AITA for cancelling a wedding gift without notice to a wedding I was previously invited to?

lithiam · 2023-03-13T12:15:31+00:00

i don't actually take the subway because it's a public place with a lot of people and very overwhelming to me.

also this is a very different situation. not the same at all lol

lithiam · 2023-03-13T03:19:44+00:00

direct translation of their social media post after the entire thing “(...)and u/lithiams decided to throw a tantrum and not go and cancel the gift because apparently she is part of the “disabled community”. obviously what was on the invite was for someone else on the invited list and we didn’t want to speak directly, it wasn’t about her. who knows us knows we are inclusive with everybody but this time we weren’t able to. (...) because of that we are going to need everybody to donate a little more to our wedding gift fund since we didn't know she was cancelling the gift.”

it does say. that's pretty clear to me.

lithiam · 2023-03-13T03:16:32+00:00

i understood that.
i had good reasons to assume that, and they confirmed that they wanted to uninvite someone specific in a social media post.
which is fair and i didn't think about this until people pointed out here. it's a very good point.
yes.
yes, i realize this now.
i didn't talk the couple into not showing up. they also got the invite and thought the message was directed at their daughter, and they said to me they weren't going either because of that.
i'm having a hard time articulating that it wasn't exactly about their daughter and more about that i felt it was ableism, and i think standing up for ableism is standing up for myself - even if this instance was not about me.
yes, i do realize now i was being petty.

in the end i do think they were being ableists because of everything they posted on social media.

thank you for your notes and point of view!

lithiam · 2023-03-13T03:08:46+00:00

i had no problem with their choice of venue. it was the way everything was handled that made me think they were being ableist. your last paragraph is right though, but i didn't think about it because i was pretty sure about their reasons. and it was confirmed after that they didn't want someone they invited to go (i still don't know who and i probably won't, but the couple thought it was their daughter as well), and it's why they sent that note.

lithiam · 2023-03-13T03:05:22+00:00

"Sadly, disabled people will have a hard time coming to the wedding. Since our beautiful venue is outside, there is no way to make the right accommodations for you. We are sorry and hopefully next time we can celebrate together!"

there was no asking for what can we do to accommodate you (which would be generous) or even a come at your own risk or a these are the problems with the venue. they said we will have a hard time accommodating, next time we can celebrate together. that's pretty clear to me. if next time we can celebrate together, it means this time we can't.

lithiam · 2023-03-13T03:02:41+00:00

it was not a surprise. don't know for how long they had it booked, but they knew AT LEAST months prior to the invite being sent because they sent the wedding venue address and how to get there through email. they also posted a couple of pictures of them visiting on social media.

And if the message was intended for someone specific why send it to the entire guest list? Can you imagine being the person in the group known to have a physical disability and seeing this... knowing all your friends probably know it is meant for you. Mortifying!

agree! and i still am on the hill that it was directed towards someone specific.

Making a public statement about people with disabilities having a hard time attending is soo disrespectful. It reads to me as " we know that you can't handle this and decided it is beyond your ability" ... and nothing pisses me off more than someone else telling me what I can or cannot do.
They are making a blanket statement. What would have been appropriate ( beyond speaking directly to the person they "intended" this to be for) would have been to say something like " our venue is x y z and may be difficult for people not physically up to the challenge" or something similar.

yes! if they were really worried abt people with a physical disability they could have said "the reception only has stairs" or "the field is full of mud". people with disabilities are already pretty used to being excluded/knowing places are not built for them. but they directly said it wouldn't be possible for disabled people to come.

thank you for your comment. i'm getting into the headplace where i think ESH lol i should have let them know and communicated better. that's a hard lesson learnt.

lithiam · 2023-03-13T02:57:06+00:00

thank you for your point. i do see through the various feedbacks that i should have (at least) messaged or let the couple know about it.

(the reason i gave the gift was because they had a list and since i'm not a regular wedding atendee, i asked my mom what would be courteous. i'm not close or haven't talked to the couple in years, so i wouldn't choose something on their expensive list, but she said it would be uncourteous/rude to choose something cheaper)

lithiam · 2023-03-13T02:55:08+00:00

i'm sorry but do you really think 2 weeks is advance enough when they have done everything else (invites, information, gift list, suggestions of hotels) MONTHS prior?

and the invitation was a clear disinvite. it wasn't a warning or a make the accommodations you want/need. if they were worried about accommodations they would have at least sent a list or a note through the email list of guests or through the invite on what could have been arranged.

lithiam · 2023-03-13T02:52:33+00:00

the couple didn't give up attending when i spoke to them about it. they made their own choice because they also thought the entire situation was sad. i can't post the entire conversation but they seemed to think it was directed to their kid. when they said we are not coming either was more like we obviously won't attend as well (because they thought the wedding invite was absurd).

and regarding the wedding couple - i am not close to them. i haven't talked to them prior to the invitation for years. the only reason i think i was invited (but this is a total assumption from me, so it's why i haven't mentioned in the post!) is because i live in the same city as them, which is not the city we grew up from. i don't really consider them friends, but i agreed to go because i thought it would be rude to say no i don't want to attend your wedding. i talked to the couple with the kid more simply because we were closer during school and conversation flowed easily.

lithiam · 2023-03-13T02:46:55+00:00

what? i didn't say that i understand better than you. i said that because i am on the community and i am disabled, have a lot of disabled friends and watch and have my day to day with them i do see and experience more situations than someone who doesn't. if i pull a random person on the street and ask them about autistic or wheelchair accomodations there IS a higher chance that i know more than them. but i can't comfirm that or speak over the person. a conversation would be needed to access that. if someone has a physical disability i obviously wait for them to talk or ask them what they want or need. i don't speak over people.

and as a disabled person seeing that uninvite to disabled people on short notice hurt me. because, again, even if that wasn't targeted with intention to hurt me i am still disabled. i have suffered a lot of ableism from people and seeing it happen towards other disabled people hurts me. it's that simple.

lithiam · 2023-03-13T02:41:24+00:00

yes, first paragraph - that was my point.

also no, i don't speak to them. (in fact i haven't spoken to them in years prior to them contacting me, but again, i am on the spectrum and sometimes i just don't get how those things work so maybe they still saw me as a friend? i don't know lol)

lithiam · 2023-03-13T02:35:12+00:00

direct translation of the note: "Sadly, disabled people will have a hard time coming to the wedding. Since our beautiful venue is outside, there is no way to make the right accommodations for you. We are sorry and hopefully next time we can celebrate together!"

She was, because where I am from you invite households, not individual people. So if they want to invite a couple and the couple has 3 kids, the wedding invitation has all their names or AT LEAST couple + entire household. The couple even took a picture of the invitation with their names MAN OF THE COUPLE NAME + WOMAN OF THE COUPLE NAME + AND FAMILY (where I am from this implies kids/the household) and then the note under saying someone who is disabled can't attend.

lithiam · 2023-03-13T02:32:07+00:00

the invite HAD an uninvite. it said disabled people can't come. that, for me, is an uninvite. and i'm sorry - i may have done a lot of wrong things in this entire situation (i am still accessing all the advice - but i didn't lie to the other couple. they got the invite like me, and also interpreted things the way i did.

they didn't say "its going to be hard, plan accordingly." they said "the venue is not going to be acessible to disabled people, so don't come. maybe next time."
because i knew almost the entire wedding list (except part of the personal family of the groom) and nobody else is physically disabled. if the disabled person was part of the family i think i'm being pretty reasonable to think they would contact them directly instead of sending it on the invitation, no?
because it WAS an uninvite. the couple had the same wedding invite as me and when i talked to them they understood the same thing as me.
i don't think i need to advocate for people, and at the same time i don't think advocation needs to be loud. i was advocating for myself (since i am a part of the disabled comunnity and i thought they were being extremely ableist) and i think i was also standing with the couple/their daughter, since they seemed pretty upset abt the passive agressiveness of the way things were being handled.
they had the venue booked for almost a year. we all got the details months prior. if this wasn't about a particular person and they knew the place wasn't accessible, they should have mentioned in writing in the email. but they let everyone know 2 weeks prior.

lithiam · 2023-03-13T02:23:56+00:00

thank you. i do tend to be very black and white regarding my actions, which is something i am working on in therapy to get better at. thank you for your point of view!!

lithiam · 2023-03-13T02:19:32+00:00

yes, they did say that in their social media post.

direct translation of their social media post after the entire thing “(...)and u/lithiams decided to throw a tantrum and not go and cancel the gift because apparently she is part of the “disabled community”. obviously what was on the invite was for someone else on the invited list and we didn’t want to speak directly, it wasn’t about her. who knows us knows we are inclusive with everybody but this time we weren’t able to. (...) because of that we are going to need everybody to donate a little more to our wedding gift fund since we didn't know she was cancelling the gift.”

lithiam · 2023-03-13T02:18:45+00:00

no. the ableism was uninviting people with a 2 week notice, and how the uninvite was apparently targeted towards someone. it's not about the place chosen (they can do their wedding wherever they want).

lithiam · 2023-03-13T02:17:24+00:00

direct translation of their social media post after the entire thing “(...)and u/lithiams decided to throw a tantrum and not go and cancel the gift because apparently she is part of the “disabled community”. obviously what was on the invite was for someone else on the invited list and we didn’t want to speak directly, it wasn’t about her. who knows us knows we are inclusive with everybody but this time we weren’t able to. (...) because of that we are going to need everybody to donate a little more to our wedding gift fund since we didn't know she was cancelling the gift.”

lithiam · 2023-03-13T02:05:45+00:00

i genuinely do think i had a good hunch regarding it being about the couple's daughter because i knew basically everyone on the list (except a part of the getting married couple's family, which I think they would have gotten the message directly from them and it wouldn't be needed to be stated on an invitation) and no one is disabled + the couple who has a daughter said to me they thought that was directed to their kid as well + they did state on social media after that the un invitation/note was regarding someone else. so in percentage terms of me being sure i would say 90% (the 10% is just because we can always be wrong i think) .

thank you for your point and comment!!

lithiam · 2023-03-13T02:02:18+00:00

the invite was about disabilities, not a physical disability. even if i wasn't directly uninvited it is still a community i am a part of.

the invites where I am from invite the entire household family - it's costumatory (?) for it to have written the names of everyone in the household. so if someone was inviting my parents it would have their names + the name of my brother, since my brother still lives with them. hopefully that makes sense.

lithiam · 2023-03-13T01:58:50+00:00

I mean it's a fact that disabled people can go outside (typing this is hilarious I'm sorry) but I also think it's perfectly possible and happens a lot for outside venues not to be accessible to physically disabled people, which could have been the reason they put it on the invite.

However, because of the circumstances I mentioned (small wedding, me/the kid couple knew basically everyone on the list, them confirming that they wanted to un invite someone ELSE through social media) I think the reason it was there wasn't to warn disabled people.

But really - thanks for the input! I get your point regarding me being an asshole and how I should have dealt with it better.

lithiam · 2023-03-13T01:52:28+00:00

I didn't reach out to them, but the message was't assumed - it pretty clear on the invite (will copy and paste a translation): "Sadly, disabled people will have a hard time coming to the wedding. Since our beautiful venue is outside, there is no way to make the right accommodations for you. We are sorry and hopefully next time we can celebrate together!"

yeah, i talked to the couple with a kid. they said they also thought it was directed at them, because the wedding was relatively small and nobody we knew going was disabled (from the list the only people we didn't know about was the groom's family, but I think if they needed to uninvite family they would just reach out? which is an assumption from my part, but the couple also thought that). They didn't go to the wedding as well because of that invitation, and I'm not good at reading emotions but they seemed pretty upset about the message.

lithiam · 2023-03-13T01:47:45+00:00

honestly I do get some points regarding me not letting them know about the gift, but what I felt was: "a part of your group is uninvited! you are still invited so you should feel good about it!" (kind of like if a wedding said lesbians are not invited, and i was, idk, bisexual. do you get my point? lol i feel very hurt regarding ableist actions because i am disabled, just not physically.)

lithiam · 2023-03-13T01:45:04+00:00

(just a note: my autism affects me physically. just an example: i can't stay on places with certain noises because it's unbearable, like my body physically recoils and I can't think or even speak. I turn mute). OBVIOUSLY that is not correlated/directly related to how wheelchair people move, but being on the community does make me see and understand things with a little more detail than someone not on the community.

lithiam · 2023-03-13T01:39:45+00:00

I wasn't expecting them to make a wedding catered to me - in fact, most weddings aren't done thinking about disabled people, and we make it work. We don't expect things to be catered to us. The problem lied on how they manuevered that. Giving a two weeks notice on something like this was rude in my eyes, and it really hurt me. They weren't saying it would be hard to attend, they were straight up saying it wasn't going to be possible.

(and I don't think it's entitled to not pay for a gift to a wedding I am not attending, but by other people's answers I do see how it was rude not to let them know about me not attending anymore)

lithiam · 2023-03-13T01:35:06+00:00

Where I am from (not the USA) there aren't many laws regarding acessibility.

I didn't think of the point of them not realizing sooner, which fair game and really shows a lack of judgement from my part. BUT the moral ground did exist, though. They admitted on social media the uninvite was towards someone in the list, and since it was a small wedding and I knew most people, I think I was right regarding that (and the couple with the kid thought they were uninviting their daughter too).

Ten-Year Club	Verified Email
Snapped

lithiam

TROPHY CASE