My best friend’s son’s wedding

[GardenBirdie]

The son of my best friend of 51 years gets married tomorrow. I wasn’t invited.

it’s not exactly a small wedding - 60+ guests - and it’s taking place in a castle. My friend and her husband are paying for it.

i’ve known the groom since he was born and feel very sorry not to be seeing him get married.

I would never say anything, of course, but can’t help but feel upset that my friend hasn’t even acknowledged it.

Should I, in some way, refer to this in future? It feels dishonest not to. The wedding doesn't just involve the bride and groom and their friends - I know some distant relatives have been invited that my friend is rarely in touch with.

The same thing happened with her first son.

Feeling very hurt.

What would you say / respond if your children did want a bit of a “hoo-ha” jolly for their wedding @Morethanadecade ?

Well that sounds like an entirely different thread subject matter

I am happy to contribute or pay

With the proviso that you get to be involved and invite some people @ReachingTo ?

I must have missed something unsavoury…🤔

I’m not sure as each wedding is different.

One DC could be keen to have my friends there as he was friends with their son. Wedding would likely be 5 hours away though, so not that practical. (Unless DS and his future husband choose to marry somewhere between their two home cities).

Tradition wouldn’t really follow with two men marrying, there isn’t the traditional ‘parents of the bride’ role to take forward.
Perhaps both sets of parents could host and pay, perhaps neither?

@Morningluv We have contributed to DDs wedding - a lot of money! No, we haven’t had a huge list! It’s just God parents - 4 couples. No relatives from our side at all. There’s 220 coming altogether.

As I said above , I’m not sure, with my DC’s there would be a lot of discussion and joint ideas.

With my step DC that didn’t happen, wedding was planned with little input, but financially supported by us. The bride’s parents hosted, their friends were invited, as were one couple, who were friends with the groom’s family.

If we had been/are invited to the wedding of any of our friends children, then I would insist that invite was returned by my children. That is good manners.

When you think about it, even 100+ guests isn’t a lot. 50 for the groom and that has to include all his family, all his friends and their partners. Probably work colleagues that he sees every day too. I wouldn’t invite my parents’ best friends just because they’ve known me a long time because there would be people I’m much closer too. You are being really unreasonable to mention this to your friend - it’s not her wedding, it’s her son’s.

@ReachingTo Yes, that’s why we have so few of our friends coming. Dc are not married or they did and we were not invited. Years ago we went to weddings of neighbours dc, but we are not now in touch and dc have no idea who they are. My DDs were not happy that they didn’t get invited to the wedding of someone they had known since younger DD was 3 (and it was a surprise) but it set a precedent. My DD who is getting married and her fiance has a huge number of friends, as can be the case when they get over 30. His parents are inviting close friends and relatives - 20. So 10% of total invites. They are paying for the venue hire. We are paying over 50% more then them and couple paying for a lit themselves - photographer, flowers, band, cocktails, coaches, table scapes, and hair/make up. I’ll probably pay for flowers but haven’t offered yet!

Great, you will have no conditions, I might expect that we return an invite to friends, if they invited us to their DC’s wedding. Good manners! My DC’s would have the same good manners.

We are all different, views, attitudes, money, children, locations. Weddings are all different, even within my own family. No big deal.

The same thing happened with her first son.

This should have come as no surprise then.

I wouldnt be hurt not to be invited to my best friends kids wedding/s because I understand how stressfull they are. I wouldve laughed at my parents if they had asked me to include their best mates on my wedding day. Id also be quite shocked if my best friend expected the same thing of my children. We would have a good catch up afterwards instead and id tell her all the drama 😂 (she was invited to my mothers wedding which also happened to be on my birthday. It was a fab day)

That really isn’t how our relationship works. Much more deciding together.

Why are you so interested in my family and circumstances? Have you no friends that you would like at your DC’s wedding, or no weddings of your friends children that you have attended?

So yes… if your DC said they didn’t want to invite someone you wanted to invite… you’d withdraw your contribution.

I didn’t say any of that.

More likely that they would respect the good manners they have been brought up with.

Is that right? Don't think I've ever seen that. You can tell I've not been to a wedding for a while!

None issue, they would show good manners, of course!