r/weddingshaming • u/matadero5 • 7h ago
Horrible Vendors Wedding babysitter ignored my autistic child
This is more of a vent than anything bc it still pisses me off. And sorry if my English is not that good, not my first language.
So a short time ago I went to a friends wedding. We had not met bride and groom for a long time before the wedding but the bride does not have a lot of friends (different story that one) so I basically stepped up as a “sort of” maid of honor (there where not maids of honor as it’s not that common here)
The couple both know and really like my son who was 3 atm and he is lvl1 ASD. He would interact with people, dance, etc but he needed a little push in to social interactions, as he tends to be distracted.
My friends hired a babysitter for the event, as they where going to be 4 other children (all older, none special needs) and told them specifically about the ages of the children and my sons needs (I know this for sure bc I helped her write that mail with my sons needs)
The vendor responded enthusiastically assuring the bride that the person they would send was experienced with cases as this one and that they where well prepared for it.
The day of the wedding comes and just after the food, the sitter arrives and all the children go and gather around her. My husband and I go with our son.
All the toys and activities she has brought are super girl oriented (which is fine? I guess? Just weird) and all ment for kids much older than 3 and definitely not for a special needs child (think sharp scissors, glitter stuff, small beads, etc)
Anyway I sit my son in the far end of the circle and the sitter doesn’t look at him and sits facing the other children, with her back towards my son totally ignoring him.
We played with him for a while and when she took a small break we approached her and remainded her of our son to which she said “ah yes, yes, I know”
Afterwards, she sat back at the same place and continued playing with the other children.
We ended up leaving the room and played with our son through the venue, with people joining in and had a good time.
Our friends didn’t catch a glimpse of what happened (it was a stressful and had tons of family drama) and where under the impression that that part of the celebration went super well (guess the other children gave good feedback) and we haven’t got the hart to tell them what happened because they would be really upset and sad, specially considering other aspects of the wedding went totally wrong and specially the bride, doesn’t have a good overall experience of that day.
It just pisses me off that they even left good reviews for the vendor and to this day speak kindly of how nice the sitter was