I just made two very awkward phone calls. We are having a reception of about 50 people and all 50 of us are from out of town. There will 3 groups of kids there. My grooms 6 nieces and nephews, my sister's 2 young boys, and my cousin's 2 young girls. There are a few older ones as well who we've decided can stay until the reception is over, but we've decided that we'd like for the younger kids to exit the reception after we cut the cake around 8:30. Reception goes from 6:30 to 10:30. We frankly just don't want small children around for the entire night. All of the children who are coming to the wedding are very well behaved but this is what we want.
We thought we could offer to have a paid babysitter who is one of my groom's nieces up the block at one of the hotels so all the smaller children could be brought back to one room and watched by the sitter. This room is only about a block and a half away from the reception.
My cousin does not want to leave her kids with someone whom she doesn't know even based on my opinion of the babysitter. Needless to say, I know the babysitting teen very well and have no qualms about doing this but I can understand if she feels uncomfortable. She said that her husband will probably just take their kids at the designated time back to the room himself and stay there with them. I asked her if she thought all this was out of line and she told me that it wasn't, and that it was nice that we thought to offer an option but I occasionally feel like she is not always totally honest with me even though she likes to brag that we are as close as sisters.
Then I called my sister. My relationship with my sister is awkward for me, at best. She made me clarify about three times if I meant that we just didn't want kids there after a certain time because we just want it to be an adult affair, or if we were doing it because we thought there would be behavior problems. She kept attempting to remind me that her children are well behaved (frankly of all the children there, it would be one of hers who I would be keeping an eye on) and that they would just play it by ear...... whatever that means. But then she did insist that I clarify (which I thought I already HAD clarified) that I just want them gone at a certain time because I just don't want children there, period.She too responded as if she understood and was jsut working on the logistics of it, but I know she hung up the phone and will complain and gossip about this. What can I say?
The other kids parents will not have too much to say about all this. It was on my side that I knew there would be some weirdness. These were two of the most awkward and uncomfortable phone calls I've made in quite some time.
Do you have opinions on this? Is it rude?