Bride Is Feuding With Her Sister For Throwing Her Child-Free Wedding On Her Niece’s Birthday

May 21, 2021

Weddings are a time for joy and celebration, but sometimes they can be overshadowed by family drama, especially when you come from a large family. A bride-to-be posted a story on Reddit about a fight she is having with her sister because she wanted to have her child-free wedding on the same day as her 8-year-old niece’s birthday. 

The bride posted to a Reddit group in May 2021 looking for advice and to check if she was in the wrong for her decision. The bride’s defense is that she asked her sister months prior if the date was acceptable and her sister said yes. Apparently, at the time the sister did not realize the child-free rule applied to her as well. After receiving her invitation and realizing no children will be allowed to attend, the sister became angry and demanded an exception be made. 

The bride refused to allow her niece to attend, claiming that it would be unfair to the other guests who have children. The bride comes from a very large family. She is the youngest of 10 children and her siblings have 30 children of their own when combined. For this reason, the bride felt she could not afford to invite all of the children to the wedding in addition to her other guests, so she decided the entire event would be child-free instead.

This decision has caused a rift between the bride and some of her siblings, so she took to the internet to consult people who are not involved in the situation. Her Reddit post explained the problem and then was open to comments from other users to determine if the bride was in the wrong. 

The original post explained that the bride and her soon-to-be husband are hoping to marry in August 2021. “We have been engaged since 2019 (and together since 2012) so this has been a long time coming. For some background, I have 10 siblings (I am the youngest) and combined they have 30 children, 20 of which are aged between 4 to 17 years,” the bride wrote. 

The bride continued her explanation, “For our big day, me and my fiancé chose a date (but not the year, luckily) when we got engaged, and it has been meaningful for us. It is actually my mothers birthday, so our first call was to my mom to ask her permission, if she would be okay with us having our wedding on her birthday at some point. For our delight she was super happy with the idea so that's that.”

The bride thought she had done the right thing by asking for her sister’s permission ahead of time, but there was some miscommunication. “In addition, one of my sister's children (8-years-old) has her birthday on the same day. So our next call was actually to tell her that we would like to choose that date and the wedding will most likely be child-free because we could never afford to invite everyone. Back then she was like, yeah, do whatever, you didn't even have to call to ask,” wrote the bride. 

After the sister received her invitation, she called the bride to clarify the rule. "So I wanted to make sure that the sentence ‘Please leave your children home’ does not extend to your relatives, right?" the bride’s sister asked. The bride responded, "’This extends to all of our invited guests, family and friends alike."

The Reddit post with the bride’s story has been viewed more than 4,000 times. There are over a thousand comments with the majority of users agreeing that the bride was not wrong for wanting a child-free wedding on her niece’s birthday.

One person thought the bride had already done enough by asking permission in the first place. “This is a date that is special to you. You told her what you were doing. She chose to promise her daughter something that, frankly, wasn't in her control. Aside from the fact that she blatantly disregarded what you already told her,” the commenter wrote.

Another user commented, “There’s nothing wrong with wanting a child-free wedding, and if you have 10 siblings, it’s going to be a decent likelihood that there will be a birthday (in the family). If your sibling wants to stay with their kids instead, that’s their choice. There’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to celebrate during the day, just not at your wedding.”

Other people related to the bride from their own experiences with child-free weddings. One person said, “When I had a Child-Free wedding I got really good at saying ‘oh no! How disappointing. We’ll miss you.’ Because yeah, if a kid showed up everyone else who left their kids at home would flip.” It seems asking parents to leave their children at home is becoming a common practice for weddings. The bride did mention in her post that she wanted to limit her guests in part due to the pandemic, so perhaps this trend will fade with more time. 

What is your opinion on child-free weddings? Was this bride wrong for planning her wedding on her niece’s birthday? Let us know what you think and be sure to pass this story on to your loved ones.