To think we should rename child free weddings..

[purplesprings]

.. to take some of the angst out of invitations? I propose:

Marriage Party = adult only celebration of a couple's marriage. [only exceptions being dc of immediate family]

Wedding = celebration of two families coming together to form new family.

For the B&G there would be a clear definition of their wishes and no need to explain further. Guests would then know what the rules are and can decide whether to attend and in the case of a wedding whether or not to take their docs.

The problem isn't what the wedding is called. The problem is people who don't understand how to address a invite correctly, and people who don't understand that the names of all the intended attendees are on the invite.

It's that simple. Sending wedding invites? Look how up to write them properly. Responding, learn if your name isn't down you aren't coming in.

Simples.

I'm sure I was hated. When I married ex-DH I wanted a specific venue and couldn't have all of his extended family there (cousins and their children) it was just too many it would have been 20% children and no, I didn't want that. So we had two children. My step son and my Maid of Honours son because she travelled with her family from abroad. All the cousins still came... they were happy to!

Ooooo I loved a good child free wedding when mine were small and we couldn't attend (in another country). Because when that union has a child and they can't attend something...I have nice smile.

I'm not sure that 'childfree weddings' are necessarily a very modern invention. Thinking back to my childhood in the 80s, the first wedding my brother and I were invited to was when we were 13/14-ish. Before that, it was just assumed that if family kids weren't bridesmaid/pageboy, they needn't go - in fact, when my cousin got married and we weren't invited, I can remember my mum reassuring us that we'd be bored keeping quiet for that long, having to make polite conversation with adults, and so on, and that we were getting a much better deal, staying over at a family friend's for the night!

Definitely no bouncy castles or kids' entertainers or even special kids meals at weddings in my family back then...

We invited all our friends' kids to our wedding and would have been genuinely happy for them to come. Hardly any of them brought them because they wanted to let their hair down. I'm glad we gave them the option but now I have a child of my own I can see why it was less hassle for them to all be child free for the day.

Well, I've been to around 40 weddings over the years, none of them have been like that. Must just be luck I guess.

Yeah, that wasn't my wedding. Everyone had a fantastic night. Great music, entertainment, casino... Yeah, a good party for adults. How incredibly strange....

Hanging around watching people you vaguely know talk about themselves at length, before making stilted conversation with strangers and then dancing to terrible music in a hotel off the M40 - yeah, not really much of a night out, is it?

You normally know if a wedding is going to be like that before you even go, so I normally make up an excuse (between the kids and the farm I can always come up with something).
The vast majority of weddings I have been to however, are more like a bunch of good friends in a nice hotel or a friends field, eating a cracking meal, getting terribly drunk and dancing away into the small hours before various couples start to disappear off to their rooms to either pass out in an alcoholic haze or have wonderful drunk sex (either is best enjoyed without children present).

I only ever took my kids to one wedding - my BILS as my son was a ring bearer and my daughter a flower girl. I still got my parents to take them home at about 10pm when they became cranky and we stayed on!

I had a child free WEDDING. It was not a marriage party or any other ridiculous name. It was a WEDDING to celebrate our marriage.

"Weddings have traditionally been big family get togethers which it seems that we are moving away from."

It depends on your starting point. Because just popping in to your local church and perhaps having a small party for family/neighbours was the norm for centuries. 'Big' get togethers are a pretty recent phenomenon (probably post-WW2).

I don't care who you invite, just make it clear. The only invite that has annoyed me has stated that to ensure I had a good day, they had made the who wedding kid free. No, I get to decide that. You get to decide if I can consider bringing them or not. I get to decide if (and maybe where) we spend that day together.

The idea that the invite is only for the people actually named on the invite isn't universal.

Where I live, it was far more common as I grew up that invites were addressed to the couple but kids were assumed to be invited, both by the invitees and the B&G.

So no, I'd still have to check if my DCs weren't named (not that I'm bothered either way).

They were keeping the wedding free of everyone else's kids too, addicted, not just yours. You might be reluctant to spend the day apart from your kids; you mightn't have been quite so tolerant of other people's kids "enhancing" the bride and groom's day.

addicted - I do agree. I don't mind child free weddings at all (though I may not be able to attend). I do find it irksome when the invite implies that they've made it child free as some kind of massive treat to the parents they have invited. For some people it's that, for others it is a big hassle which the accommodate because they love the bride and/or groom and want them to have the day of their choosing. It's not universally doing people a favour by excluding their kids.

Agreed Auntie Stella. My grandparents got married in their local church with just a few people there, and then went back to a relatives house for tea and sandwiches. My parents got married in a registry office with some friends, then they went to the pub afterwards.

Ordinary people in the past couldn't afford big weddings. The big family get together weddings are recent inventions. So 30 years ago my brother had one of those kind of weddings.

That's fine, molly but it is not their place to tell me, as a treat to me, its kid free. It's what they want, which is fine. But telling me its for my benefit??? I think Libraries has phrased it better.

On what other occasion would you presume that anyone other than those named are invited? A job interview? A dinner invitation? A plane trip with only one name on the ticket?
It is understood that only those named are invited. It is an accepted convention.
If some chose to do something out with the norm and cause confusion then that is entirely different. Why would anyone NOT state who they are inviting? To do anything else is obtuse and unhelpful.

Child free weddings are a relatively recent trend Not so. My parents didn't invite children to their wedding in 1973 nor did my grandparents married in the late 1940s. In neither case was it considered unusual.

I'm 41 and didn't go to a wedding until my own (I was 24). I had several aunts and uncles who got married when I was between 7 and 15, no kids were there and I come from a large enough extended Irish family. I didn't have any kids at my wedding and there was no ambiguity about it at all. My kids have been to one wedding (my sisters) , I've been to loads without them mainly because they weren't invited but tbh I'd rather not take them any way.

I didn't go to my first wedding till I was 17. Admittedly no one in my family got married in those 17 years, but my parents went to friends weddings without us, perhaps child free was more normal in those days because fewer people got married after having had children.

I have read lots of these recently, although I may just notice them more as it is an issue at the moment. We have just made a guest list, 70 adults during the day, all people we want there and nobody I would want to 'bump off the list'. If we add children, that is an extra 38. We are in agreement now on our children (obviously), my 3 nieces and my great-nephew, no other children other than babes in arms.

I always go by who is on the invitation, why wouldn't you? :/ Although recently we had an invitation for just us which it turns out the children are invited to which we only realised after we said we would confirm once we had childcare in place. Another wedding we are going to in a few weeks included menu choices so it was pretty obvious the children were not expected to be there. Think we will do that too so there is no doubt, I cannot word anything on the invitations without sounding rude :/

My DH and I had a child-free wedding. We just put on the invitation 'owing to the venue's capacity limitations, we regret that with the exception of the children in the wedding party (which was just my 3 nieces and nephew and one of our usher'd DD) the wedding will be an adults-only occasion. We do hope this will not cause too much inconvenience.'
It had balls all to do with capacity limitations, we just didnt want kids there!