'AITA for telling my son he needs to get over us missing his wedding?' UPDATED

"AITA for telling my son he needs to get over us missing his wedding?"

My son got married a few years ago, he lives on the other side of the country than us. He got a great job opportunity after college so he moved down. Two years ago he got married to Jenny and what I heard it was a beautiful wedding. So the whole issue started when we were trying to get there. The wedding was on Saturday and our plane left Thursday night.

Well, it got delayed and then delayed about four more times ( Friday morning at this point) and then all the plane got canceled due to a storm. When that happened it was clear we were not leaving and driving there would take too long and we would still miss the ceremony. So we informed him and he was pissed. We sent our well wishes and we could FaceTime in if he wanted.

He told us no and we saw a video of his getting married. Now the present day issue any times we get an argument or he wants us to do something he pulls up we missed his wedding card. We were taking over the phone we were talking about hosting thanksgiving this year.

He got mad saying why won’t you visit us and I told him we don’t have the money for the trip and we just saw him in July (since it was unclear, yes we visited him and went to him). We got in an argument and he pulled the you missed our wedding it’s the least you can do. I told him enough and that he needs to get over it. He called me a jerk. My daughter learned about it as she is on our side but I don’t know.

People had lots of comments and questions.

coastalkid92 wrote:

NTA. It sounds like you and your husband made all reasonable efforts to get there and it just wasn't going to happen. Personally, I would've still driven to at least have gotten to the reception and celebrate but that's just me.

That being said, that's a big milestone moment you missed and its going to take time for him to get over it. But it's not fair for him to use it as a weapon against you and your spouse anytime things don't go his way. He needs to find a way to make peace with the situation without lording it over you for all of time.

DueIsland2983 wrote:

NTA - if all of the cross-country flights were cancelled due to weather and you'd planned on being there a full day and a half ahead of time then you made what any reasonable person would consider a good faith effort to be there.

Plane tickets (and wedding plans) are usually made months in advance, well before any potential weather issues would arise. I'm sure that OP wasn't the only one unable to get across the country. It sucks and is understandably upsetting to the son whose wedding is missed, but it is what it is.

RamblingReflections wrote:

NTA. You booked flights a few days in advance. You didn’t just book one for the morning of the ceremony and hope for the best. I understand he’s upset. But you don’t control the weather or the airlines.

What did he realistically expect you to do that you didn’t? You missed it. It’s done. You’ve apologised. Yes, he can be sad you missed it, but to blame you and bring it up repeatedly is missing the mark.

LadyCass79 wrote:

NTA. You didn't skip the wedding, weather prevented your arrival. It's a bit late to do it but the first time he tried to pull the "you missed my wedding " card I would have said, "Yeah, we are pretty pissed at you about that but we try to forgive you for the fact that your choice to move so far away caused the situation that lead us to miss it."

Edited to add: Some people are taking this comment a bit literally. I am saying that since the son is being unreasonable in blaming the parents for things that are out of their control the parents could easily have made a similarly unreasonable statement of blame as a way to illustrate to their son how useless and unfair such blame is.

Scouthawkk wrote:

You know what I did when I found out 4 days before my wedding that my father, who was excited to come, was now medically restricted from traveling and couldn’t?

I spent two hours helping my stepmother figure out how to set up a Skype video link so they could watch the ceremony in real-time, with an extra phone audio connection because we found Skype audio wouldn’t work on their computer for unknown reasons.

The camera for the Skype was set right next to the altar so they could see couple & officiant, and the phone for audio was ON the altar so they could hear nearly everything. NTA. It was an act of God. He needs to get over it, especially if he didn’t do a damn thing to to make alternate plans for live streaming for you.

After receiving a lot of feedback, OP jumped on with a clarification.

Edit to make it clear in the July part.

Also because it has been asked a lot, yes we looked into other airports the planes were grounded also. We are from Maine and the storm was going though our state and then riding down the east coast. We weren’t getting a flight and yes we looked. It basically blocked travel for two days. If we did go down a state or two we would be following the storm and we wouldn’t get a flight.

OP is NTA here, it was just a logistically hard situation.