NOT that I am generally a cookiemonstery person but I decided to vent here instead of writing a very nasty email to my new sister-in-law. Here's the scene...*must breathe..must keep breathing*...my brother (who is totally awesome) is living in England and was engaged to this English girl. When they first got engaged, she called me, emailed me, was lovely to my kids, and asked them (face to face when they visited here) to be flower girls at their wedding. Initially my intuition told me that this girl was rather shonky. Intuition is never wrong! Still, I gave her the benefit of the doubt and thought our relationship was going to be great. I was really happy for my bro. She was going to be the sister I never had. They came to Australia to marry on Feb 14 this year at Byron Bay....hippy drug capital of Australia. Annyyywaaaay..time was running out and nothing had been done about the kids flower girl dresses..and I had the suspicion that she had changed her mind but didn't have the guts to say it. (Didn't worry us too much, b/c we could have done w/o the expense. But my kids would have been upset - they would have got over it). So 2 weeks before the wedding, they arrive in Oz, come over for lunch and we asked them about it. All apparently was still good and they were going to call from Byron Bay to start organising it. They didn't call until a week later (only one week to go) and said they were having difficulty finding material etc..but were still working on it. The next day, my bro rings me and tries the guilt trip on me saying, "this is too hard for us, we are fighting, there isn't going to be a wedding". To which I reply, "chill, it's no drama, just tell us the pattern over the phone (one was already picked out) and we will pick up the material from the airport (it was arriving with the cookiemonsteres parents) and we will get it done...no dramas!" STILL we heard nothing until my mother calls and tells us they have changed thier minds and the kids aren't flower girls. So Ok, no real biggie, I just didn't appreciate they WAY they went about it...not calling us directly. AS if I wasn't pissed enough! Come the wedding day..actually the day before. We are told that they have hired a baby sitter for the kids during the ceremony if we wished to use the service. NO way, no stranger (who happened to be a 16 yr old girl who had NEVER babysat before) is looking after my kids! I said that if the kids play up and are noisy OF COURSE we will take them away. Day of the wedding, we were approached 6, I repeat 6 times by different ppl, to say that Sarah didn't want the kids at the ceremony AT ALL..we were referred to by her god mother as "these ppl". Keeping in mind here that it was an outdoor wedding, these kids are my bro's nieces AND THIER NAMES WERE ON THE INVITATION!!! (Spelt incorrectly I may add..including MY name...how rude!). So, (there were only 5 kids there) we told them to basically piss off. My hubby missed the ceremony completely b/c he took some of the kids away. BUT IF THAT ISN'T ENOUGH!!!! after the ceremony, the cookiemonster (as I call her now) would not approach ANY of my brothers side of the family. She REFUSED to have official photos taken with even our mother. We had done nothing to this cookiemonster except accept her with open arms into our family. At the reception, my mother and father didn't even get a mention, and ONCE AGAIN we were told to take the kids away..so we spent MOST OF THE NIGHT on the bloody driveway with them! All the staff were horrified....one of the bridesmiads came up to me to tell me to remove the kids and I bloody well told her that this was bullbutter. Wait..there's MORE..her side of the family would not speak to our side of the family b/c they thought we were some feral convicts or something (didn't want to associate with riff raff) yet, MY side of the family are totally loaded in comparison to them..UGH! (We don't give a butter about class division)...and apart