Invited to a child free wedding.

[sea74]

I have been invited to a wedding, but children are not welcome.
Now, isnt a wedding the start of a family? Aren't they telling me "come to celebrate our special day but we dont give a t*ss about your family"?....because that is the message i am getting.
If you dont have money, do not invite all these people. But if you are inviting us, you should invite the whole family....

Am i being unreasonable?

Haven't read all the replies but I have to say that I do think it is up to the couple but I personally probably would not attend a family wedding that the children were not invited to, especially if it meant us travelling away to go to it. I would be quite happy if it was a friends wedding, although I would expect them to respect the fact if I could not attend due to lack of childcare as it is not always easy to find people to have children. My children were invited to 2 friend's weddings and I checked with them both that they were truly happy for them to attend as if not I would arrange alternative care for them, but as they both had children the same age as mine and the children have been brought up as friends so they went.

xstitch I was talking about situations like the ones I described where the upset caused was unnecessary.

There are a lot of threads on here with people doing all sorts of weird things, like telling people they can bring some of their children but not others, telling people that they must wean their BF newborns so that they can leave them with a babysitter, that sort of thing is what I mean when I say that "their wedding their choice" needs caveats.

hmm...i wa invited to a child free wedding when DD was 8 months old. my childcare was so late i couldn't go at all (i was still BF but could have gone for the day, just not overnight).

It was my Bils wedding so now every time he talks about it I wince a little.

although everyone is entitled to organise their weddings how they wish, a child-free wedding says 'come, but if you can't arrange childcare, actually we aren't particularly fussed if you don't make it.'

..quite so ISNT - it meant that my husband went to his brothers wedding without his own wife. rather irregular.

YABU - it is not your wedding, it is theirs and the happy couple can invite who they like, if you have a problem with it simply don't go, problem solved.

sea74, yabu, like most have said it's their wedding & if they don't want children there because of fears related to coldtits' post (hilarious & so true!) then that's their decision. There could be all kinds of motives behind it - maybe they don't want children, maybe they can't have children .etc & having lots of children running around will be a painful reminder of that?

Not everyone who gets married is doing so to start a family with children.

It's also your decision as to whether you attend (without your DC) or not.

My wedding will have children there, our choice. I'm lucky though in that my friends' children generally aren't brats... :)

sea74 stop being so feckin precious about it! It's up to them and no you are not the only person left in the UK who cares about family. We just have some bleeding perspective though. Get a grip.

Gotta lol at this... My friend said no kids at wedding, other friend took dd age 2 anyway (!!!!!) mother of child after said dd loved it and was centre of attention all day, bride fumed smiled sweetly on day and no longer talks to har as yes dd was centre of attention Inc screaming during vows running during dinner knocking wine over etc... Oh daer think nonone else at that weding would ever have kids at wedding after! Pls excuse sp am on phone!

"So would that include your workplace? What about the cinema for an adult film? If you go to a theme park do you expect your ticket to cover your kids too?"

I don't see it specified anywhere on my work contract that I am not to bring my children, nor do I see it on tickets. I'm quite confident that I can judge child friendly situations, and I do have enough common sense to make the decision confidently, on my own, without having it spelled out.

"So you're basically saying that your decision trumps whatever anyone else's wishes are. And how the fuck are you going to know whether or not children are not invited/welcome to a wedding if it's not specified on the invitation? Do you ring up everyone who invites you to check whether or not you can decide to take the children, or do you just assume "it's a wedding therefore I can take them"."

It's clear by the venue/times/overall formality of the wedding whether it's suitable for children. A quick google of the venue is usually enough to go by. Unless it is clear that it's very child friendly, I probably wouldn't take them anyway... and if it is unclear, I would ask. It's likely that if I have been invited to attend a wedding I'm on talking terms with the invitee and so it probably wouldn't warrant a special phone call.

But then maybe my view of this is skewed, because we had a very child friendly wedding and it was fantastic, the venue was such that it allowed the kids to wander around, we had entertainment in a seperate room, ate a reasonable time, everyone had a great time, both childless and 'with child' couples equally so. I don't recall any of the situations you mention coldtits. It's just a shame weddings have become so regimented. Just calm down a bit, it's one day.

To the people who think brides and grooms who don't want children at their wedding are 'odd', or the brides are 'bridezillas' etc:

Instead of blaming the B&G, blame the numerous rude and inconsiderate PARENTS who will not take their children out of the church when they are kicking off, shouting, wanting to run up and down the aisle and so on and who sit back enjoying themselves at the reception leaving everyone else to keep an eye on their mis behaving kids.

Every single time a parent does that, at least one guest says to themselves 'no way are kids coming to my wedding' and who can blame them?

Codtits - Agreed

Fanella

It's not up to you to decide if the wedding is 'suitable' for children, it's up to the bride and groom.

Bit of a variation - we're invited to a wedding where only certain children are invited. - children of brothers and sisters of bride and groom are invited, as are children of people who are travelling significant distances (requires weekend stay). So my kids are going, but DBs aren't. Cost was the big factor - inviting all the kids would have been £££££££, so bride and groom have made a pragmatic decision.

i've been invited to one on a friday with no kids policy to save money - it's less than an hour away but i'll have 3 under 3's and dh would have to take a day off work so we're not going. i was v.miffed when told it's child free as childcare is an issue for me (never left any of my kids longer than a few hours) but that's my issue so i don't expect the rules to be changed just for me and i wouldn't change the way i do things with my kids to accomodate a 1 day event. there's no way i would/could leave my 3month old exclusively breastfed baby with anyone either if my last two dc's are anything to go by. i can understand from a cost point of view but my 1 and 2 yr old will only eat bits off our plates and sit on our laps so hardly going to cost much. oh well.

Its the B&G who get to decide who they want to invite. No different to hosting any type of party and limiting the guest list.

Weddings are more about the actual day in most cases now rather than the actual ceremony and the marriage vows themselves.

Bet they sent out ridiculously expensive invites though naturalbaby?

Another wedding pet-hate of mine. "oh we would love to have the children, but we just can't afford it" but then have ice sculptures on every table. If you're going to do it, at least be honest about the reason why.

YABVVVVVU! it's not about you or your family, it's about them as a couple, they can invite who they want.

Fanella I didn't have children at our wedding because of financial constraints. I have already explained the numbers in another post. I can assure I did not have ice sculptures in the tables, or any other expensive decorations for that matter. The invitations were the second cheapest, we deliberately didn't have someone videoing it to save money, I only had one bridesmaid, and my dress did not cost 1000s, not even half that.

Our guest list started with parents and sibling and by the time we invited aunts and uncles on both sides we had reached our maximum numbers before inviting cousins, cousin's children and grandchildren.

Fanella you seem to have an issue with child free wedding= couples spending too much money on unnecessary things when they could have instead have had 65 second cousins children instead.

Why do you presume that those whose weddings are child free because of costs will have "ice sculptures" "ridiculously expensive invites" and that their wedding will be "big productions that won't last"?

Ps I've never seen an ice sculpture at a wedding, and I've been to a fair few weddings. I'm also a wedding blogger and have to say that I've never come across this phenomenon in my research either...

YANBU. I find it irritating because it is a sad indictment of our society and our priorities in getting married. Same as the stupid lengths people go to, the amount of debt they stack up, just on one day.

Marriage is about commitment, love and family. It isn't just about the fairytale dress, the fancy reception, and it certainly isn't about me me me.

Getting down from my soap box now.

Any body else notice a direct co relation between people who get miffed and huffy if their kids aren't invited everywhere, and parents who make their kids the centre of everything, let them interrupt and take over the conversation, expect all the guests to admire their kids, let them sit in the middle of the adults instead of telling them to go off and play with the other kids etc etc??

we went to a wedding with an ice sculpture - you could drink vodka out of it

OOOh blondes did they have children there then

nope - and it was a very good wedding lol

so was the vodka