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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not understand the child free wedding scenario?

321 replies

witherhills · 11/10/2011 23:55

why are children so bad? God forbid they should make a bit of noise
Wouldn't have dreamt of not inviting dc to mine, wouldn't even have entered my head

Been to a few weddings where we have left DS at home, but that's our choice and fortunate to have very keen babysitting mother

OP posts:
CowboysGal · 12/10/2011 03:37

exactly notjustme I'd have loved children at our wedding,however as the children almost outnumbered the adults it would've doubled our cost. We had 60 guests and most of our family/friends have at least 2 children. In one family there were 6 little ones! Purely for cost we had no children apart from our own for the ceremony and meal. Anybody who wanted to bring their children along to the 'party' did (not many I might add, they'd developed a taste for the wine & freedom by then).
What prompted the question witherhills

ZonkedOut · 12/10/2011 04:01

I had children at my wedding and really enjoyed them being there. Some ran about and did things that some people would consider disruptive, but we wanted them to be children and have fun too. Quite a few guests commented that it was lovely having them there and letting them run around and be children.

Some of my friends didn't bring their children anyway, they said they were grateful that they were invited but wanted a day without them for a change. Which was fine too. A couple said that they had had to decline invitations to childfree weddings in the past because they couldn't get someone to look after them.

I understand that some people don't want children at their wedding for many reasons, and would respect that if I was invited to one now I have my own. But I loved having them at mine.

saffronwblue · 12/10/2011 04:55

Weddings do tend to go for hours and involve lots of wearing uncomfortable clothes, drinking, listening to speeches, waiting around , photo taking, sitting and eating a meal of several courses. None of this plays to children's strengths!
At my wedding we had 3 DNs and two newborns. If we had had all the children of the guests there would have been another 30 DC there which would have really changed the dynamic. I never complain if invited to a wedding without my DCs. I either can go or can't go, depending on the circumstances.
I went to a wedding where all children were encouraged to attend. By 9 o'clock at night they had formed into a sort of wild pack screeching and running manically around the reception hall, pursued by grim faced parents who couldn't leave yet because the speeches had not started. No one had a good time.

lesley33 · 12/10/2011 06:17

I think there have been a number of changes to weddings that have driven this change.

  1. More couples paying for the wedding themselves. This means there is now a greater emphasis on it being the couples day and the wedding being what they want. I honestly don't remember 20 years ago such an emphasis on "its our specila day to do what we want".
  1. The cost of weddings has went up with a much higher cost per guest than there used to be. This means I think people are more reluctant to include people/kids they don't want to come.
  1. More kids in the past were used to church services and I think thus were more likely to behave.
MothInMyKecks · 12/10/2011 06:20

why are children so bad? God forbid they should make a bit of noise

Been to a few weddings where we have left DS at home, but that's our choice

Same paragraph. Think you've summed it up, really. It's their choice.

MrsFruitcake · 12/10/2011 06:22

Each bride and groom should be able to choose who they invite to their wedding without fear of reprisal.

OP herself has said that she chose to leave her DC at home when she went to a wedding recently - I'd leave mine at home with my parents in a hearbeat. Last wedding we went to was full of misbehaving children, mine included, and was right next a river which was a fucking nightmare for all concerned, especially those with a toddler, like me. No rest, no fun, no nothing.

So YABU.

TheBride · 12/10/2011 06:30

SlinkingOutsideInSocks has summed it up for me.

Thzumbiewitch · 12/10/2011 06:35

OP YABU to "not understand" - it's some peoples' choice. Might not be yours, but no one died and made you God-of-what-should-happen-at-weddings, did they?
So open up your mind to the possibility that other people have different preferences to you.

And what Slinkingoutsideinsocks said, ever so well.

ChrissasMissis · 12/10/2011 06:39

Because our venue only takes forty and it would mean trying to trim nine close family members from an already short list of guests. That, frankly, is a can of worms I do NOT want to open...

GuillotinedMaryLacey · 12/10/2011 06:42

God you lot must know some frightful children. I've never seen a child disrupt a wedding and I've been to loads. Depends how you view the day I guess. I come from a very large (Irish) family and children are welcomed and very much part of it. It's a family occasion and the children are as much part of the family as the aunts and uncles.

I had a fair few children at my wedding, never occurred to me to exclude them. Which is just as well because it would have meant their parents not coming either and I wanted people there.

But hey, your choice. Don't really care what others do. Weddings of people other than family are exceedingly dull and best over quickly anyway.

sunnydelight · 12/10/2011 06:49

I also come from an Irish family, but in our case weddings tended to be child free and I never remember anyone moaning that their kids were invited because moaning about an invitation is bloody rude. It was more of a case of - fantastic, party time! You really can't generalise.

Bucharest · 12/10/2011 06:56

The scenario is simple.
Your wedding. Your choice.

MrsRobertDuvall · 12/10/2011 07:03

No children at our wedding but then we only had 11 guests.
Frankly I would have liked a MIL free one too Wink

But then I don't actually like weddings, and in all my 52 years have only been to about 6' including my own. Interestingly, none of them had children (apart from me when I was 5 at my sister's wedding)
and that was back in the mid sixties.

Tallypet · 12/10/2011 07:05

I just got married and decided on a 'No Kids' scenario... I know a couple of badly behaved kids but that wasn't the reason. Our wedding, our day, our cost. Our budget just wouldn't have allowed to cater for all the adults and ALL the offspring. My DS came along (10 months old) and was crying the whole way through the service, (teething) and his babysitter came to collect him straight after the service was done.
Why do certain guests feel put out that their DC's are not invited to someone else's big day that they have paid a (probable) fortune for?

Bubbaluv · 12/10/2011 07:05

Before I had children I found children really rather annoying and would certainly not want them at any party I was throwing let alone my wedding.
Sticky finger, whinging and whining, crying, fighting, getting sticky fingers on everything - in fact I still find them annoying!
I love my kids, but I love a good child-free wedding where everyone gets to be themselves rather than a chaperone.

Bubbaluv · 12/10/2011 07:07

Would you understand if you were invited to someone's 30th Birthday party, for example, and your children were not? Once you have children do you expect them to be invited to everything or do you just have a specific idea about how weddings should be?

CaveMum · 12/10/2011 07:24

We had a no under 14s rule at our wedding. I've nothing against children, but I had never met the 10 sons and daughters of my various cousins and was therefore not prepared to pay what worked out to be about £40 pet head for them to attend!

And I have been to plenty of weddings where a small person has screamed/shouted during the wedding service and the parents have failed to show some manners and remove them from the room.

popadop · 12/10/2011 07:25

I got married 22 years ago and weddings then were all about family and fun.

Weddings today are different [I am a wedding photographer] they are about pomp and the most expensive cake and beautiful expensive [lucky for me] photographs to show off. A child with chocolate down her front would spoil the look.

LoveInAColdClimate · 12/10/2011 07:28

Lots of budgets won't stretch to children. It must have cost us the best part of a grand to invite all the children we did, as a meal of them wasn't much cheaper at all than an adult meal (reasonably, as they had a slightly smaller version of the adult meal).

Some children are appallingly behaved and permitted to be so. I went to a wedding recently where three children (I would estimate aged between 5 and 8) essentially ruined the ceremony and speeches by running up and down the aisle screaming for the former and doing the same between the tables for the speeches. The guests could hardly hear anything of the vows or speeches and it was awful for the people actually doing the speeches. The parents did nothing. I would imagine the bride and groom regretted inviting them.

That aside, I enjoy both child filled and child free weddings.

LoveInAColdClimate · 12/10/2011 07:30

"meal for them", not "of them". We did not eat children, no matter how badly behaved.

GuillotinedMaryLacey · 12/10/2011 07:30

If you've never met the children then I can understand not inviting them. It's excluding people you know well just because they happen to be under 18 that I have difficulty with. But, like I said, up to the people in question. I kind of agree with popadop though.

GuillotinedMaryLacey · 12/10/2011 07:31

That' not to say I wouldn't have gladly left DD with the nearest old lady in a gingerbread cottage a couple of times though.... Wink

QuietNinjaZombie · 12/10/2011 07:36

I had 15 children at my wedding from a baby up to ten years old. They've given me some lovely memories. My son poking his head through my dh legs to say hiya to the crowd as we said our vows, a friends little girl calling me a princess. Wouldn't have done it without them.
My cousin who is getting married next year has said no dc and he has a litle girl of his own. I'm assuming this is because of money rather than thinking they'll spoil his wedding. We'll have just as much fun. Each to their own I say.

lesley33 · 12/10/2011 07:36

I do think parents used to be more willing to take DC outside if they were misbehaving. And some parents are more precious. I can't imagine 20 years ago DCs screaming and running around during the ceremony and either the parents not taking them outside, or others not telling the parents to take their DCs outside.

I went to weddings 20 years ago and don't remember DCs interrupting them - although I do remember parents taking their DCs/babies outside if theyw ere crying, etc.

lesley33 · 12/10/2011 07:38

I don't really understand this emphasis by some brides today on I am a princess and this is my special day.

Brides have always wanted to look good on their wedding. But a marriage is about a bride and groom making a commitment, not a "princess" day.

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