Carolyn Hax, March 8 2024, "Wedding guests melt down over rules for which kids get invited"

Grinding, pre-wedding misery

Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash

Link to the original letter here.

My take: To recap, a cousin of the groom is indignant because older kids are aren’t invited to the wedding, while little kids are. It so happens that all the older kids are from the groom’s side, while all the littles are from the bride’s.

It’s a “snub,” a bunch of the groom’s people now want to sit the whole thing out, the mother of the groom is “distraught”—basically, this business has catalyzed the whole nine yards of grinding, pre-wedding misery for scads of people. If history is any guide, many of these people will hold onto this misery for decades to come, blighting the status of the new family right out of the gate.

Apropos of a different letter to Carolyn, Advice Obsessed has already introduced the principle, Love Your Friends. This would be a fine opportunity to introduce the important corollary, Love Your Family—but I don’t need to, because this time Carolyn basically does it herself.

Yes, the no-older-kids policy is a little strange. Carolyn acknowledges that. But she also reminds the LW that ”event planning is stressful.” And she urges him to “keep family unity alive to fight another day.”

She does it all so perfectly that I won’t quote her any further. For the full impact you should read her response.

Chance this letter is fake: Almost none. Weddings are petri dishes for epidemic-strength indignation, unfortunately.