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nilly then theres nothing i can do to convince them - but poor DH is actually quite hurt that his mate has effectively withdrawn our invitation to his wedding, and i think he's well within his rights to be hurt, and a bit cross.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.

BF at 8 weeks you may still be leaking milk and your breasts may feel as though they will explode.

Imo YANBU and I would decline the invite.

Tbh I would be inclined to not continue the friendship.

Don't go. Kids / babies at weddings are the best part, unless the food is extra nice and there's lots of champagne .

Save the money you would have spend on clothes, travel, gifts and you out for something to eat with your DH and new baby.

Nancy66: As I said, I bet that Bridezillas turn INTO Mumzillas. It's the same sort of self-centred solipsism. Scratch every Mumzilla and you'll find a Bridezilla in her past.

The whole notion that we're all these little atoms where OUR day and OUR children are all that matters, and everyone else is just an extra in our wonderful little opera is what is wrong here. Our weddings, like our children, only make sense as part of a greater society, and that society, whether we like it or not, includes people of all ages. We'd be much healthier if we accepted that joyfully than tried to ban our shout it out of existence in our little petty-minded selfishly isolated ways.

As someone said - so British.

GerbilMeasles: it sounds like there's some guilt in your special pleading for this bad behaviour, so I won't prod.

Sorry trellism, just got to laugh (ironically) at your last line there - surely YOUR problems were with Americans?
Hardly fair to then say "so British", hmmm?

I don't think selfishness is confined to the British population by any stretch of the imagination.

I honestly can't see what is wrong in politely requesting that children do not come to your wedding.

Everyone that I know that didn't have kids at their weddings are all very decent, fun, normal people.

The sort of mother that throws a strop about her child not being allowed and takes it a a personal slight - when the wedding was probably planned before her kid was even conceived - is the sort of person I'd steer clear of.

LadyBiscuit, you'd be wrong there, then, miss judgey judgeypants. DH would come home from night shift, drive me to work, would feed DD in carpark at work, express during day, take over from DH at night.

Picked up on "stipulated" and the assumptions because that's what OP said. All we've got are words on a screen, and she comes over a bit entitled. She's not unreasonable not wanting to leave newborn - I didn't, used to sob in the toilets whilst expressing - but can't see why she just doesn't accept that she's stated her position to friends, they've made their position clear to her, and they'll have to agree to differ.

Wouldn't have particularly wanted to do a long journey and a day and night out at wedding with a small baby myself, but wouldn't get pissy about it.

Prod away, trellism. I don't do guilt. FWIW, I didn't get too involved in planning my own wedding so my parents invited all comers, from babes in arms to doddering oldies, and we had a blast. That was what the folks wanted, so that's what they got. I don't get precious about other people having what they want if they're organising a paying for a party - they get to decide who to invite.

Don't go, probably easier on you anyway. Let your dh go alone.

Their party, their rules. Could not get excited either way.

Nancy66 -- don't think it's a big deal not going to someone's wedding if you can't comply with their rules, but most get offended thinking, 'it's only a few hours..'

I think branding people with certain terms and wanting to end a friendship because they request no children (their right) at their wedding is damn pathetic. Seriously listen to yourselves some people

Gerbil- of course it is up to the couple whom they invite but their decision to exclude a tiny, breast fed baby excludes two of their close adult friends also. It is also a selfish decision, based purely on their wish to have the full focus of the wedding on the bride and her 'special day'. The couple sound very self centered and thoughtless.

redredwine- the OP is not insisting on bringing 'a child' to the wedding. She has found childcare for her 2 year old. She is wanting to bring a breast fed newborn. There is a big difference.

but what happens when you bend the rules and allow one couple to bring their baby is that everyone else gets shirty that they couldn't bring theirs...so it really isn't worth it.

I think DH was astonished at the behaviour of Americans - we all were. We honestly thought that banning children at weddings is a mainly British thing. DH, btw, is a dirty swarthy foreigner and hails from South Africa, where he says child-free weddings are a bizarre oddity.

Gerbil, expressing in order that you can work and make a living is quite different from being made to express in order to please a Bridezilla who has no notion of how difficult it is.

Again, yeah, it is the bride's right to decide who you have at her wedding, but it's my right to get narked about the selfishness.

Aaargh! Nobody's making her express. They're making her stay home, which is (apparently) what she told them she wanted to do. She said she didn't want to go to wedding without newborn. They seem to have taken her at her word.

Seems to me that all that was necessary, right at the start, to stop all this grief, would have been for OP to say "OK, I'll have a newborn - still want to come to your wedding, but newborn comes with me, how can we work this?"

I'm with you trellism, honestly, on the general bizarreness of weddings which aren't raucous family affairs with infants, grannies and drunken uncles, but it's another peculiarly British trait to just assume that everyone knows what your wishes are and fit in with them, without anyone talking about it at the start.

gosh this has gotten massive! didnt realise it was such a commonly occuring theme with people!
i think loobylu hit the nail on the head saying that their decision to U-turn on our newborn coming along will cause them to go without us, their adult and (we thought) close friends. a bit of background on them: he is an old friend from college and she is someone he met much later - in fact they've only been together a little over a year. when he called to tell us newbie wouldnt be welcome he said it was the hardest call he's ever had to make. i get the feeling that the presence of a baby might cause some other guests to go 'well if they can bring theirs why couldnt i bring my LO etc'.

Agree with Nancy66 about the difficulty of bending the rules for some people but for others.

What about a 6 month old baby or 6 week bottlefed baby. Guests are not going to be able to appreciate the nuances, and be too polite to mention it but will leave with a bad taste and perceive double standards.

Surely the bride is entitled to take her other guests' feelings into consideration. I don't think it is a selfish thing to want your big day a certain way. No more selfish than to expect the bride to bend her rules for your circumstances.

gerbil, the OP did say that at the beginning. The wedding couple seemed to accept it until a night or so ago when they phoned to say no children means ALL children including new babies.

The invitation hasn't been explicitly withdrawn - just "effectively" by refusing to allow newborn baby to accompany the parents. I am assuming that the OP's DH doesn't particularly want to go without her, and she isn't going to go without the baby.

Then in that case Nancy66 the op has every right to decline the wedding invitation, cant have your cake and eat it on the brides part. There is a big difference between a newborn baby who needs feeding every 1-2 hours and the op is planning to bf, and a 6 month old who is on solids, a little older so can be left with someone for a longer amount of time.

alannabanana - you never answered my question, Why can't your dh go on his own?

In fact I did decline a wedding invitiation soon after dd was born, all children welcome, as dd was a 'cryie' baby with bad colic, I just did not want her crying to ruin their ceremony and also we could cope better in our own environment.

See, thumbwitch, I didn't read the OP as saying that - just that the B&G seemed OK with it. If they definitely said the OP was fine to bring newborn, then changed their minds now, then they're out of order (though possibly they're getting hassled by other guests who think that a five year old counts, or whatever) and OP is NBU to be pissed off about it.

If it was just an assumption that the newborn would be welcome, then B&G aren't out of order and disappointing though it may be for the OP, it's just one of those things when you have children, isn't it? Sometimes, there are things you just can't do.

"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."

I went to a weddin last year where the couple had a young toddler about 18 months.

The second he saw his Daddy he would not go to anyone else, he was so excited. The regoistrar was absolutely lovely and the bride and groom ended up saying their vows with the child in their arms.

I thought it was so special, they were a proper family unit.

They are being silly and thoughtless, but they're probably not being malicious. It's not worth losing the friendship over. You could stay home of course; but why don't you and DH both go to the ceremony (legally any random member of the public can do this), and then you enjoy a nice day to yourself with your newborn somewhere close by while DH goes to the reception.

It is extremely bad manners to invite guests to a party but then make it very difficult for them by demanding they don't bring their children/all dress in pink/whatever the latest Bridezilla fad is.

On your wedding day you are a host and it is a host's duty to look after your guests. That is so basic I find it difficult to believe it needs to be spelt out.

If you don't want the responsibility of being a host, then you have the option of eloping and getting married with just your partner in attendance.