'AITA for wanting a child-free wedding reception despite my family's objections?' UPDATED

"AITA for wanting an adults-only reception despite my family’s objections?"

I’m getting married in April next year in an intimate wedding ceremony with just my immediate family, my fiancé’s immediate family, & our bridesmaids/groomsmen there. We’re renting an Airbnb for 3 days that hosts all 25 of us.

Casually hanging out the first 2 days, the wedding ceremony is on the final day of our stay there, & the wedding reception is on the night of our wedding in another location with 100+ people aside from the original 25 in the wedding party.

My fiancé & I wanted this weekend to be adult-only. 2 of my bridesmaids have kids but have planned/are planning childcare for that weekend & support our “no kids” rule. My mother strongly insisted I invite my sister’s 2 kids (& emphasized they are my “only niece and nephew”), so we reluctantly decided to include them in the ceremony as a flower girl and ring bearer.

Fiancé & I still want to do one adult-only event and decided the reception will be adults-only, which he & I are paying for entirely. When I explained this to my mom, INITIALLY, she was willing to miss the reception & watch the kids as she doesn’t drink & the kids go to bed early (our reception will be a nighttime event past their bedtime)

Side note: my mom volunteered to do this, I did NOT force her to make this decision.

My sister, however, called me “rude and inconsiderate” for this decision, implying it’s wrong for me to not want my “own niece and nephew at the reception”. She is thinking to not even attend the wedding at all, even though 1. Her kids will miss the RECEPTION, not the WEDDING, and 2. I explained that my mom is willing to watch the kids during the reception.

I talked to my mom to tell her my sister is upset, thinking my mom would support me. Guess what? My mom FLIPS on me, telling me she won’t come to the wedding either if I’m going to exclude her grandkids like that.

She went from “I’ll watch the kids” to “you’re a bad person” in a span of 10 minutes, which I suspect has something to do with my sister having a side conversation with my mom while I was talking to them both? Anyway…

My fiancé reached out to my family (my mom, dad, sister) & explained that we need to have a discussion about this as a family. My dad explained they are traveling for the next 2 weeks, & once they return, & we all have time to “cool off”, we will arrange a family discussion. He seemed neutral in his response but didn’t state where he stands in this.

I’m disappointed my mom and sister feel this way and are insisting things go THEIR way for MY wedding. My fiancé and I are not changing our minds. As much as I have my fiancé and his family’s support, I’m sad about my own family possibly not being at the wedding over this (especially as my dad agreed to officiate our wedding).

I also don’t want to sacrifice my boundaries for an event that is extremely special to my fiancé and me. With that said…. AITA?

I won’t have a major update until after we have our “family discussion”. Until then, any input is appreciated!

EDIT: While I am sad about their choice, if they can’t come, I understand & accept it. Explained this to them and they still don’t seem happy. Wanted to clarify this.

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

LowBalance4404 said:

Do adults not realize that children usually never want to go to a wedding or a reception? I mean, I was dragged to a few when I was 10-15 years old and MY GOD. So boring. I would have rather watched paint dry. NTA and you get to have the kind of reception you want.

wanderingstorm said:

NTA. YOUR wedding. YOUR choice. If you make an exception for your “only niece and nephew” how long before everyone else expects exceptions for their kids. Don’t back down and enjoy your childfree wedding reception.

[deleted] said:

NTA. Wanting a child-free reception isn't a crazy concept. It's an adult function anyway, kids usually get bored. You're paying for everything yourself and you want everything just so.

I've been to over 100 weddings (I used to bartend for a catering company, yes yes are we having fun yet). While, yes, someone getting drunk and making a mess is common, I've seen more children wreak night-ruining havoc than any other instigator.

I've watched fire departments get called because some kid decided that climbing a pergola was a good idea, I've seen children throw so many tantrums because they're bored, usually causing their parents to leave early whether they want to or not (even watched one push an old lady trying to entertain him),

I've seen kids take off with balloon arches that were still being used, and I've watched them absolutely destroy a few wedding dressed by smearing cake onto them. If my partner and I ever get married, I sure as hell won't have kids at my reception and I don't blame anyone else for not wanting them there even if they haven't witnessed the social atrocities they're capable of.

Especially if you plan on having a red velvet cake. As far as I'm concerned, instigating a "child-free" reception is a gift to all the parents who plan on attending. You're gifting them with a night off to be adults, guilt-free. You get to be the bad guy and parents get a small reprieve which they should all feel entitled to once in a while! It's great! Everyone wins.

And tatersprout said:

NAH. You have a right to ban kids from your wedding. Other people have a right to not attend if they can't bring their kids. Nobody is wrong here. I do think it's a very big ask for people to find childcare for the 3 "wedding days" plus the reception. I feel sorry for your wedding party.

She later shared this update on the situation:

After my parents returned from their trip, we had our family discussion on Sunday. My fiancé and I explained that we are going back to our original plan of having an adults only wedding weekend and went into detail explaining why our wedding event is not catered to kids.

My sister said she and her husband spent the last few weeks to discuss this, understood our plans, and agreed that at the end of the day, this wedding is what my fiancé and I want and we should stick to the original vision we had for this event.

Hence, she and her husband decided to not attend the wedding weekend to stay and watch the kids, suggesting visiting us another weekend with the kids to hang out and celebrate with us separately.

My mom stated she won’t be coming to the wedding because “the grandkids are my life”, and excluding the kids from the celebrations means she will not be able to enjoy the wedding, so she, too, declined to attend. She included some emotional outbursts in there (i.e. - “she’s your ONLY sister”, “you won’t understand because you’re not a mother”,

“I won’t feel comfortable leaving the kids 1000 miles away”, “I love all my kids equally, and if one kid is excluded, I’m not going.”) My sister tried her best to convince my mom to attend because my sister is sacrificing her attendance to stay with the children. I expressed that it felt like she was choosing my sister over me, which my mom denied.

My fiancé challenged my mom on some of her points (an example: my mom was okay to take a trip to the Himalayas last month with no cell service for a week and with the kids under the care of my sister and brother-in-law, but she can’t travel two states away to attend her daughter’s wedding with the kids being under the same care).

Despite our efforts, my mom was adamant to stand her ground on her decision to not attend. My mom then suggested hosting a separate event for us to celebrate our wedding on another weekend where the kids can be present, in place of attending our wedding that we’re paying thousands of dollars on.

My dad was on the phone trying his best to be a mediator, and eventually suggested we have another discussion in the future involving just my mom and dad because the current conversation was too emotionally intense for everyone at the time.

He even recognized my mom’s outbursts as a purely emotional response and suggested we “ignore her for now”, until we circle back in another later conversation (mom, dad, fiancé, and me) as my sister and brother-in-law’s RSVPs are confirmed and my mom and dad’s RSVPs are the two left to discuss.

My dad didn’t explicitly say if he’s attending or not, but he seemed surprised that we “changed our plan” from having the kids be involved to suddenly being excluded.

When I explained to my dad that the original plan did not include the kids and that my mom was the one who pressured me to include the kids, he acknowledged this but advised me that I should have been honest from the beginning to her about the child free event (even though I felt pressured by her to deviate from our original plan).

He decided we should end the call, we said our goodbyes, and we’re due for another call soon. I have receipts, such as a recorded phone call and texts from 3 weeks ago to today that I can share if you want the full tea (just need time to bleep out names to maintain anonymity). I will point out a few take a ways I got out of this entire situation:

-I froze during a lot of the phone conversation, because I did not know how to express myself verbally without getting emotional, plus, I have a childhood history of my boundaries being violated by them and did not feel comfortable challenging them. In those moments, my fiancé challenged them, stood up for and defended me.

We even updated my future mother-in-law after this discussion and she supports both of our decision, stating she too had a child free reception at her own wedding, and empowering me to stand my ground no matter what anyone says.

This conversation proved that I’m entering a wonderful family who has our back as a couple, and I made the best decision in marrying my fiancé and becoming a part of his family.

-Three of my bridesmaids got on a group call with me right after the discussion and they pretty much had my back while chewing out my family for their reluctance to try working it out. They’re excited to celebrate with me and be there for my big day.

Two bridesmaids who were not on this phone call still showed their support - one, who is a yoga instructor, led me through a surrender yoga practice to help me release the built up tension and we plan to met every Sunday evening while supporting me emotionally through this.

The other bridesmaid, who has a daughter she is attached to, is working things out with her MIL to watch her daughter that weekend, and agreed that my family doesn’t have to be so emotional about this and should be more solution oriented and understanding.

All of them are excited to help me plan a fabulous wedding weekend and bachelorette weekend. Touched by their support, I decided to upgrade them to my maids of honor, and thanked them for being my sisters when I needed a sister the most (I’m going to surprise them by mailing cute and custom “will you be my MOH” gifts).

-The invite for my dad still stands, with him having the option of bringing a +1 (be it my mom, my sister, another relative, a friend) or he comes alone. If he doesn’t attend, I have backup officiants who are lined up as options if he declines to attend. If you all still want an update on my dad’s attendance status or other stuff in general, I’ll gladly share once that conversation happens

(EDIT: I decided that another family phone call isn’t necessary as he suggested, and extended an invite to him as one person independent from my mom via a well-written email - he has until October 27th to RSVP, and this will determine whether or not we will need to move forward with another officiant).

-I am done trying to please my immediate family at the expense of myself and am breaking this toxic cycle I’ve been in for decades by gaining more confidence and less regret in my decision and not letting them ruin this day for us. Whoever wants to come and celebrate with us on our big day, will be there.

I would rather have such supportive people at our 25-person wedding and 100+ person reception. And my fiancé and I have more than enough support beyond my immediate family members (among our friends, his family, and all of you)

The reminder and encouragement from you all helped tremendously and is very much appreciated. Thank you all for tuning in, sharing your two cents and more, and helping empower me through this.