In addition to celebrating the union of two people in love, weddings are also about bringing family together.
Which not only means the merging of two different families, but often the reunion of the happy couple's extended family, resulting in their seeing family members they might not have seen for years.
But it being a wedding, it's hard not to imagine that the young couple might be counting the minutes till they say goodbye to their respective families, and check into their honeymoon suite.
Redditor
easynfree certainly couldn't wait to say goodbye to his family on his wedding day, but not so that he and his new husband could celebrate their marriage in private.
But rather, so that the two of them could continue celebrating with some of their friends, in a manner their parents and relatives might not have been too eager to witness.
After learning their family took offense to their actions, the original poster (OP) took to the subReddit "Am I The A**hole" (AITA), where they asked fellow Redditors:
"AITA for asking my parents and in-laws to leave our wedding early?"
The OP explained how he and his husband had established an end time for their official wedding reception, so that they could continue celebrating with a more exclusive after-party, which their parents were not welcome at."I officially tied the knot last week!" "Not sure how, but I convinced the coolest guy in the world that I'm tolerable enough to tie down for life." "Super shocking." "Thankfully, everyone accommodated the fact that we didn’t want children present at our ceremony or reception." "The thing that DID receive some pushback was our request that unless you were explicitly invited to stay then everyone needed to be out of the reception venue by 7pm." "Those who were asked to stay were mostly just mine and my husband’s friends." "As much as I love my parents, siblings, and new in-laws, I did want to partake in a few 'adult substances' and wasn’t really interested in them bearing witness to poppers and other things getting passed around." "We had been with them all day and would be seeing them the next morning as all of us were staying at a place nearby and had plans to grab breakfast together, so I didn’t see it as a problem." "At that point, I had already had a few drinks so after some back and forth about whether they really had to head out, I basically said something to the effect of 'if you wouldn’t feel comfortable spending a night out with us at a gay bar, you should probably leave'.” "The space cleared out pretty quickly after that, and we did our thing with our friends." "It was a wonderful end to a wonderful night." "My dad, however, didn’t show up for breakfast the next morning and my sister tipped me off that my mom and my mother-in-law weren’t happy with my comments." "AITA?" "To answer some questions, yes it was put on the invitations that the reception ended at a certain time." "There was no 'kicking anyone out', the event just ended and the after party continued."Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation by declaring:- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
The OP found little to no sympathy from the Reddit community, who felt that he was indeed the a**hole for asking his parents to leave the reception.
Just about everyone agreed that even if the invitations did indeed include a hard end time for the reception, it was inconsiderate of the OP to ask his parents and in-laws to leave, particularly only so they could do drugs."'Attention please, we asked a group of you to stay here with us to celebrate, but the rest of you need to leave now'." "'Thanks for coming though!'" "And you don't think that message should offend?" "Lol." "YTA."- TallyPiper
"YTA." "Poor form on your part." "These people came to celebrate your union & you essentially told them to f*ck off so you could have fun, because you couldn’t possibly enjoy yourself if they stayed a minute longer." "These are the people who love you best, and you sidelined them." "Heartless."- pineboxwaiting
"YTA." "This is incredibly tacky." "The wedding reception is for ALL of the invited guests as a thank you for their love and attendance." "You got push back because you decided that getting high with your friends was more important than showing your love and appreciation for those who attended your wedding." "Your dad was right not to attend." "Quite frankly the entire group should have refused to attend at all once it was made clear that despite being your family they were the D list invitees."- sheramom4
"YTA.' "You kicked your families out so you could do drugs.' "That is absolutely rude." "If you want a wild afterparty, the polite thing is to do it at another venue, preferably on a different day, without making a big thing of it." "But you need to end the wedding event first."- Amblonyx
"YTA for having an A-list and a B-list." "If you invite people to a party, they’re invited to the party.' "If you want to continue the party with a smaller, more intimate group, you spare the B-list’s feelings by ending the event you’re all at and going somewhere else to carry on with the A-list." "You don’t just say 'the reception is still happening but get out'.”- MollyRolls
"Holy f*ck." "YTA." "You invited people to your wedding and then unceremoniously kicked them out."-WaywardPrincess1025
"YTA." "Making it clear to your guests that there is an 'A” & a “B' list and throwing out the 'B' listers in the early evening is very rude." "Saying that you had spent enough time with them already so you didn’t see it as an issue just makes you sound ruder."- YMMV-But
"YTA." "If you want to wild out, you don’t kick people out of your reception." "You end the reception and go to a second location for the after party." "The way you did it was guaranteed to make people feel bad."- bklynpeter
"I would have no issue if you ended the reception at 7 PM and then you and your friends went and did something together that is separate from the reception." "But dividing your reception guests into an 'A' list and 'B' list and telling the 'B' list people they have to leave at 7 PM before the party is over is rude." "It's especially awful that both sets of your parents were on the 'B' list." 'You literally kicked your parents out of your reception to do drugs." "I don't give a rat's ass what drugs you do, but if you can't figure out how to do them without kicking your parents out of your wedding reception, that's a thing." "YTA."- throwaway20698059
"Hmmm I’m leaning toward YTA." "Even though it was your wedding and even if you paid for it all yourself." "The polite thing to do when you want to have two different guest lists, no matter what you’re doing, is to do two different things, not explicitly ask a portion of the guests to leave the party." "It just feels extremely exclusionary and like those people are being singled out as less welcome." "In this case, renting out part of an actual gay bar or other venue and making that a friends-only after party would have been a better choice." "Especially at 7pm, which is like… the middle of the reception in most cases."- navelbabel
"Why didn’t you just have an after party after the wedding?" "It would’ve been fine to leave and make your exit to the bar." "You sound awful." "YTA."- Sorry-Independent-98
"YTA." "And it's sad that you can't see that." "We had an after-party after our reception." "There were separate invites to that, mostly to our friends & cousins so they all knew the plan." "But there were a few grown-ups/parentals who were living their best life and wanted to stay out, so we told them to stick around." "We didn't judge them or their capacity to tolerate our reprobate friends, we were happy they wanted to continue celebrating with us." "If you didn't want to celebrate with your guests, why did you invite them in the first place?"- msbump
"YTA.' "Why did you even bother inviting you family to your wedding if you were just gonna kick them out to do drugs." "Trash is what I would call you." "There's a time & place for that kind of party."- Mishy162
One could say that it's a fairly sad sign when the thing a bride or groom is looking forward to most of all during their wedding is doing drugs with their friends.
Not to mention having no guilt whatsoever about kicking their family out so they can do so.
One can only hope the two grooms had fun at this after party, and felt it was worth asking their parents to leave.
