"AITA for disobeying a rule at a wedding?"
My daughter and I recently went to a wedding for a distant relative who I don't know well. At the reception, my daughter was given a different table assignment from the rest of the family. It turned out to be a 'kids' table.
My relative might have thought that my daughter would have more fun over there, but my daughter was a lot older than the other kids and did not know any of them. The other kids were being kind of gross and annoying, so she asked to sit with the rest of our family.
It wasn't a problem to shift over and add another chair so it seemed like there was no problem. When the waitstaff brought out the food, we explained to them that my daughter had moved, and getting her food wasn't a problem.
The wedding planner realized that my daughter had moved, and said that my daughter had to go back to the other table during dinner. I said my daughter was more comfortable with the family and wanted to sit with us.
The wedding planner said that my daughter needed to stay in her assigned seat during the meal and could see us during the dancing. I said 'she's actually going to eat dinner here, thank you.'
The wedding planner stopped arguing and left, and my family thought it was weird that she tried to make my daughter move. After the wedding, the bride's mom called my mom, angry that I had disobeyed the wedding planner and changed the seating arrangement without asking first.
I didn't ask first because it never occurred to me that the bride or her mom would care about this during the wedding. I always figured that seating arrangements were purely for the guest's benefit, so nobody ends up sitting with people they wouldn't like or not knowing where to go.
I figured that if my family was ok making room for my daughter then it wasn't the wedding planner's business. AITA for not asking if my daughter could move and ignoring the wedding planner?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
moth-facts said:
NTA. If their only reason was 'she needs to sit at the kids table because she needs to,' it wasn't unreasonable for you to move her around. If there was another reason you're not including, then you might be the asshole, but this seems like it was probably actually fine.
Flownique said:
NTA. At every wedding I’ve been to, people end up moving around over the course of the reception. Unless you’re re-assigning yourself to the head table, it shouldn’t be a problem.
legumancer said:
NTA wedding culture is stupid as fuck I’m sorry the wedding planner and bride and her mother are such selfish people but those types deserve to interpret these small details as “ruining their wedding.'
casinoLF said:
NTA, my cousin put me at a table without my parents once, me and my brother were apparently at a cousin's table with their other cousins who we're not related to, had never met, and were all much older.
We lived with it for the dinner part but then moved back over to the table where my parents and other aunts and uncles were sitting and never went back. That is a dumb seating arrangement and I don't blame your daughter for being uncomfortable. At least I had my brother there. She was alone!
Imiu965 said:
NTA - why would they seat your daughter away from her family in the first place?
datdudebdub said:
NTA. You weren't hurting anything and I see zero reason why her sitting with you if there was room to be an issue.
ESH - your relative is an asshole for putting a 14 year old on a kids table, but you're a bigger as&^$%le for repeatedly arguing with the wedding planner. Who do you think the wedding planner works for? The wedding party. And who do you think sent her over to figure that s^%$ out? The wedding party.
If you go to someone's event that they plan and pay for, including your meal etc. then they get to dictate where you sit. It's just a meal, it isn't for that long, I'm sure you and your daughter could have sucked it up.
OP responded in the comments:
If she had a good reason, she should have explained, but she didn't say anything. Just kept repeating that my daughter needed to stay in her assigned seat for dinner. We had less people than the other tables with no wine on the table. I don't think it's really my problem what the other kids were doing or if someone else was drunk.