How would you respond to this email, Brothers wedding invite?

haras_nosirrah

Just to put a bit of perspective on this as someone who is having a childless wedding in 3 months

Ours is childless not because we don't like children - we do

We have a venue restriction of 50 during the day and 80 in the evening. Having counted up the children in the family (mostly children of h2b's first cousins) there are 21 children in our family. One of his first cousins has 5 step children (his wife's with her ex husband) but again they come as a unit so they have opted not to come and we understand that.

If we invited one we would have to invite them all and as his family live three hours away and would be staying overnight we have accepted some couldn't come but we have given them 8 months warning so they could get baby sitters.

In our circumstances we couldn't have it that half our guest list was under 8 and therefore we have had to say a blanket no kids policy to make it fair.

burnoutbabe

you didn't even consider going alone and leaving other half home with the kids?

i'd do that rather than miss my sisters wedding.

BangorJane

TonyDebs, you will probably get another email now once everyone has responded saying "Seeing as only 3 people can come to the wedding, we're now letting kids come as well" Haha!:rotfl:

balletshoes

TonyDebs wrote: »

We have sent a nice email back thanking thm for the invite, but appologising as not able to sort childcare as rest of family will be at wedding.

Thanks for all your help:money:

could your in-laws not care for the children? Or is it the distance you'd have to travel and the length of time you'd be away from the kids thats the issue? If I really couldn't get anyone to care for my child overnight while I went to my brothers wedding, then I think the way we would deal with it is my husband would stay home, and I would go to my brothers wedding.

POPPYOSCAR

balletshoes wrote: »

could your in-laws not care for the children? Or is it the distance you'd have to travel and the length of time you'd be away from the kids thats the issue? If I really couldn't get anyone to care for my child overnight while I went to my brothers wedding, then I think the way we would deal with it is my husband would stay home, and I would go to my brothers wedding.

I think the timing is critical in this.

She would obviously have to stay overnight(opposite ends of the country) this would mean travelling home on christmas eve.Sorry I would not leave my children on christmas eve not even for my brothers wedding.

zcrat41

Hi,

Again from another persepctive - I get married in June. Our Church holds 130 people so that is a limit. The reception is only limited financially as its a marquee on a farm and they're as big as you can want! Me and oh between us have easily 130 very close friends and family. If we were to invite kids as well, our friends alond would add up to over 30 extra. At £30 a head for a kids meal thats over £1000. Either that or they'd be taking spaces from close friends.

I don't think there's an underlying issue. SOunds like you've done the right thing.

Hermia

haras_nosirrah wrote: »

Just to put a bit of perspective on this as someone who is having a childless wedding in 3 months

Ours is childless not because we don't like children - we do

We have a venue restriction of 50 during the day and 80 in the evening. Having counted up the children in the family (mostly children of h2b's first cousins) there are 21 children in our family. One of his first cousins has 5 step children (his wife's with her ex husband) but again they come as a unit so they have opted not to come and we understand that.

My friend had a child-free wedding for similar reasons. She got a very reasonable caterer, but inviting the kids would have more than doubled the costs. This was due to the fact that some relatives had married again and insisted on bringing their step-children. Her uncle was insisting on bringing 5 stepkids she had never even met which would have been pretty expensive for a sit-down dinner! Plus lots of her friends had kids. I think if you have a family where people are willing to muck in and contribute dishes to a buffet it can work. But, when some of my friends have got married they have found that there were very few relatives willing to do this.

Ultimately everyone has the right to invite who they want to their wedding and everyone has the right to decline the invitation. Two of my relatives went off and got married without telling anyone because they got so sick of being told who they "should" invite and what weddings "should" be like.

burnoutbabe

so take the kids with you into a nice hotel and leave one parent with them.

The Op clearly just doesn't want to go really, the fact its a brother means no more than if it was an acquaintance (to them), which is fair enough, as alot of people wouldn't bother travelling for an acquiantance wedding on their tod, that near xmas.

POPPYOSCAR

burnoutbabe wrote: »

so take the kids with you into a nice hotel and leave one parent with them.

The Op clearly just doesn't want to go really, the fact its a brother means no more than if it was an acquaintance (to them), which is fair enough, as alot of people wouldn't bother travelling for an acquiantance wedding on their tod, that near xmas.

Just out of interest do you have kids?

poet123

haras_nosirrah wrote: »

Just to put a bit of perspective on this as someone who is having a childless wedding in 3 months

Ours is childless not because we don't like children - we do

We have a venue restriction of 50 during the day and 80 in the evening. Having counted up the children in the family (mostly children of h2b's first cousins) there are 21 children in our family. One of his first cousins has 5 step children (his wife's with her ex husband) but again they come as a unit so they have opted not to come and we understand that.

If we invited one we would have to invite them all and as his family live three hours away and would be staying overnight we have accepted some couldn't come but we have given them 8 months warning so they could get baby sitters.

In our circumstances we couldn't have it that half our guest list was under 8 and therefore we have had to say a blanket no kids policy to make it fair.

And that is very understandable, even 30 years ago we had too many cousins to invite all their children to the meal. However, I couldn't have imagined excluding nieces and nephews because people wouldn't understand why their chidren had not been invited....it isnt rocket science and most people would know that.