dad is choosing your sister over you.

He doesn't sound like he's a good parent to either of you so I doubt he's taken either of you into consideration. He doesn't soubd like the type who eill miss his daughter not being there or that he'll be the doting dad, playng with her and keeping her amused sll day!

Sounds like he's chosen to upset you rather thsn his wife.

He does want to go to the wedding. The fact he's talking about leaving after ceremony says that. He would be talking about not going to any of it, if he felt that strongly about it.

Your wedding, your choice. Sister is only 2.

I think there's sonething fundamentally wrong with people who question an invite and ask for others to attend. If you don't like your invite, don't go but stop hassling the person over whp they chose not to invite.

Enjoy your evening with or without you father. You have invited your little sister, just not full day. Can’t see you have done anything wrong.

You’ve told dad that this is a child free wedding and that you’re already making an exception for her to be at the wedding, but she isn’t going to be allowed to stay at the reception.

if he pushes, @keepdrivingg TELL your dad, she’s too much of a handful and you know she’ll be running around and that’s something that you’re not going to allow. She has GP care within metres of the venue, there are people not involved with the wedding who can look after her, you’re happy for dad and his wife to attend the reception, but it is strictly no children.

be firm. If he leaves after the wedding, that’s on him. Tell him that this may be the last time he can see his Dd getting married, he may not make it to your sisters wedding, so if he wants to miss out on your reception, that’s a massive disappointment, but it’s 100% his choice and that’s what you’ll tell people when they ask why your dad isn’t there at the party

fuck him and his manipulative behaviour.