Half cringing. Half admiring. Turning up at wedding after being uninvited.

[SlothsRUs]

We were at a wedding yesterday and we’re still at the hotel.

Husband had been out with a friend a few weeks ago and she had told him that the groom’s brother had stepped down from being best man as his stepson had not been invited.

I was delighted at this as when same thing happened to us my husband wasn’t supportive

It then emerged that he had tried to stop his own son from going but child’s mother and rest of family stepped in.

Yesterday came along and there is groom’s brother, wife and stepson sitting at back of church in casual clothes.

They then stood at entrance to churchyard at which point mother of groom saw him and started crying Family and friends including my DH shook hands.

We check in to hotel and come down and nephew is being comforted by the ushers

Brother of groom, wife and stepchild had come to hotel as well, where they stayed in the entrance for four hours.

He claimed he just wanted to be on the periphery of his brother’s big day.

I was half cringing and half admiring. I wanted to curtsy for his sheer chutzpah.

No one is talking about anything else.

They've all behaved badly. I can't imagine bringing a child who specifically wasn't invited and putting them in that awful situation. Groom is grim for not inviting step-child, brother of groom is grim for trying to stop his own son from attending, and then turning up with wife and step-child. Whole thing is bat-shit

So this is me projecting massively based on very little information. Excluding the second wife and stepson seems an unnecessarily divisive move in the first place, so I am going to summise that the brother wanted the same role/status in the wedding for the stepson as the blood nephew, backed by his wife. This was refused (recent 2nd marriage, unfamiliarity with the stepson, could be for good reasons, maybe not), leading to stalemate as neither side would budge. The wider family sided with the grooms position, hence the insistence the nephew attended. Also the nephew was super excited to be part of the wedding, get to dress up etc and they didn't want to disappoint him. Brother and wife decided to act as they did because they couldn't accept the difference between the 2 boys and therefore caused much drama for the bride and groom and the wider family, and possibly blew up family relations permanently. There has to be more to this for it to have escalated to the point, because an invite for the step as a guest should have been sufficient by any normal metric surely? Assuming one was offered of course.
As I said, all speculation on my part.

It’s really fucking nasty to be gleefully writing (albeit extremely badly) about someone else’s personal crisis and ruined family occasion, just because you happened to be present. This has nothing to do with you, but you are putting this family’s public dispute (which will be very obvious for anyone reading this who was there) on SM for entertainment purposes. Shame on you.

I absolutely agree, it does. Which is why other people cannot dictate whether two people consider each other 'family' or not. And someone being biologically linked to you doesnt make them 'family' either. Family is something that isnt just given, its earned through time and care and mutual affection.

"The cousins and ushers kind of formed a human shield around the actual nephew."

Does seem a touch over the top about people eating toasties in a hotel reception area. Surely better to just not acknowledge their presence if the whole family are now ostracising the groom's brother for caring for his stepson.

Seeing you clearly have a serious need to gossip OP, and jealous exs there dressed in white frou-frou dresses? Was the groom's mother's mascara waterproof? What's on the menu?

The idiotic Baby Reindeer family have now ensured a permanent rift. That's it, forever. They've fucked themselves completely.

At this point, even if the wedding family were completely in the wrong, nobody will care or see past the Baby Reindeer stalkers acting like over entitled nutters.

They've shown themselves to be absolute loons, and everyone normal will remember how much of a tantrum they threw, choosing to ruin a wedding because they were told no.

A wedding was ruined and children caused great distress by the Baby Reindeer stalkers. There are no plus sides to this, nothing to admire, nothing to laugh or snigger about. It's just shit all the way down.

He wasn’t sidelined by the bride and groom.

He dropped out.

He has a step-family. So what? It shouldn’t interfere with their lives if they don’t want it to.

Really need to do AS before posting, just realised which OP this is. No wonder they were celebrating this nonsense.

Awful, self centred behaviour from the brother and shameful for his wife to turn up with her child too.

I’m not sure what it says about you that you admire them behaving so selfishly and upsetting the son/nephew that was invited. Not good things.

This. The wider family didn’t choose to marry her, and brother doesn’t get to police others on what they consider family. Great if they do, but don’t expect it.

A lot of the brother’s (and his wife’s) attitude comes from having a chip on their shoulder because they know their current family unit comes broken marriages. And while there may be genuine love there, in an ideal world nobody chooses to have a blended family. The little show they made at the wedding only highlights that insecurity. Did they really have nothing better to do that day?

I was coming on to say this! I mean, the fecking drama of turning up in casual clothes, weeping and then hanging around the reception!! Why didn't they bring placards and a megaphone and have done with it? I am glad the step child was oblivious because this is an awful thing to put a child through. Awful parenting. It looks like a dick move not to invite the stepchild but the mature thing to do would have been that none of them went and you don't go where you are not invited. But hanging around the edges like a bad smell in jeans and a t-shirt while casting mournful glances at the wedding party is completley OTT. I don't are if the bride and groom are Joan Crawford personified, I am now on their side!

If the brother was brazen enough to do this surely he should have just remained best man and then turned up on the day with his son, wife AND stepson in tow.
If there wasn’t a place at the table for his stepson or a meal for him he could have said,”Here laddie, have mine” then just pulled up a chair for himself/hovered about until the meal was over.
I think that would have been better for the boys and less disruptive to the wedding overall. It would have angered the bride and groom, but not as much as what actually happened.

You really can’t work out why the mother of the groom, who was most likely already very upset that one of her sons was refusing to attend the other’s wedding, would get even more upset when it turned out said son actually WAS now attending, but as a protest to ruin the day?

And you don’t understand why a 12 year-old might be just slightly embarrassed to realise his father had deliberately turned up to make a scene at a special occasion?

How shameless

I bet the step-son didn’t even want to be there. It must have been so humiliating for the little fella.

He was not invited. He should have been at home. Not gawped at and gossiped about the entire day.

This. No emotional intelligence.

Precisely. Well put.

Really? Maybe he doesn’t live with his dad, and feels he’s been replaced? Maybe he hadn’t seen his dad for a while and didn’t know how to respond. His dad sounds like an arsehole. Maybe the nephew was reacting to that.

I feel so bad for the poor kids. Just awful parenting on the part of the Baby Reindeer family.

Exactly. I imagine THAT is what upset the mother.

The brother had two perfectly reasonable choices here. One was to say, “I don’t agree with my stepson not being invited, but I’m not missing my brother’s wedding” and then gritting his teeth and getting on with it. The other was to say, “I’m sorry, but my stepson is my family and if he’s not going, none of us are” and then declining the invitation.

Instead he came up with an utterly unhinged third choice of making a public scene that was guaranteed to upset his mother and son. And all because he supposedly cared about his stepson’s feelings. He can’t care that much if he was happy to see his own son reduced to tears.

I agree with this.

I don’t know why the actual nephew cried but I imagine he felt let down by his dad.

Surely the feedback you’ve had from your own children in the past would give you colour here?

I suspect the nephew doesnt like or get on step brother. Things that stick out for me.
-Nephew was in the bridal party
-His father tried to prevent him attending until family stepped in.

• Mother cried when she saw her 2nd son and family suggesting some bit fallout

prior.

• Nephew was crying and distraught.
• Cousins rallyed around nephew all night

The grooms brother and wife were complete dickheads. The venue should have removed them. Nothing here to be impresses by op. Digusting low life behaviour. You clearly have very limited information and are thriving on the drama of it.

Sitting at the back of the church for the ceremony is fine, I think. The rest, well, less so

I don’t know if I’m stupid but I can’t work out who is who in this tale.