My wife and I were invited to one of her closest friend’s wedding about three months ago. The invitations had all the details laid out, including the schedule for a three-day celebration. The invitation also specifically said that guests were welcome to bring their babies, which was a huge relief because we don’t have reliable childcare.
Since the wedding was ending right before my wife’s birthday, I decided to surprise her with something special.
I booked a four-day trip to San Diego so we could celebrate together after the wedding. I reserved the hotel months in advance, planned visits to some of her favorite places, and paid for everything upfront. It was supposed to be a combination of celebrating her friend’s wedding and giving my wife a memorable birthday.
As far as we knew, everything was set.
Then, less than a week before the wedding, everything changed.
Out of nowhere, my wife’s friend’s mother texted her and said the wedding dates had been moved forward by two full days.
That meant the wedding would now take place during the exact dates we’d already booked for our trip.
As if that wasn’t enough, she also told us that children were no longer allowed to attend, even though the original invitation had clearly said our baby was welcome.
Suddenly we had two major problems.
First, our hotel reservation and birthday plans had already been paid for.
Second, because the wedding was no longer child-friendly, we’d need someone to watch our baby.
Unfortunately, both of our parents were already unavailable, and with only a few days’ notice, we had no realistic way of arranging childcare.
After talking it over, my wife and I let them know we simply couldn’t make it anymore.
We apologized and explained exactly why.
Instead of understanding, they became angry.
Her friend and her friend’s mother both started saying they thought my wife was her best friend and that if she really cared about their friendship, she’d cancel our birthday trip, lose the money we’d already spent, and pay for private childcare so we could still attend.
That response honestly shocked me.
From my perspective, we weren’t refusing because we didn’t want to celebrate with them.
We were refusing because they completely changed the plans at the last minute after everyone had already arranged their schedules around the original dates.
This also wasn’t an isolated incident.
Throughout the engagement, my wife’s friend had been incredibly disorganized.
My wife ended up planning most of the bachelorette party herself and even paid for much of it because nothing had been organized.
At the time, we brushed it off because we wanted to support her.
But now it feels like we’re expected to absorb the consequences of another major planning failure.
I understand that weddings are stressful and unexpected things can happen.
If there had been an emergency or something genuinely unavoidable, we’d probably feel differently.
But changing the dates less than six days before a multi-day wedding, removing children after previously allowing them, and then expecting guests to rearrange expensive travel plans and somehow find emergency childcare feels unreasonable.
My wife agrees with me, but she also feels guilty because this has been one of her closest friends for years.
Now we’re wondering whether we’re being unfair by refusing to accommodate the changes, or whether it’s reasonable to expect that once invitations are sent and people make plans around them, those plans shouldn’t be completely upended at the last minute.
So, AITAH for refusing to attend the wedding after the dates were changed less than a week beforehand and we were suddenly told our baby was no longer welcome?