Update to my SIL informing us that she was bringing her baby to our child-free wedding… They brought the baby anyway…

You can read my original post here.

I’m so sorry for how long this is. TL;DR is that my SIL completely ignored us and brought the baby to the wedding including the reception. The whole family (extended and close) stood off to the side with the baby for most of the reception and ignored us for the most part.

Anyway. I ended up really trying to be kind and extend a few olive branches. We offered one of the ballrooms side-rooms that we were paying for (and we were supposed to use it for something else) to the SIL for her friend to watch her baby in so that SIL could step out whenever she wanted to see the baby. We also paid for the friends meal ($130!!!!). We made it very clear that baby was not to be in the reception. We also allowed her in the family photos, and allowed SIL to hold her at the ceremony even though we didn’t want babies at the ceremony. I even asked my florist to make a floral crown for the baby as a kind gesture.

We’d all agreed on when the baby would be there and everybody seemed happy with the outcome. Everyone was aware.

I guess they just don’t really give a shit? My FIL went and got the baby and brought her out to meet all of their friends during cocktail hour and they all huddled there for about 25 minutes. I was annoyed a bit but I had already decided that if baby somehow ended up in cocktail hour that I would let it roll off my back and just enjoy my day. I moved on.

What I genuinely and naively didn’t expect, was for the baby to be brought out during the reception. SIL went and grabbed the baby at like 9:00, which we had been previously been so so so clear was a no-go, and brought her on the dance floor which was wild (the music was super loud and we were basically moshing to early 2000’s punk rock, lol).

SIL then took baby off the dance floor and my husband’s entire family, including immediate family and extended family (which was a large portion of our guests) were huddled around the baby and barely dancing or socializing with any other guests or even with my husband and I… These are people that tear up the dance floor at weddings. They LOVE to dance and they were constantly talking about how much dancing we were going to do at the wedding and then they took a quarter of our guests and all sat passing a baby around instead for 3 hours. Periodically one or two would come over for a song, like my MIL or FIL but then they’d go back. Sometimes one of their friends would join their circle, but they stayed pretty stationary.

One of the other sisters eventually noticed and came onto the dance floor and I think she noticed how uncool it was because she made an effort to get the family dancing. My husband even went over several times to them and said come on why aren’t you dancing, you were all so excited for dancing??? They literally barely acknowledged him.

The absolute kicker was that the friend who was ‘watching’ the baby came dressed in a gown (formal wedding) and after SIL brought the baby out, the friend was standing around drinking!?!?!?! As if they planned for that.

There was literally never a single moment where having the baby at the reception was on the table and everyone knew that. I feel so hurt that not only did these people directly just demolish our boundaries and our genuine efforts to be kind and go out of our way to accommodate them, but that they took away from our night in such a drastic way. I’m feeling a little devastated that the family I just married into cared so little about our wedding that they spent their night doing something else? And something else that we’d all explicitly agreed was not going to happen. Maybe it’s selfish but I hoped that they’d want to spend the time with us and that the day would be about us.

I’m not even sure what to think. Am I being ridiculous? I still had so much fun and I’m trying not to let it mess with my good memories, but I feel so hurt about it. Honestly, I regret going out of my way to be kind, and that’s such a shitty way to feel. I just got taken advantage of instead.