'AITA for not moving my dad's funeral for the same group of people three times?'

"AITA for refusing to reschedule a funeral?"

SensitiveOrder1986 writes:

Will try to be brief. My dad passed away and we are organizing his funeral. A relative (his sister) has made numerous requests of us, amounting to changing the date of the funeral three times for them. The funeral director is getting increasingly annoyed and made this clear.

They have now come to me today requesting another date change because two in-laws (spouses of their son and daughter, my two separate cousins) and a nephew cannot attend due to two cases of work training and a holiday respectively. A distant relative in Australia has also mentioned they would not be able to log onto the funeral’s web livestream at that time due to having to attend a meeting.

If we were to accommodate this, it would push the funeral back to late June or early July, meaning we would lose out on a wake (the venue owner is a friend and has offered to cover it, within limits of course) and it would mean friends who’ve really stepped up for us wouldn’t be able to attend.

When this was mentioned, she started saying how family are more important and it would upset my dad more if his family couldn’t be there. One of the “family members” who can’t attend only met my dad twice. This is also the same family that have requested various add-ons (the livestream, fingerprinting of the deceased, extra limousines etc.) without our prior knowledge or approval.

Finally, at the end of my tether, I simply said I’d be inclined to move the date back to the original (early May) to save money on embalming, so it would purposefully clash with her holiday. I promptly hung up and have ignored all phone calls. Naturally… I feel pretty f^#&ing guilty. Am I the a&#*ole here?

Here are the top rated comments.

Arorua_Mendes says:

NTA. Your dad's funeral is about honoring him not juggling everyone's schedules. Stand your ground. you've been more than fucking accommodating with three changes already. Your father deserves to be laid to rest with dignity surrounded by people who genuinely cared for him. The people who stepped up deserve to be there more than those who barely knew him.

Worth-Season3645 says:

NTA….This is your parent’s funeral. I assume you are next of kin. Plan the funeral when it accommodates your schedule. You will not be able to please everyone and you will not be able to accommodate everyone else. What you can do, if you choose to do so, is have a memorial service a few months after the funeral.

k23_k23 says:

NTA. If her being there were important to her, she would make it a priority. You were crazy to reschedule THREE times, don't make it any more of a habit. ONCE MIGHT have been reasonable.

HollyStone says:

NTA - This is getting unreasonable. Plan the funeral when you want it, if it matters to them they'll make their best effort to get there. (Also the finger printing seems odd. I have a paw print from my dead cat, but fingerprints of a human just seem to crime-adjacent to be a fond memory).

What do you think?