Help ladies! I need some advice on etiquette regarding children.
My husband and I were recently invited to a wedding and reception and my husband asked to be a groomsman in the wedding party, yay! The groom is his best friend and he is psyched to be at the wedding. We have known the groom for years and are happy for him and his fiancee.
The bride and groom have said that the only children allowed will be the bride's cousins who will be a flowergirl and ringbearer. That is all good and fine as we understand they don't want children. However, turns out that the groom's two nephews - ages 2 years and 3 months (their father is also in the wedding party) will also be at the wedding. We then asked what the other guests were doing with their children. It turns out that this "no children" rule affects only us. None of the bride's and groom's guests have children. They can't have more children at the wedding reception even if they wanted them!
So, my husband asked the groom if we could bring our 6 year old to the wedding, as the grooms nephews are invited and are not part of the wedding party. The wedding ceremony starts at 11:00am, with the reception to start around 5:00pm until 1:00am. The bride and groom suggested that we stay the night at the hotel as we live about 2 hours drive from the wedding location. The bride and groom were upset that we asked about our son and said that they won't pay for a meal for a child. We offered to pay the meal, as the costs of having him there would be cheaper than us getting a babysitter (about $15 per hour). Additionally, they want us to rent a room for the night at the hotel, as the more people rent rooms the better deal it is for the bride and groom's room. So not only do they want us to pay for the babysitter for the day, we also have overnight costs of the babysitter and the hotel. My husband and I don't make a lot of money, and the groom and bride already have us paying for an engagement gift, a wedding gift and a tux rental (about $600 total). If we tack on the babysitting costs and the hotel, we are looking at an additional ~$350. I asked if my husband could leave earlier so we didn't stay the night and the groom insists that he stay until the end of the night because he is in the wedding party.
We are quite upset and trying not to make a fuss of this, but we are upset that our son can't attend the wedding. This is causing quite a stir between my husband and his best friend. He doesn't want me to not attend the wedding as the groom and I are also quite close. At the moment, it seems we only have 2 options:
1) husband attends wedding alone so I can stay home to take care of the little one, which will result in resentment
2) we pay ridiculous amounts so both of us can attend the wedding, which will also result in resentment
Ideally, we would like it if the bride and groom would allow our son to attend the wedding as they already made an exception to the nephews who aren't in the wedding party, and no other possible children could attend because no one else have children.
Any advice or are we just being crazy?