'AITA for not making an exception to our child-free wedding rule for my SIL?' UPDATED

"AITA for not changing our wedding rule for my future Sister-In-Law?"

My fiancé (36M) and I (34F) are getting married in 3 weeks and for the most part, planning has been simple and easy. We're having a small-ish wedding in a local hotel with 50 guests. Everything is being held on site. The ceremony, the dinner and the reception are all taking place in the one hotel.

My fiancé and I decided early on that we wanted the reception to be child free. Children are welcome at the ceremony and the early dinner we're having but not for the party afterwards. I, myself, have a 10 year old son who will be there for the ceremony and meal but not the reception.

The issue is with my fiancé's sister, Lisa (38F). She has a daughter, Chloe (11F) and has started insisting that Chloe be at the reception. Lisa is the only girl in a family of five children and due to this, she has rarely been told no, even into adulthood.

My fiancé and I have been firm on the stance that no children would be allowed in the reception and she is fully aware of the onsite childcare (we have booked a separate room in the hotel especially for this purpose) however she is adamant that Chloe stay with her.

If it was just me and my fiancé, it wouldn’t be too much of a big deal. We can handle her. However, she has begun hounding my future mother-in-law whom I get on with really well and has even begun messaging my mother on facebook to try and get them to convince the two of us to let Chloe be at the reception.

This is not okay with me or with my fiancé. Neither one of our mothers are in the best of health and they don’t need the stress. She either doesn’t realise or doesn’t care that if we allow her daughter to attend the reception, we have to allow all the children to attend and we wanted to allow the parents to have a fun time in the evening. Even my son isn’t going to be at the reception.

We don’t see them often however last Sunday, we were all at my future in laws for lunch and so the kids could see each other and she decided to bring it up. She decided it would be a good idea to try and corner me in the kitchen, to try and change my mind.

Once again, I reiterated that there would be no children at the reception and well, this didn’t go down well. I swear, she was close to throwing a grown-up tantrum. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I just told her that the little ones in the other room were better behaved than she was and to grow the hell up and walked around her back to the others. Her tantrum didn’t stop.

After this scene, my future mother-in-law asked if we would be willing to bend the rules we have for the reception for Lisa but the two of us were still firm on the “no”. Usually, I would just stick it out and not care and if she hadn’t started getting other family members involved but now that she has, its beginning to stress me out.

I don’t think that we’re being unreasonable with our request for no children at the reception, but I don’t know if I can handle this for another three weeks.

AITA for sticking to our child free reception rule?

What do you think? AITA? This is what some top commenters had to say:

MauiValleyGirl said:

“Dear Lisa, It’s sound like you’re having a hard time deciding whether to come to the wedding, or be with Chloe. Please, if this is difficult, do not feel compelled to attend. “ It sounds harsh but that’s all you can do. It’s one or the other not both. NTA but you’d be an A to your kid if you allowed Chloe to attend.

BaltimoreBadger23 said:

NTA: even your OWN child isn't coming to the party. Why is her child more special than yours?

Stargazer-2893 said:

NTA. I'm so exhausted by manipulative, whiny, entitled adults like this. Why does everyone think they can badger and bully to get their way anymore? (This is rhetorical, I know the answer.)

And dysfunctionalpress said:

NTA. tell her if she brings it up one more time- she will not be allowed at the wedding.

More about why she wants it child free but has child care:

"I was also a single mum who had to miss a couple of weddings because of no child rules and not being able to find or afford childcare (my fiancé isn't my son's dad). It sucks but its understandable. That's why we arranged for onsite childcare.

So parents and family who don't get to see each other often can catch up without having to keep one eye on a child all the time. I won't be giving in. Same rules for all children."

"We made the decision for on site childcare because a lot of our guests, including family coming from all over the country, have young children and we want them to share our day. Its what made the most sense to us and it fit within our budget. All of the children will be causing chaos together and not at our reception."

On whether her SIL is going to cause issues over the next few weeks:

"I am completely expecting the incidents to ramp up over the next couple of weeks. Thankfully I have my older sister coming in to help with last minute prep. She's a 4 ft 11 primary school teacher with 3 kids of her own so she's perfectly capable of putting her in her place."

Verdict: NTA.

A month later, she shared this update:

Firstly, I want to thank everyone for their insights and advice and I've had a couple of requests for an update, so here it is. We got married last Saturday and everything went perfectly. Everyone and everything was where it was supposed to be, when it was supposed to be and if there were any issues, I didn't hear about it.

My older sister arrived a week and a half before the wedding and she's like a miniature tornado when she gets going. She firmly told me not to worry about Lisa and that she would deal with her. I had no doubt about that.

Lisa brought up Chloe coming to the reception once again the day after I posted and my husband (I love seeing that :) ) and I told her that if she tried to bring Chloe in, the both of them would be removed. We didn't hear anything more from Lisa following that instance.

A few people wondered what Chloe thought about it and she told us that she thinks adults are boring and she'd rather spend time with her cousins and other kids. So there's that.

When my older brothers turned up a few days before the wedding, all of them were laughing about how my sister was doing her "guard dog" routine with Lisa and wasn't letting her anywhere near either of us or our mothers. My sister is tiny, 4'11" and petite but a powerhouse behind it. It turned out that my sister was the one keeping her at bay and you can bet, she got a very large bottle of wine in thanks.

For my husband and I, the day was as close to perfect as it could get. We only found out two days later that Lisa had tried to sneak Chloe into the reception and had been intercepted by all of my siblings (I have 6) well before reaching the hall and had been told that she could either send Chloe upstairs with the other kids or they could both leaving the event completely.

Knowing it would make her look bad and she'd never hear the end of it from her family, Lisa sent Chloe upstairs and has been sulking since. There have been a few passive aggressive facebook posts which no one seems to care about but that's about it. So, no epic temper tantrum, no forceful removals of irate sisters, just some words from my terrifying sister and that was that.

Everyone had a good time and when we went to check on them later, all the kids were passed out in positions that gave me aches and pains just from looking at them, so we know they had fun. I want to thank everyone again for their insight. It was very helpful and set me at ease that we wasn't in the wrong for sticking with our rule.