"AITA for 'snubbing' my future niece for flower girl and choosing my dog instead?"

Hi all! I’m getting married this summer. My fiancé and I have been together for about five years, engaged for one. Generally, everyone in both our families has been laid back and supportive of our choices for the wedding, so it’s making me think I’m actually TA in this situation.

My fiancé’s brother and SIL have 3yo twins- a boy and a girl. They’re adorable and I love them so much. My fiancé and I always babysit, go over just to play with them, and generally spend as much time as possible with them. We have a great relationship. So the time came to choose a ring bearer and flower girl. I don’t have any children on my side of the family, so fiancé’s nephew was the perfect choice.

For flower girl, however, I had always had the vision of letting fiancé and my dog fill the role. She’s properly trained and really important to us. I adopted her when fiancé and I first started dating and he fell in love with her and started taking care of her like she was his dog too. So she’s been around our entire relationship and as weird as it sounds, we see her as a daughter. We can’t imagine our wedding without her.

When I told SIL, I made sure to mention that we could possibly find another role for niece (I just didn’t know what yet), but SIL was LIVID. Saying how could I value a dog over her daughter etc. and saying it wasn’t fair to have nephew in the wedding without niece. She said that it would hurt niece’s feelings, but niece is THREE.

She won’t even understand what’s happening. I even suggested letting niece walk down WITH my dog as co-flower girls (plus an adult to help both of them down the aisle), but SIL hates the breed of my dog and thinks it’d be too dangerous.

I honestly don’t know what to do in this situation because while my niece is absolutely adorable, our dog is important to us too. The rest of fiancé’s family thinks that while it’s ultimately our choice, that we should do the “right thing” and just give niece the job. AITA?

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

[deleted] said:

YTA thinking a three year old will absolutely not understand it is very big assumption that I am not willing to confirm. If the niece will not understand it not now. She will in the future when people are talking about your wedding and how her brother and a dog that has long died were chosen over her. You can pick only the dog. But not the brother and exclude her out making her feel left out.

LeeAllen3 said:

Your wedding, your rules and all of that but your wedding is one day and your relationship with your niece (and extended family) is forever. YTA - your niece will definitely “get it” she won’t be able to articulate it but she will understand that she has been excluded.

The fact that her twin is included is just salt in the wound. As she grows up, she will see pictures from your wedding with her twin brother no less and she will ask/wonder where she is. Either include both kids and the dog or just include the dog.

SaltywithaTwist said:

YTA. You should choose your niece. She's 3. She will understand what's going on and it will hurt her feelings. Her twin gets to do something special and fun and dress up and be in the pictures and she does not. She might not get another chance to be a little flower girl. If I was the mother, I would be livid, too.

It'a great that your dog is special to you. But a wedding is no place for a dog. Use him in a pre-wedding photo shoot or something else. People like to say "your wedding, your choice" as a reason to support all behaviors. But have you taken into consideration how guests might feel about a dog at a wedding?

Allergies, getting jumped on in nice clothes, being scared of dogs, someone having to watch it, take it to the bathroom, feed it. Are you really going to ask someone to be a dogsitter and a guest? Do you think you will want to be distracted at your own wedding taking care of your dog?

You say it is trained but can you guarantee 100% that it won't do something given the crowd of strangers? Is the venue even pet friendly?

Put the twins in the wedding together and leave the dog at home.

Later that day, she shared this update:

Wow wow wow, truly did not expect to get this many responses!! Fiancé and I left to get breakfast and run some errands, and came back to this. We’ve read every one, and I won’t be able to respond to them all but I want to thank you all for your comments! It seems to be the consensus that we’re TA for excluding niece, but I do want to clear some things up before giving an update:

-Asking niece to walk with our dog was not an afterthought! I went to SIL with that idea first, and she vetoed it. I also want to add I never ever wanted niece to walk our 80lb dog by herself, of course another adult would help them both down the aisle!

-My dog is extremely well behaved and does well in crowds. She doesn’t run or jump or bark etc. She’ll spend a little bit of time at the reception, then she’ll be taken to our cabin at the venue to hang out.

We’ve arranged to pay a teen in our extended family to check in on her and walk her during it (14M, he loves dogs and wants to be a vet, he’s on the quieter side and had told us he would like breaks from the reception anyway because there won’t be anyone else his age there.. plus we’re paying him VERY generously so that he can buy a new game that he wants).

Also, she is a rottie which is what makes SIL nervous, even though our dog has never done anything to warrant it (which SIL admits is her problem, not our dog’s).

-We never expected our dog to throw flowers 😂 we had a cute flower collar made for her that matches my bouquet.

-When I suggested that they could both be flower girls, I also suggested having two ring bearers but SIL wasn’t a fan of that either. She doesn’t want to “upstage” nephew and was worried it might get too confusing getting them both down the aisle.

Ngl, I definitely got a little fed up at this point, which drove me to be TA (although I know that isn’t niece’s fault). It just seemed like SIL wanted it to be flower girl or nothing.

-Fiancé and I hang out with the twins ALL the time as they live ten minutes away, and we have a great relationship.

-Niece would definitely be in all the pictures, and would be in my room getting ready (nephew is getting ready with the groomsmen). I already have pictures planned with niece being “bride’s little helper” by pretending to do my hair, put my jewelry on, etc. She’ll have a huge role regardless, which might be why I thought the walking down the aisle part wasn’t as big of a deal.

Okay now to the update: You guys gave us a huge kick in the butt to realize we cannot have one twin without the other, no matter their age. I realized I was annoyed with SIL, but that’s not niece’s fault. So I called SIL and apologized, making sure to stress that I did not value nephew over niece. Turns out she had seen the post!

I guess the situation is a little too specific so she put the pieces together and was about to call me. She apologized and said that she got way too defensive over her daughter, and shouldn’t have been so particular about her being flower girl. She also said that while she can’t relate to the love we have for our dog, she respects it and knows she’s part of our family and needs to be in the ceremony.

So she’s coming over soon and we’re going to look at pinterest and my wedding mags to see if there’s a way to fit them both in! A lot of you had great ideas for how we could do that, like having my dog carry a sign or walk in with my sister who’s MOH and be “dog of honor.”

Thank you guys for all your help! Sorry this isn’t a super juicy update. My SIL and I actually have a wonderful relationship and are both very normal despite what this story may make us seem like!