money This Bride Only Invited Some Of Her Sister's Children To Her Wedding, And TBH, After Reading, I Would, Too
If you've ever been to a wedding that had lots of kids in attendance, you've probably seen how hard it can be to corral them — most people think it's way easier to leave them at home! But if you've ever helped plan a wedding...you know that people can get pretty weird when their kids aren't invited. It's complicated!
Recently, Reddit user u/Bright_Physics_8375 (or Bright Physics, for short) turned to the popular "AITA" subreddit to share her story and ask the community, "AITA for only inviting some of my sister's children to my wedding?"
She wrote, "I got married to my husband in August. We kept it small and simple and didn't want too many guests due to budget, so we only invited close family members and friends. My older sister Dawn has 10 children. My parents and the rest of my family aren't religious, but Dawn and her husband are very hardcore Christians and believe that having lots of children is God's will. Obviously, inviting all of my nieces and nephews would be quite a cost."
"My wedding isn't child-free, but my husband and I decided it would be fair if we only invited Dawn's three eldest kids. I talked to Dawn about it and explained our reasoning, but she was really offended and said that I'm picking favorites. I told her I'm sorry, but 10 kids is a big cost on our wedding budget, and that we tried to be as fair as possible."
"Dawn accused me of being a bridezilla and thinking I'm too good for her and her family. I told Dawn if she doesn't like it, she doesn't have to come, but that she's my sister and I really want her at the wedding. Dawn, her husband, and three eldest did come to the wedding, but with other family members bringing small children, everyone was asking her about why all of their kids were not there."
"After the wedding, Dawn has been very off around me lately. She told me she 'understands how I feel about her babies' and said that I'm a bad sister and a terrible aunt, and has accused me of not respecting her religion and lifestyle."
"My parents and other siblings have been making comments like 'don't get too excited for xyz, Bright Physics said only three people can come because there's too many of us.' The comments have been getting to me a bit, and I'm wondering if I was the asshole."
After seeing a few questions roll in, Bright Physics added: "My husband and I paid for the wedding ourselves. I didn't want to ask my parents or Dawn for help with paying for anything because neither of them have a lot of money. If Dawn had offered to help cover costs so all of her kids could come, I wouldn't have had a problem."
Some people appear to disagree, but the overwhelming consensus is that Bright Physics is not the asshole. A lot of people agreed that if Dawn insisted on bringing 10 people, she could have offered to help accommodate them financially.
"If your sister was so upset, she could've offered to contribute toward the costs," said user u/GreenRedCrescent. "[That's] a consequence of having a load of kids. People aren't going to want to cater to all of them at events because it is a big cost."
Other people were more concerned about the planning and the kids' feelings:
"It’s a tough one, but I’m going to go with a reluctant you're the asshole. I can completely understand why you made that choice, but I don’t think it was the right one. These are your nieces and nephews, and you chose to exclude them from a family event. I understand the cost issue, but it’s not like these children suddenly materialized just as you were sending out invitations.
You should have budgeted for all of them from the word 'go,' or you should have planned a way to limit numbers without it seeming like you were picking on just that one family. You could, for example, have simply said, ‘No children under 12 invited.'"
But once you realize that the wedding only had 40 people, a family of 12 seems even bigger than before.
"Given that you had roughly 40 guests without those additional seven, I have to say not the asshole. As it is, that family of five people made up 12.5% of your total wedding. If you accepted all 12 members of that group, they would've made up 25% of your total wedding. That's a big chunk of your wedding wasted on kids too young to care."
Some people had more criticism: U/fragilemagnoliax said, "I really think you should have put an age limit and made it universal for all guests. That would make it more fair, and wouldn’t make it look like you singled out your sister."
"I mean, look at it from your nieces' and nephews' point of view: They were excluded on purpose. They would definitely feel unwanted and unloved. Your family should have offered to pay for the extra kids, but the best thing to have done was to be 'no kids under 13' and make that a rule for all."
But that was cleared up with a clarifying question: U/jessikill asked, "What was the reason you denied all of your sister’s kids but allowed others to bring small kids?"
"Because I wanted to include my sister, but inviting all of her kids would've made us go over our budget," says Bright Physics. "I thought inviting the eldest three was fairest because they'd get the most enjoyment and remember it. If I had unlimited money, I would've invited all of them."
"I let other guests bring small children because it wasn't a child-free wedding," she continued. "There were only two guests with children under 4, just my younger sister with her daughter and my husband's stepbrother with his toddler."
The consensus on Reddit was that Bright Physics was totally justified. But what do you think — should she have found a way to accommodate the kids? Was there any better way to communicate with her sister? Or was Dawn totally out of line? Let me know in the comments.
Please note that some comments have been edited for length and clarity.
