Groom explains why he excluded his 12-year-old cousin from wedding guest list when he invited other kids

A groom has been defended after he explained why he didn’t include his 12-year-old cousin, when inviting other children to his wedding.

In a recent post shared to the popular “Am I the A**hole?” subreddit forum, the groom - who by the username u/Low_Detail_7987 - asked if he was in the wrong for telling his cousin that while his wedding isn’t child free, “her daughter just isn’t invited”. He started off the post by explaining why he and his fiancé invited their guests’ children to the wedding.

“We’ve decided that friends and family can bring their kids, since for the most part the kids are well behaved and will be with a sitter for the night so the parents can enjoy the festivities,” he wrote.

However, according to the Reddit user, the one exception was his cousin Linda’s daughter, Cerrie. As he went on to criticise Linda, he also recalled an alleged incident where Cerrie “ruined” a family member’s wedding.

“Linda’s entitled and selfish and she’s made her daughter entitled and selfish,” he wrote. “Two years ago, my other cousin, Linda’s sister Lily,  got married and Cerrie ruined the wedding by throwing a tantrum, and destroying the cake because she was jealous that Lily’s daughter was the flower girl.”

The groom then explained that Linda recently called him and brought up how “terrible” she thought child-free weddings were. He noted that while her invitation said “nothing” about the wedding being child-free, it didn’t have any other names on it besides hers and her husband’s.

The Reddit user also added that there was “no plus one or anything to indicate Cerrie could come”. He then specified that during his call with Linda, he made it clear to her that Cerrie couldn’t be at his big day.

“I told her I wasn’t having a child free wedding, Cerrie just wasn’t invited because of what happened at Lily’s wedding. I don’t want a repeat of Cerrie seeing she’s not the flower girl again and throwing another fit,” he wrote.

He claimed that since this incident, Linda’s got people in their family and her friends to “bombard” him and his fiancé with messages. “[They’ve sent] texts about how selfish we are for purposefully excluding one child while everyone else can bring their kids,” he added.

In an edit to the post, the groom noted that while Reddit users have been asking him why he invited Linda at all, his family “is very big on ‘family is everything,’ ‘family first’ and ‘respect your elders’”.

“If I didn’t  invite Linda and her husband at all, the s*** storm would be much bigger, and the majority of my family would be calling me to tell me to invite her,” he wrote.

The Reddit post has quickly gone viral, with more than 9,600 upvotes. In the comments, many people defended the groom’s decision to exclude Cerrie, while also criticising his peers who are making him feel bad. They claimed that given how Cerrie previously behaved at a wedding, they’d also be sceptical about inviting her to an event like that again.

“Cerrie was 10 when she threw her fit. Old enough to know better,” one wrote. “So she’s 12. going on 13 now with extra fun hormones raging through her system. Has she/did she show any remorse for her behaviour? Is that an ongoing issue with her throwing tantrums when she’s not the sole focus?”

“Your wedding should be about you. People who try to make it about them should be uninvited,” another wrote. “And it seems like you have a good reason and you already explained it.”

A third added: “Bro if my 10 year old kid destroyed someone’s cake at their wedding, I would ban myself from weddings for the next 10 years out of pure embarrassment and shame. Probably all of public life too if we’re being honest. How can someone let something like that happen and not realize it’s time to rethink every single decision they’ve ever made?”

The Independent has contact u/Low_Detail_7987.

This isn’t the first time that a child’s behaviour at a wedding event has sparked a conversation on social media. Last month, a young girl went viral when she was captured using a bride’s white gown as a napkin. In her TikTok video, Kristen filmed her daughter as she was smearing her face into the bride’s white dress. However, the bride seemed to laugh the situation off, as she threw her hands up in the air.

While the two adults in the video found the child’s actions amusing, an overwhelming number of viewers used it as their argument for why children should not be allowed at weddings.