Which is preferable - weekday wedding or child free wedding?

That's a rather thoughtless comment

OP is clearly trying to work out the best thing within budget

I really enjoying the presence of children at my wedding though- and it was before I had any myself

A weekday wedding would be without children anyway, except for the very tiny (who are the tricky ones to have there!) or if in the holidays.

So you may as well go for a weekend!

It it a huge wedding then? As 30 children seems loads unless every guest has a large family.
i think we had 42 guests total. 8 that were children 0-10 years.

I honestly can’t imagine having a wedding with no children. It’s seems sad

I didn’t have anyone to watch my own child at my own wedding, so I’m not going to have sudden offers to watch him when I attend someone else’s wedding. He wouldn’t stay with someone he didn’t know.

Is the venue more important to you or would you rather have everyone there that you want? Is it worth having a look at somewhere where you could invite everyone plus children for similar cost to your existing venue?

It's your day so it has to be what you want. If that venue is important to you, stick with it. But could be worth looking elsewhere.

Also don’t think a 3k discount is reasonable for a Wednesday wedding, the hassle it creates requires a bigger discount.

Wednesday is horrendous tbf. People would really need 2 days off

£40 seems high for kids but is that for 2 meals? (Sit down & buffet)

Does the £6/9k cost include any food, drink, rooms or entertainment or just the venue?

I agree Wednesday is a terrible day to hold a wedding.
So that leaves child free or another venue.

Wednesday is a particularly bad weekday to have a wedding on.

Will the venue really charge you the full adult per head price for children?

"But your wedding day is the one day you get to be as selfish as you want and do things exactly as you please. Yes that may mean some people can't or won't come but ultimately you aren't getting married for them."

I disagree. If you are eloping do it exactly as you want but if you have guests at your wedding, you have to consider their comfort as well.

I have kids and I always prefer child free weddings. Is there anyone with dc who wouldn't be able to attend who is very close to you if it was child free (eg all their babysitters will be at the wedding)?

Go for a Saturday and child free, outside of the summer holidays.

Friday weddings here in Ireland are becoming increasingly more common in the last 10 years or so. And the general etiquette is that if it's someone very close to you, like a sibling, a day of annual leave isn't a big deal, but if it's someone not so close, then it's optional for them to take the day off or not. You just can't get offended if people rsvp their regrets.

In our case, it was a Friday summer holiday wedding, the location meant that people would have to travel a bit so before we booked, we asked anyone who may have annual leave issues if it suited them to take two/ 1.5 days. All of them were fully on board. But we also timed it so that the ceremony was at 2pm so people could travel the day of the wedding if they wished.

We brought all the kids, as we have our own DS and our day wouldn't have been right without him and yet it would have been shit for him being the only kid, so we leaned into it and got a bouncy castle and a soft drinks bar tab for him and his cousins - and actually it was the first family wedding they were old enough to go to. Youngest was 6 and they were in enclosed gardens so parents could also relax. They pretty much disappeared except for the dinner and came in when it started to get dark and joined their parents on the dance floor. My favourite picture from that day is the one of my partied-out 6yo flower girl fast asleep on the booth seat her daddy's suit jacket over her as a blanket.

Food wise we went with a beef or salmon buffet with lots of sides, plentiful and filling rather than a served meal and a DJ. And I trimmed out pretty much every other wedding 'frippery' that people think is needed for a wedding so in all, it worked out very reasonable as weddings go.

Oh gosh can I be honest? I wouldn’t go to either. It’s just not worth the hassle.

Thats not a bad thing if you need to keep numbers down, could work in your favour if you have a budget but want to be seen to be inviting everyone.

Thursday , Friday , Saturday and Sunday ( and bank holiday Mondays) were all the same price at our venue! Gone is the days of cheap Friday weddings!

Both?

we got married on a weekday but not until 5pm so at worst people could take a half day. I’m not a huge fan of wedding that mean people have to use loads of annual leave.

first time round ( Saturday) we had no kids, I would hate loads of toddlers and smaller kids running around being noisy. They ruin it for lots of people.

I’m always in the camp of child free weddings because people can enjoy themselves more

Some people can, others won't be able to come at all, all the dc in the family and some parents.

I think it depends OP, is it about everyone in your family getting to watch you get married, is it about having a more adult party, are there a lot of dc that you are close to, or friends who would need to bring dc?

We didn't have a child free wedding but only two guests had dc so it wasn't an issue either way. A lot of this is going to depend on the guests you want to invite to the wedding.

We did a Sunday as it was cheaper but still a weekend - is that an option?

What are the most expensive components and how could you cut those?

I can’t see how having less children makes it that MUCH cheaper so your options confuse me. Kids meals are like a fraction of the adult cost

have it on a Friday child free.

Friday is cheaper but no one needs to take 2 days off work

I’m always in the camp of child free weddings because people can enjoy themselves more

Children at weddings are a pain for everyone involved, ignoring the extra cost.

I would imagine it is because they don't have access to weekend childcare.

A Saturday wedding is preferable. Then most of your guests won't need to take time off work on the day or the day after. I think if you can afford to you should make the guests as inconvenienced as little as possible. If you do go for a weekday go for a Friday so they mostly won't need the following day off.

I don’t understand why anyone would ever want to bring their children to a wedding (excluding newborns).