Wedding planning has a particularly endless list of details to finalize and decisions to make before the big day.
One significant variable that many couples must consider is care, whether for young children, family members with special needs, or elderly loved ones who require special accommodations either during the event or to leave early.
Any bride with loved ones with particular needs who does not plan for this is potentially setting up her wedding for failure, cautioned the members of the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA) subReddit.
Redditor tereshkovavalentina’s grandmother needed assistance with navigating and leaving the wedding, as well as successfully getting back to her apartment.
When her mother had surgery and couldn’t help with her grandmother, and the Original Poster (OP) hadn’t prepared any professional care, she put pressure on her uncle to help out instead, putting a sour note on the evening.
She asked the sub:
“AITA for making my uncle leave my wedding early?”
The OP had recently gotten married.
“My husband and I had about 100 guests at our wedding. It was an amazing celebration that went on until 2:00 AM.”
“However, I really wanted my grandmother, who is 95 and in a wheelchair, to be able to experience as much of the wedding as possible. My grandmother has two children, my mother and my Uncle Jack.”
The OP was not able to provide the accommodations for her grandmother that she had originally planned.
“As my mother recently had surgery and had to attend the wedding in a wheelchair herself, there was no way for her to pick up my grandmother and bring her back home. My grandmother does not trust anyone else but her children to take her (she needs help getting up the stairs into her apartment, which is not an easy task).”
“Before the wedding, Jack said he would not drive my grandmother home, because she would want to go home early, and he would miss so much of the reception.”
The OP continued to push her Uncle Jack to help with her grandmother.
“As there was no other way for my grandmother to be there, I called Jack myself and asked him to drive my grandmother home. He finally agreed.”
“My grandmother ended up staying a lot longer than we expected, until after dinner and the first dance, about 9:30 PM.”
“However, after the wedding, Jack said that having to drive my grandmother home ruined the whole day for him and that he could not enjoy the wedding at all.”
“So was I wrong for making my uncle leave my wedding early?”
“AITA?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some understood the tough position the OP was in… that said, they also felt she had pushed her Uncle Jack too far.
“Soft YTA. I understand how important it is to have certain relatives at your big moments, especially your wedding, but your uncle was a guest at the wedding, too.”
“Your grandmother’s requirement that it be your mother (who was incapacitated) or your uncle put you in a tough spot, but badgering your uncle until he agreed is wrong.”
“I would apologize to your uncle, thank him profusely, and make sure he knows how much it meant for you to have your grandmother and him at your special day.” – GavelUpOnBeingPretty
“ESH. I can understand not wanting to leave an event you are enjoying with family and friends to take somebody home. He told you from the beginning that he didn’t want to do it, but you badgered him.”
“I can understand wanting your grandmother at your wedding, but why not have her come to the church and the photos and leave before the party starts? I have a harder time understanding your grandmother insisting that only your mother or uncle can drive her. Selfish on grandma’s part.” – BrinaGu3
“I think it’s really unfair when people refuse to have paid caregivers and force their families into that role. He shouldn’t have whined about it to you, but I think you’re being a little unfair to your uncle. He probably has to help your grandma a lot and is burned out as a caregiver. ESH.” – IHaveBoxerDogs
“ESH. I understand grandma wanting only family to help, but could she not have accepted a hired caregiver for one event? They could have waited in the wings until she was ready to go home, driven her there, helped her up the stairs, helped her settle in for the night, and then they could have gone home.”
“As it was, grandma stayed at the wedding until 9:30 PM, needed a 30-minute drive home, up the stairs, helping settle her, another 30-minute drive back to the wedding, and it’s now at least 11:00 PM.”
“I don’t blame your uncle for resenting being coerced into helping. He missed over an hour and a half of the wedding and family time. There are probably many caregiver services that could have been hired for one event.” – Universal_mammal
“Look, the real problem here is that your grandmother’s situation is untenable. She’s in a wheelchair, but her apartment has stairs? And there is only one person in this world she would let move her?”
“Frankly, it’s dangerous to both parties to carry someone around – nurses destroy their backs doing that all the time, and one wrong move and both your grandma and uncle could be very, very badly hurt (clearly, mom shouldn’t be doing this for at least a year, maybe ever).”
“Grandma needs to move somewhere with wheelchair access, and needs to accept help from other people. I get old people don’t like change and want their freedom, but putting her kids in a situation where they could badly hurt themselves in order to go out cannot go on.”
“Time for a family intervention. Mom and Uncle need to unite and make Grandma get her s**t together. Grandma is the biggest a**hole here for making her own kids put their backs on the line getting her in and out of her ridiculous tower, but mom and uncle hold some accountability for not saying F**k no before this.”
“OP needs to go back to her uncle and say, ‘I get you are frustrated that her ability to go out depends entirely on you, but we need to unite as a family and change this system because it is deeply unsafe,’ and see if he’ll actually put his actions where his pouting is.”
“I’ll give OP a NTA because its hard to recognize sometimes when ALL the adults in the family are going along with some missing stair bulls**t system that outsiders find wild, and she had wedding blinders on, but it’s time to wake up and see that it’s old a matter of time before Uncle falls and breaks his back or falls on grandma and breaks her hip and you all have a lot more to be upset about.” – Music_withRocks_In
Others empathized with the OP’s Uncle Jack and all she had demanded of him on a day that should have been a joyous occasion for the whole family.
“We hired nursing and driving help for the grandmas so they could attend the wedding. ESH. Including granny.”
“Actually, ESPECIALLY GRANNY! You’ve got to figure her kids are in their 60s or 70s. She lives upstairs in a place without an elevator.”
“She demands that her senior citizen children accommodate her. Nuh-uh, get over yourself. Aging has its indignities, and one of those is paying strangers to carry your carcass.”
“I would not speak so crudely if it weren’t for the grandmother’s unhealthy attitude. She is deliberately being more of a burden on family than is necessary.” – tocammac
“OP said there’s a lift. I understand that in some places, lift is used to mean elevator, but based on OP’s comment about stairs and that her grandmother needs help, I’m pretty sure lift is referring to a stair lift rather than an elevator.”
“I’m guessing the issue is that someone needs to get her wheelchair up and down the stairs, maybe help the grandmother into and out of the stair lift, and also presumably help her into the car.”
“Grandmother is still TA because it’s not fair of her to refuse to accept help from anyone but her two children.” – No-Stress-7034
“YTA. You basically forced him, and that’s not fair. He was entitled to want to enjoy your wedding. You should have made other arrangements for this one special day.” – Less_Instruction_345
“If your Uncle does not want to take care of his mom, then you have no authority to make him do so. You HAD the power; by denying him access to the party if he did not comply.”
“But if you forced him, then yes, that makes YTA.” – FireBallXLV
“Honestly, at that point, OP should have made it clear to the uncle that he isn’t invited but expected to show up to be grandmother’s caregiver. Not inviting him or trying to use the wedding as a power play is disrespectful and shows the uncle isn’t cared about.”
“Regardless of Grandma’s wants, he is his own person and has things he wants to do. OP commenting that it was surprising that he stayed for even just the first dance says a lot.”
“This wasn’t inviting him as a person or as family. He really just should have said he won’t go at that point and let OP deal with the s**t she stirred.” – DifferentBumblebee34
“There clearly was another way for your grandmother to attend and you failed to take it.”
“You needed to tell her that the only way to attend was to accept outside help, which you would arrange for her. It was hers to accept or miss the wedding.”
“Instead, you forced her son (probably not that young himself if she is 95) to negotiate stairs with her, attend to her needs, and miss much of the reception.”
“It’s understandable that your grandmother might prefer to lean on her son or daughter, but we don’t always get exactly what we want when we want it, nor is it always best for us.”
“You passed off your own responsibility for one guest onto another, making YTA.” – IllustriousBowler259
The subReddit could empathize that this was a complicated situation and with no easy answers, since the OP’s grandmother only wanted her daughter, who was currently unable, to assist and care for her.
That said, there are daycare and caregiving facilities, many of which have special rates for events like wedding receptions, to care for children, the elderly, and those with special needs.
If the grandmother really loved her family, she could have agreed to care for one evening, so she could stay as long as she was able and allow the rest of her family to continue to celebrate.