A little upset and wondering if I've done the right thing

[Graye]

I'm glad you sorted that out anyway. It was a bit unreasonable of her to expect you to travel all that way, do your job AND be a guest (she shouldn't have sent you an invitation if it was purely a job). But you have to give her a bit of leeway for the stress she is probably going through with the arrangements and she obviously saw the error of her ways!

However this did remind me of my own (first) marriage. Being a pair of naive 22 year olds we wanted the "perfect" day and made a point of excluding children. As we didn't know many people with children I think it actually caused few problems for anyone anyway. However, just as the service in a lovely country church got under way a baby started screaming at the back of the church and continued throughout (I still have it on tape somewhere). I had not really considered that a church remains just that no matter that you have hired the vicar for your ceremony, etc. I understand that if a member of the public wants to sit there throughout with a screaming child they are fully entitled to do so.

My second marriage was in the Register Office with only a few close friends plus my son and girlfriend followed by sandwiches in the pub. Great day and the only problem with children was a very drunken doctor friend who enthralled another prim friend's daughter of 13 with gory medical tales - much to the horror of her parents!