Bride Wants to Know If She’s the Jerk for Making Family With Crying Baby Leave Her Wedding
If you’re planning a wedding, there are a lot of decisions you need to make—the type of flowers, your first dance song, and what kind of food to serve, to name just a few. But one of the biggest decisions of all will come in the form of who will you invite? Do you want a large gathering or an intimate ceremony, and, most importantly, will you invite kids?
Lots of people opt for a childfree wedding. No one wants a crying baby during the ceremony, right? Well, neither did one bride, who turned to Reddit for advice after her big day.In a post on the popular “Am I the a**hole?” subreddit group, she explained that she really wanted to have a kids-free wedding. In fact, that was the original plan. However, it just so happened that her sister’s babysitter canceled on her, and she asked if her two sons—ages 2 and 5—would be allowed at the wedding.
“I felt pressured, but she begged for them to come,” she said. “I told her as long as they behaved and her husband kept an eye on them.”
Well, that might not have been the best idea. As the day began, there were already problems—for example, her sister was late to arrive to get ready with the rest of the bridesmaid crew because her son was acting up. Then, during the ceremony, the son began to fuss during the bride’s vows.
“My BIL grabbed him and very awkwardly made his way out, with my older nephew behind telling his brother to shush,” she said. “I had to restart my vows twice due to the disruption, and I was already so nervous.”
It wasn’t until the reception where her sister kind of brushed off the whole thing, even though it felt like a much bigger deal to the bride.
“After the first dances she finally came up and was like “haha sorry about [nephew], it was nap time! He’s settled now,” she explained.
However, that wasn’t going to bode well with the bride. “It was such a non apology and I was so upset,” she said. “I told her I didn’t like how dismissive she was of my wedding and how I broke my own rule to accommodate her family and she didn’t seem to care. She said she was sorry again but I was blowing things out of proportion, and how it wasn’t as big of a disruption as I was making it out to be. I was just boiling at this point and asked her to please go, I didn’t want her there anymore.”
She and her sister haven’t talked since. And while she has a lot of support from her friends, her family thinks she blew everything out of proportion.
The Reddit results seem to be mixed, too.
Lots of people think the sister is in the wrong. “You gave people a year of advanced notice and you actively tried not to be a bridezilla by accommodating your sister’s kids. She should never have put you in that position,” someone said.
But some say the bride might’ve reacted a bit too intensely: “You knew that by agreeing there was a possibility of the kids getting fussy at some point,” someone said. “Your sister shouldn’t have been so dismissive because you wanted things to go well and that is understandable. However, kicking her out of the reception after it already happened is a pretty crappy thing to do and I’m sure other people noticed. There was no point in adding more drama.”
What would you have done in this bride’s situation?