Background: I have 2 cousins, a brother and sister (lets call them Alice, 4 and Tom, 8) and my fiancée has nieces, two sisters, (lets call them Sarah, 4 and Jane, 2 The ages I have noted are how old they will be at the time of our wedding. Alice and Sarah will be our flower girls and Tom will be our page boy. Since Jane is quite little she will not be in the wedding and she will be babysat by my FSIL’s sister. The initial plan was to have Alice and Sarah go home to be babysat (by a babysitter and FSIL’s sister, respectively) after the ceremony so that the parents could let loose at the reception and enjoy themselves. Therefore, Tom was going to be the only kid at the reception (otherwise we are having a child free wedding) because he’s old enough and he’s quite a smart and responsible little young man.
Lead up: My aunt (Alice and Tom’s mum) is thinking that Alice will have a lot of fun at the reception and has noted that it will be quite difficult logistically for her to be sent home with the babysitter after the ceremony. I have a big family who Alice knows so she can be looked after by a few people at the wedding itself (other cousins, my grandmother etc) and she is also a very social little girl.
Problem: My fiancée has a very small family and Sarah is very shy and clings to her mum. She is not good in crowds of people, let alone crowds of people she doesn’t know. If she were to go ‘home’ to be looked after by FSIL’s sister, it would be at an Airbnb very close to our venue. My fiancée and I agree that if Sarah is at the reception, Sarah’s parents (FSIL and FBIL) won’t be able to enjoy themselves (which they’re looking forward to since they live interstate and have no family around so they never get time to do kid-free things) because she will be at their hip the whole time and there aren’t many people that Sarah would be comfortable hanging around since it’ll mostly be a room of strangers for her. Obviously this is a decision for Sarah’s parents to make however they have previously asked us whether we want her at the reception or not because they want to respect our wishes either way.
I know Alice will respond to the reception much better than Sarah because they have completely different personalities. I don’t want to tell FSIL to keep Sarah with the babysitter at home for the reception if Alice will be there because its obviously hypocritical and not very nice. The only way I think it can be done without hypocrisy or offending anyone is by telling FSIL something along the lines of ‘Alice loves herself a party so she will be there and my grandmother will look after her, ultimately up to you if you want Sarah there or if you want the night off’ and give her the choice to make.
Is this the right approach to this? Is there any other way around it?
