Exit Strategy for Parents

Every guest gets to stay for the entire event, especially VIPs. This is weird. Usually parents are the last to leave, ensuring everything is packed up, cleaned, etc.

I think this is personal. Our catering staff handled clean up, not our guests, so we certainly weren’t expecting parents to stick around for “clean up” but to be honest, I would’ve been pretty butt-hurt if my parents wanted to leave early. Our parents are a huge part of our lives so we wanted them right there with us through it all. I would’ve been upset if they didn’t want to hang out and celebrate and just wanted to go home early

Sorry, I hadn’t read through all the comments. I think the bride is being rude , honestly. You don’t invite someone to a party then tell them when to leave, no matter who it is! It’s one thing if they want to host a separate and private after party and not invite “adults” but to actually expect people just to leave early from the party is NOT cool. Does your son feel the same way or is he just trying to appease her? I have major issue with this .

View Quoted Comment I would, yeah. Are aunts and uncles invited too? What’s their plan with the REST of the older generation? Are they hoping they just follow suit ? Are they gonna try and kick them out too? This is so bizarre to me. If you don’t want your family at your wedding, don’t invite them. But don’t invite them and try to force them out. If I was the mom being asked to leave, but my siblings got to stay , I’d be mad, and quite frankly, embarrassed.

Sometimes in these forums with see future mother in laws with boundary issues and brides asking for advice as they try to appease FMIL for the sake of their future relationship. But we always advise : this sets a precedent. Establish boundaries now. It will only get worse. And I feel like this is very much the same. With such a bizarre request, I’d worry she’d only get worse once she’s married in. Again, I think what your son thinks is important, but. If it were mex I’d have an honest conversation with him about how this is making you feel. I don’t think there’s any world in which it’s appropriate to ask the “less fun” people you invited to a party to leave that party early. It sounds like she needs a reality check on what a wedding is ....it’s about the uniting of families, not about the getting drunk and dancing. If she wants that kind of party she should do it on her own time with a separate guestlist.

I appreciate all the comments and suggestions. They have helped me realize that I need to talk to my son about it. My best guess is that she is uncomfortable with us seeing her and her friends (and new husband and his friends) drinking or doing "shocking" things. In all the years I've known her, I've never seen that side of her. She probably is nervous about it and just thought the best solution would be to have the parents leave before things got wild. I don't believe she would ever want to be hurtful. Since I only have sons, she even invited me along to every dress search that she had. It was really sweet.

View Quoted Comment We were up with guests who stayed late, about 40 of us left at 3 am. Parents all left between 12 and 1 am. Bless them, because the 2 sets of parents knew who was up super late, and got their kids out to breakfast, so we could sleep in til 10. Kids were not at the wedding, so they were in bed at usual times and up by 7 am.

View Quoted Comment

I think you are probably right. I would never ask my fiance's family to leave but they are way more conservative than my family and I am little nervous about our friends even cussing around them. BUT it is a wedding and if they choose to stay, that is on them what they see/hear after everyone's been drinking. I think she probably is just worried and wants to be able to let loose without being really nervous. You seem like it wouldn't bother you at all and I'm sure it'll work out!