'AITA for uninviting my fiancé's cousin from our wedding and returning her plane ticket?' UPDATED

"AITA for uninviting my fiancés cousin from the wedding and returning her plane ticket?"

I (24M) am getting married to my fiancé (25M) in a few months. We’re having our wedding in Italy, as I was born there, and made sure everyone knew it was a kid free (18+) wedding as there are major safety precautions that had to be taken, like an open bar, water features that aren’t blocked off, an open smoke lounge, and multiple other things that may not be safe for kids of any age.

The venue didn’t forbid children just suggested against it. The only exceptions to this rule is my 17 year old sister who is my best man, she is one of my two sisters but unfortunately my older sister died when i was 10 years old.

I always dreamed of having my older sister at my wedding as my best ‘woman’ growing up (I didn’t know I had a little sister at this time as she's only my half sister and we didn’t meet until my mom died and I moved in with my dad at 12) and was thrilled that my little sister was willing to fill this role.

The other exception is my fiancés niece (7) who he adores more than the earth, she’s gonna be the flower girl and is going to be the absolute only under ten allowed at the wedding. (If you’re wondering about whether or not she’ll get lonely being the only young kid there, I promise she will be fine)

When my fiancés side got their invitations and heard about her being the flower girl they were ecstatic for her and immediately congratulated us, only a few people asked about the child only rule but nobody complained about it.

Until last Saturday when I got an email from my fiancés cousin (26F), who already rsvp’d for only her and her husband a few months ago. We hadn’t heard from them since Thanksgiving last year when we went to his grandmas (who has since passed) house and they congratulated us and left it at that.

In her email she explained that she thought it was unfair that my fiancés niece, who was younger than her oldest, was allowed to come, but none of her kids were. I explained to her that we were closer with his sisters family than hers and it was his dream to have his niece participate in our wedding, it was one of the only requests he made and one of the only exceptions to our rule.

After a few days she emailed me back and told me that she didn’t think the rule was fair and that her kids were either going to the wedding or none of her family were going. So I returned her and her husbands tickets (my dad had paid for most of the families on both sides tickets, it was his big contribution to the wedding which I am so grateful for) and I revoked their invitations.

I emailed her again explaining what happened and she responded cursing me for ruining her trip to Italy and blocked my email. I’ve gotten a few other messages from various members of that family calling me a little outlandish and saying I should’ve heard her out or just let the kids (3 under 10) come to the wedding, but I didn’t want to deal with that stress a month before my wedding. AITA?

Edit: I am overwhelmed with the amount of comments and support on this post, currently busy but I will go through and answer anyone with questions later today! Thank you all!

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

SmeeegHeead said:

NTA. Your wedding. Also, she gave you an ultimatum, and you called her in it. She Fafo. Well done 👏

Relative_Reading_903 said:

She thought she was going to get free tickets for her kids to go to Italy for their family vacation. Your wedding had nothing to do with it. Good job on avoiding being taken advantage of.

MrsRetiree2Be said:

NTA! She said they would not come if you didn't give in to their demands. You simply followed through.

[deleted] said:

lol, she is not mad about missing the wedding but her Italian vacation. You dodged a bullet.

[deleted] said:

I mean the ones under the age limit are LITERALLY IN THE WEDDING. NTA entitled AF

ChiSquare1963 said:

NTA. She gave you an ultimatum and you took her at her word. Bet your soon-to-be-in-laws are cautious about trying to manipulate you in future.

Cloudinthesilver said:

NTA - also lol at her claiming you ruined HER trip. She was the one that said she wouldn’t come…

Live_Western_1389 said:

I find it incredibly stupid on the cousin’s part to even think that her kids-groom’s 1st cousin once removed, or 2nd cousins, however you choose to call it-should get equal treatment as the groom’s niece. Looks like she tried to bluff you with an ultimatum and you just followed through. NTA.

He later shared this second edit along with an update:

I’ve been getting a bunch of questions about the situation so I’ll go deeper into context of what happened and what was said for a moment. Plus a small update!

1.) She had expected my dad to be able to buy them three extra tickets on the same plane and, since we are staying for multiple days, get enough extra beds for them, even though the hotels are completely booked and sorted out.

2.) Babysitting wasn’t an issue for her needing to bring her kids when we were going over this stuff last year, me and my stepmom went through everyone with kids and made sure their kids were going to be looked after. If it was a problem with not finding a babysitter or not being able to afford a babysitter we would have helped them with it.

She was planning on leaving the kids with her in-laws who, to my knowledge, were still available when she suggested just bringing the kids. If plans changed and they were no longer able to watch them, the situation would have been handled differently.

3.) Her husband reached out to me about an hour ago and texted me saying sorry for his wife’s behavior, he didn’t even know she was making a deal about the kids. Apparently they had had a conversation about how it would be fun to be able to take the kids on a vacation to a foreign country in the future and she decided this was their family vacation. He wished us the best and thats all I’ve heard.

4.) We were planning to have a smaller celebration in the U.S. in a few months for people who couldn’t come next month. We wont be doing vows or anything just a celebration of marriage.

This event will allow kids as it will not have alcohol and will not have as many risks, me and my fiancé are discussing whether or not they will be invited to this but considering her husbands truely heartfelt apology, they will most likely be invited.

5.) My fiancé finds this all hilarious, he is not even close to this cousin and is much closer to her brothers, who are not on her side. The only people who are really making a fuss is her mom, her sister, and a few more distant relatives.