The worst thing about recitals for children is that they go on and on and on…
I would be willing to bet that the granddaughter won’t be on stage more than 2 minutes, if that. 3 year old dancers tend to get on stage, twirl, curtesy and point left toe, right toe.
Then the truly horrible part comes: sitting through the rest of the show filled with people you, more than likely, don’t really care about.
Your sister is way off base here.
Are her in-laws local and available to fill the grandparent seats that day. Does the dancer have an aunt or uncle on her father’s side that would go?
I really dont’ get where your sister si coming from at all. For my part, I’ve spent a lot of years managing my mom’s dysfunctional relationships everyone. It’s tiring.
I’m sorry if your mom ends up enjoying the wedding any less because of your sisters’ silliness. I’m even more sorry if you have to spend any time giving your mom permission to have a good time, and that in any ways detracts form you having a good time.
Attending the wedding is the only choice I feel it was ever appropriate for your mom to make.
If your neice’s dance program is anything like the ones my nieces were in at her age recital happen more frequently than annually.
I think the important question here is how does the rest of the family get out from in-between two nutcases. 
My brother went all out with a church wedding and reception and stuff. If the bride’s family came up with two little kids I had never seen before to do a little 10 minute recital, no biggie to me. That’s the time you use to go to the bar and get a drink, or go to the bathroom, or whatever. A wedding is for BOTH family’s to have fun at.
Exactly. Disruptive, like muldoonthief said. 
I haven’t heard any more from either party involved in this brouhaha, so either things quieted down, or it’s the calm before the storm. Either way, I am continuing to keep my head down.
Without knowing the times and distances involved that would preclude Grandma spending 15 minutes at the dance recital and then the sister hitting the reception if not the ceremony…I’m going to vote for the wedding. It was most likely planned months before the recital was even announced. It involves a meal and much more participation as it relates to clothing, time, gift purchased. And presumably this is your Mom’s brother or sister’s child, which means blowing off the wedding to sit through a 15 minute portion of a dance recital would cause hard feelings in THAT relationship. Your sister needs to get over her feeling that her precious snowflakes are the only light in your mother’s life, and realize that her cousin would like her at the wedding, as well. It’s more important for the 3-year-old’s parents to be there. My grandparents never ever came to a single thing in my life, or the lives of my brother and sister, and we grew up just fine.
My two cents: attend both recitals or skip both recitals. Relative 101: Don’t treat siblings differently.
Coming from an only child, so this is observed behavior only, but this sort of nonsense seems to be a major source of issues for the siblinged among us.
Yep. Going to one child’s recital in no way will make the situation better, and in fact might make it worse. I’d skip both and go to the wedding myself.
Oh yeah, I was thinking that, too - no recitals that day, sorry. Too busy getting ready for the wedding.
Wedding, and skip both recitals.
Pff. I think even a 5-year-old is old enough to understand, “Grandma has a wedding to attend later in the day, so she can come to the earlier event, and she wishes she could come to the second one, but that’s when the wedding is.”
But then I believe in making sure every child gets what that child needs, which is nowhere near the same as “exactly equal treatment no matter what.” That’s probably a topic for a different thread, though. 
“My sister is insane.”
Fixed that for ya.
Argh, I misclicked! I would go to the recital because linears take precedence over collaterals - yes, the 3yo may not remember that you were there 2 years from now (she may also remember it her whole life), but your son or daughter will be there. Son/daughter takes precedence over niece/nephew.
Or I might discover an urgent need to be out of town, and when either part pouted, point out that either they start behaving like civilized people or I’m going to refrain from treating them as such.
ETA: I’m assuming from the OP that no acceptance to the wedding has been issued. If it has, then the previous engagement takes precedence.
Very good point. She may not remember “Grandma wasn’t at my recital,” but she’s a lot more likely to remember “Grandma went to my sister’s recital but not mine. Why does she love my sister more than me?”
Weddings of relatives (as opposed to your mom’s neighbor’s grandson) trump all recitals. Of course, the last recital I attended lasted THREE HOURS, so I could be biased. I felt like I was trapped in the fourth dimension of hell. And let me just say that some of those parents were due a refund!
Grandma should offer to buy the overpriced DVD of the recital that will undoubtedly be hawked, then go enjoy her nephew’s wedding.
How on earth does a 3 year old have an annual dance recital? Was she dancing when she was 2? Is she Shirley Temple? What kind of dancing does a 3 year old do? What kind of parents have any trouble making a decision like this?
This is a stressful family situation and you must take steps to minimize its impact.
One venue provides free drinks, one does not. The choice is clear.
What, so if my mother asks me out for coffee I should do that instead of going to my niece’s graduation?
Most people also consider the relative importance of the events, where weddings vastly take precedence over dance recitals.
I also wouldn’t compromise on this, as some have suggested. I don’t negotiate with family terrorists; it just encourages them. It sounds like the entire family already gives the sister’s bitchy craziness more consideration than it deserves.
Basically they are mimicking very simple steps that their instructor is doing off-stage. There is no question where she is because all their eyes are on her.
Probably so. I question, however, whether a 3 year old is old enough to understand that. Or even what a wedding really is, beyond a bunch of people getting dressed up and putting on a performance. And it’s the 3yo, not the 5yo, whose recital is getting skipped. That’s why I feel bad for the kid–it seems unfortunately likely to me that the message she’s going to take away from this is that her sister’s opportunity to get dressed up and put on a performance matters, and her cousin’s chance to get dressed up and put on a performance matters, but herchance to get dressed up and put on a performance is utterly trivial…and by extension her sister and cousin matter to Grandma, and she doesn’t. That’s some pretty harsh shit for a little kid.
There are all sorts of activities like dance classes for kids that little. Hell, our local soccer league has a division for 2 year olds. My niece started dance classes a few weeks after she turned 3; her birthday is in early August and the classes tend to run with the school year, so the sessions start in September and the recital is usually in late April. Classes for kids that little are essentially an exercise in cat-herding, but they learn about following directions and a few basic moves, and they have a good time doing it.
And they get really, really excited about showing everybody what they’ve learned. When the costumes for her first recital came in, Sam had to call me special to tell me all about her fancy new dress that she was going to wear to dance for people. She was as excited about that recital as any bride I have ever known was about her wedding. We are talking completely over. the. moon. You can’t just snatch that out from under a kid while letting her sister have the whole experience right in front of her. So as a parent, you really either have to let both of them participate, or neither. If you don’t let them participate, they spend dance class learning a routine they have no part in and listening to their friends talk about this big exciting experience they’re left out of, for a couple of months. That’s just rubbing salt in the wounds, really.
If it were my wedding, I would much rather my cousin and aunt go watch the kids dance. It would make me happy to have them at my big day, yes, but it would make me happier to see how happy and excited the kids are about their big day. Besides, I’m a grown-ass woman and can handle disappointment better than someone barely out of diapers.