to not be willing to leave behind my newborn for my friends 'no children' wedding.

[alannabanana]

so this wedding is taking place in august by which time i will have a roughly 8wk old newborn. i already have a 17 month DS for whom childcare has been arranged, but i have always said that leaving the newbie will not be feasible as i will be breastfeeding (boobies willing!), and to be honest the venue is a bit of a drive and i would not be able to enjoy myself knowing i had left such a young dependent baby with someone else. (i should say at this juncture that the very kind friend in question who would be taking care of DS and the new baby has v little experience of babies but great with toddlers, and ordinarily i would only trust my mum with the baby but she, and indeed my ENTIRE family, will be on holiday at the time of the wedding.)
i stipulated all this months ago to our supposedly close friends - the bride and groom - especially the part about my family being away and DH's family not being an option because they live nowhere near us, and they seemed ok with us having to bring the newbie, but have just received a phone call tonight saying that actually no children means NO children, even tiny babies. now, DH is actually more upset about this than me as the groom is one of his oldest and closest friends - i am of the opinion that if they don't get that you can't just leave an 8wk old baby willy nilly then theres nothing i can do to convince them - but poor DH is actually quite hurt that his mate has effectively withdrawn our invitation to his wedding, and i think he's well within his rights to be hurt, and a bit cross. is this unreasonable you think? im hoping that this doesnt spell the end of our friendship with them but it is disappointing.

Lorilee - no idea whether you are a terrible mother or not, but if you were able to leave your 5 wk old fo 3 days, I would guess you were not at that stage a breastfeeding mother!

OP - unless you are biologically symbiotic with your DH and/ or the wedding is a 3 day there and back with travelling affair, send your DH on his own. Whatever their rewasons, I doubt they are being deliberately obstructive to you. Even if your Mum was around, I'm not sure how you would leave an 8 wk old bf baby all day - unlikely to have got to grips with expressing enough by that stage.

re child-free weddings: church weddings are not exclusive, ticketed occasions - members of the public and congregation can come into the service as they please, with or wihout their children, and even, horror of horrors, wearing what they like! How does the average bridezilla deal with that on the filmset invitiations for the wedding?

I wouldn't go to a wedding that was child free because it says so much about the couple in question and the sort of starchy, humourless day it would be

WTF??? So all weddings without kids aren't worth going to?

YANBU I would not go, they sound very selfish. Weddings are boring with no kids there anyway.

shakes head in dispair

If people dont want go to a wedding thats their choice, but to come out with things like weddings with no children are boring/humourless and slag off the type of people who dont have kids there is going too far imo. My wedding had no kids and it was the greatest day of my husband and my life, all the guests had a great time and to suggest all childless weddings are boring is ridiculous.

A couple of years ago my SIL cousin were having a no children wedding except for their daughter who was 18 months old. This was what the brides mother stipulated she seemed to have her way with all the arrangements. So my DD and SIL didn't go either did his sister and her DH. The bride had 3 friends who she had known since Infant school who had all had babies and they ranged in age from 4 - 9 weeks old all bf. They said they couldn't leave the babies brides mother just couldn't see why not after all giving them bottles wouldn't hurt them (her words). Anyhow they declined the invitations but did go to the church to see their friend married their DH's walked around the church grounds with the babies. About 10 minutes into the service the brides daughter started playing up and the vicar stopped the service and asked for her to be taken outside. The brides mother looked accross at the groom's parents in the hope that they would do it.

After she had been outside for about 10 minutes the fathers outside took pity on her and offered to look after the little one after all she knew them well, and she was able to go back into the church.

Needless to say the marriage only lasted about 2 years, even though they had been together for 3 years before the wedding. The brides mother seemd to think once they were married she could interfer more than ever and in the end the husband couldn't stand it anymore and left.

The brides relationship with her 3 friends has never been the same since and realises she should not have let her mother take over the wedding.

Your friends are rubbish and either completely selfish or extremely dim for not realising you can't possibly leave an eight week old vulnerable newborn for their ruddy wedding. Don't feel obliged to go. Dh can go on his own if he must (not surprised dh is hurt, btw).

I ditched some friends who did exactly the same - expected me to leave a tiny newborn at home and travel 60 miles to their dratted wedding. Frankly ds was far more important to me than their fuck-off aren't we special nonsense. And the groom had a child so should have known far better. And don't regret ending the friendship at all. They later divorced, btw.

Nahh, Nancy. They can have their wishes and their wedding their way, but that does not mean I (or DH) have to respect them.

And it's not just their money. I, for example, bought an outfit, a gift, flights to New York and hotel accommodation for the wedding before I was told not to bring dd. I don't mean to be vulgar but most wedding guests lay out a not inconsiderable amount of money to attend.

Fwiw I tried to suggest no children at my extremely small wedding (it was dh's 2 and 3 year old neice and nephew). Got shouted down (mainly by dh to be)

However I was vindicated when dh and I could not actually hear the registrar during vows. Registrar was on the verge of pausing proceedings, as the children were literally screaming at the back.

For some reason sil did nothing whatsoever.

To date dh has not watched the video as he gets too cross.

But to the question at hand - saying no to a newborn is just so unresonable!

By some miracle I managed not to say I told you so. But it has somewhat spoilt family relations with sil as no apology was forthcoming either.

ha ha - loving the suggestions that couples who don't have kids at their weddings end up getting divorced!

Serves 'em righ eh? The evil bastards.

We had children from babies to pre-schoolers at our wedding btw. We weren't parents at the time but I would never have dreamt of excluding my friends' kids. It was fine. Especially dh's 3yo niece who joined in with our vows - after we said the 'I edam XXX take thee, edam-dp XXX' she spoke up 'Me firstname middlename'. It was charming.

(I'm not necessarily saying the divorce was the result of the childfree wedding but it did make me . Although I'd never dream of saying so IRL and obviously it's really sad etc. etc. etc.)

I think that if a bride truly wants to be queen for her special day, if she truly wants everyone to admire her, discuss how lovely the day was during and afterwards, and for guests to go home with memories of a delightful day, then she must treat her guests with respect and hospitality, not demand that they do EXACTLY WHAT SHE WANTS.

Those bloody wedding websites pander to sociopathic tendencies, which is why when I organised my own wedding, I consulted them only to find out what not to do.

OP, don't waste any time wondering what to do. Don't go. One day the bride will realise that she acted like a spoiled princess.

A couple who invited dp and I to their wedding last year are filing for divorce now.
They had children at the wedding, perhaps the divorce is karma's way of punishing them for inflicting all those screaming children on their guests?

Thinking about it, the only childless wedding I've been to also resulted in divorce... lovely wedding though.

My cousin had loads of kids at his- and divorced after 4 months....so it MUSTTTT be a factor

Oh LadyBiscuit, you haven't even given me a chance sniff ;) We could have been so beautiful together.

I've been invited to weddings because the bride and groom wanted children there and had to invite me as part of the bargain

lol at 'one big baby in a meringue is enough...'

It sounds like a wedding to miss to be honest; not so much because it's a child-free occasion but because your invite has, in essence, been withdrawn.

For whatever reason the bride has decided that an 8-week-old baby isn't an appropriate guest; it may be because she's been to weddings ruined by small babies/insensitive parents, may be because there isn't room in the venue for prams or because she doesn't want to be upstaged by cute small things in babygros.

My DD2 came to a wedding last summer when she was 10 weeks old. She slept through most of it and was paraded around by the groom for the rest of it. We're lucky though, most of our friends see weddings as a celebration rather than a performance plus we all trust each other to remove screaming babies and so we're unlikely to find ourselves in a position whereby a tiny baby and its family would be excluded.

I have only read to pg2- I totally agree with trellism (love the passionate speech btw)!

I don't think ignorance is a good enough excuse in this situation. There is a huge difference between wanting to have a particular venue/ dress/ menu and making rules which inconvenience and upset your guests.

None of my friends have had child free weddings and some of them even paid child carers to come to the venue to look after the children so that the parents could enjoy their meal in peace if the chose to! I thought this was incredibly thoughtful given that none of them had their own children at the time.

If I were you OP, I would politely decline the invite (pointing out that it was impossible to leave such a small baby). Unfortunately, I would also loose some degree of respect for my 'friend' for being so selfish.

FFS, it's their wedding, up to them who they want to invite or not and they don't have to justify it to you or to a bunch of internet wrongmos (surprisingly vitriolic ones at that). Similarly, up to you if you want to go or not, on the terms set out in the invitation.

YANBU for not wanting to go without the baby, but you're well BU for "stipulating" in advance that it was a precondition for attending AND then getting pissy because they took you at your word. And even more U because you don't seem to have realised this - they "seemed OK with you bringing the newbie" but you don't seem to have checked, just assumed that you said you didn't want to leave him/her behind so they'd make an exception.

And yes, you can leave an 8 week old baby for a day. Some of us had to do just that in t'old days to go back to work and pay the mortgage.

Although this is not the same as a wedding, my sisters and I all have our birthdays within a week of each other. So when it was my youngest sis 18th, middle sis 21st and my 26th, our parents hired a function suite and we had a joint party.
Obviously, my ds, who was 7 1/2 at the time was comming, however my dp's sister and her dp have 4 ds's between them, aged from my ds age to 10 (at the time), and they insist on taking them to any family event, and all such events have been ruined by the fact that these brats run riot and dp's sis leaves them to it, her attitude is "there only boys".
So because of their behaviour at past events, my parents did not want them at the party, which was fair enough as it was more for my sisters special birthdays anyway.
So we said that the venue had said only our ds was allowed, cause of their licence conditions, and she believed us, but didnt come, even though her dp's mother had offered to babysit (brave woman!).
However, she later found out that my 21yo sisters friend had taken her 3yo dd, and she didnt speak to me for over a year, which I wasn't bothered about cause I dont really like her anyway!!!
OP- I do think they ABU, because a newborn baby in it's mothers arms is not going to be running riot, having food fights, helping itself to other guests drinks, and spoiling the day for everyone. I dont know how you could persuede them to change their minds though?

Agree with the general consensus. I can appreciate that the bride might not want hordes of small children charging around - their wedding, their choice - although I personally think small children are fab at weddings. But a newborn that is being BF? I personally don't see how you could leave him/her. I wouldn't say anything to them. Just don't go and let your DH decide for himself whether or not he wants to go.

I couldn't have left my baby at that age. A good friend of my husband and the godfather of DS2 got married when DS2 was about 10 weeks old and exclusively breastfed. They both came from big Catholic families but couldn't afford to invite all children, so it was just close family children and babes-in-arms. I got a babysitter for DS1 and took DS2 along in a sling. They had rather wonderfully laid on a nanny, so in between feeds, I popped him in with the nanny a couple of times, which meant I could have my food in peace and even a bit of a dance with my husband for the first time in ages. It worked out beautifully, and I was so grateful that the bride and groom were so considerate - we'd have hated to miss the wedding.

DS2 is now 2.5 and we've been invited to a wedding this summer. Yet another considerate bride and groom, who have invited us all, as well as lots of options for babysitting at the venue. We've actually decided to leave the children at home with our nanny babysitting as we're desperate for some time to ourselves before DC3 arrives.

I don't think it's a coincidence that both couples are/were a) generally thoughtful and empathetic people, and b) couples who have been around newborn babies even without any of their own at that point, so know how they and their mothers tick.

It is their day and it is up to them, If you can not leave your child then you can not go the the wedding, it is not the end of the world.

GerbilMeasles - I presume you weren't breastfeeding. My DC wouldn't drink from a bottle and quite apart from that my tits would have exploded and it would have fucked with my milk supply.

The OP has said she couldn't leave her newborn - the hosts have changed the rules. And loving the way you have picked up on the word 'stipulated' and overlooked 'it would not be feasible' in the OP