To think it isn't bad form to have a child free wedding?

[WanderingNotLost]

DP and I have started tentatively making wedding plans- we're paying for the whole thing ourselves and so will be on a pretty tight budget, and at present the guest list runs to 127 people (the biggest chunk of that being my massive Irish family). Believe it or not that is the essentials.

As a way of saving some money I suggested we make it a child-free wedding. DP thus far is not a fan of this idea, as a) he thinks it's bad form to say 'you can't bring your kids to our wedding' and b) if the people with kids can't bring their kids they just won't come.
I've pointed out that plenty of people have child-free weddings, quite often it's nice for the grown-ups to have a night off and let their hair down and get nicely sloshed and if we do have kids there, we run the risk of everyone who is there with kids leaving early to put said offspring to bed.

Looking for a consensus here- who is being U??

Last weekend I went to my sisters wedding with my daughter (1 year 8 months) as a single mother and I can honestly say after the experience I would never take a young child to a wedding again!I was a bridesmaid and she was a flower girl.it was the most stressful day I've had since she was born, I can say she thoroughly didn't enjoy all the formalities and I in turn missed her vows,some of the speeches, the cutting of the cake and the first dance.With that in mind I would welcome a child free wedding as I don't really feel like I was fully there at my sisters nuptials.

DH has six cousins who are married and all but one invited all of us. I understood why the other one didn't want the children there as they sent a letter explaining, but I can't deny I wasn't disappointed.

As a new mummy, I think child-free wedding is absolutely fine! I would make allowances for babies tho, women who breast feed find it hard to leave baby with a sitter... They'll end up having to express milk into the toilets during the reception for relief and worrying if they can express enough beforehand to keep their baby fed for a whole day.

I've even had to pay for my mum to sit in a nearby hotel with my babs so I could pop back and feed him every 3 hours... It's a nightmare!

Babies don't cost to feed or run around.

Something to think about!

I think it is totally up to you. People may not attend or leave early for all sorts of reasons. I invited children to my wedding but the venue allowed us to have stuff for them out of the way. So they joined for the ceremony and then we drinks canapés outside and they ran around after that they had their meal and a bouncy castle in a barn while we had our meal and we all joined up again for dancing. Not that it was strict if they wanted to stay with their parents they did. A few people left early but most didn't however we were fortunate that some kids kipped in the barn supervised by a former alcoholic aunt avoiding the booze.
By contrast we now have 2 kids ourselves we went to a wedding last year where we were all invited but we left them to stay over with my mum so we could catch up with old friends we hadn't seen in an age. Wouldn't have done this if they were older though.
You can't please all the people all the time so just do as you want. It's quite common no one will hold it against you

its your choice, no right or wrong here and I get both sides of the coin.

I wanted children at my wedding - all 36 of them, and made my day.

I have very limited baby sitting options - so for me would probably not be able to go. It's all very well having a child free wedding but by doing that it causes a major headache for parents that do not have a babysitter.

But saying all of this - its your day and one of the the times in life to do whatever you only want to do.

It's entirely your choice, please do whichever you choose.

Personally, I find child free weddings a bit sad, I think that a gang of smartly dressed kids dancing or playing around the venue is adorable (thought this even pre-kids) but that's me, you are completely allowed your own opinion on it all.

Also, consider something a bit more buffet like to save money - my sister got married on a budget recently, and the venue managed a buffet beef roast which was absolutely fantastic - much better than the at the table (generally cold) experiences I've had at other weddings

I loved having kids at my wedding, but I deliberately went for an informal feel with outdoor games and marquee. If you are concerned about the cost, it's the sit down meal which bumps up the price per guest. If you can hire the venue as a whole and the get independent catering in (or a hog roast), the price is usually better.

Congratulations on you upcoming wedding.

Also just to add if you do decide to have children there, to stop them 'ruining the special moments' as some have said, at our wedding we had about 10 children all under the age of 10 so I bought some cheap crayons, colouring books and stickers for them to have during the ceremony and the speeches. As a baby my nephew was the youngest so my bil sat with him towards the back of the ceremony room in case he got noisy so that he could take him out.

We had a child free wedding bar my husband's nephew and niece who were teenagers and husband said we couldn't exclude them. Everyone else (friends mainly) thought it was great - they had an excuse to go out without their kids for the day. Nobody seemed to have a problem with baby sitters - I think most of the kids were left with grandparents.

We had an almost child free wedding. We don't have children and the only children invited were those over 16 (not really children) and my two nieces who were our bridesmaids. Our guest list was at 210 without the addition of children.

All of our guests who have children still came. They were all completely happy to have a child-free night and nobody left early to get back for the baby sitter. Some even stayed at the hotel and had an overnight away from the kids.

Additionally, I have several friends who hardly ever take their children to weddings. They see them as a chance to have couple time and to really enjoy themselves with their friends.

This is your wedding day, you'll only get one. This is the one day you are both allowed to be completely selfish. Do it how you want and don't be made to feel bad by others. The only thing that matters is that you and your future DH agree and you both get the day you want.

It's your wedding to do as you please but like countless others have said, those breastfeeding won't come, those who can't get a babysitter won't come and those that do get a babysitter usually have to be back fairly early ( on the occasions I've been to weddings and managed a babysitter, we were on a curfew, once we included getting home etc. ) It really does depend on age of children etc. If it was a family member, who said no kids, if I'm honest I would be offended!

When I got married I had a lot of friends with children so me and dh decided to only allow family children and god children (8 in total) and we only had to pay for 1 or 2 meals as the rest were under 5yrs. And to the evening do it was no children after 8pm a part from my niece who was staying the night. None of our friends got funny (even friend with 31/2mth old who if she'd asked we would of let come) and they enjoyed a child free day. At the end if the day it's your wedding not theirs and if they get funny about it it's their loss!

hi, if money is tight, why not just get married with immediate family present, then a wedding lunch for the 10 of you or how ever many. Then have a big party at night with a buffet. A lot cheaper for everyone, they don't need church outfits and you don't need to feed everyone.

I'm invited (and attending) a wedding in September that is not child free but only certain children are invited - my 2 are not invited. This is a very close friend and I wouldn't miss it for the world. A family member is happy to babysit and I'm looking forward to letting my hair down. YANBU

I was once invited to a family barbecue, we were told in no uncertain terms that there would be no kids there, I said no kids no us! and we diddnt go.

Hmm, I'm not a fan of child free weddings (from the point of view of someone with kids) and if invited, we don't go. Normally it would involve finding childcare for at least a very long day, and possibly overnight. We've chosen not to do that kind of thing, and prefer to stick to things that can involve us all. That said I think it's personal choice and I'm not offended at all by people who decide on a child free wedding.

I think that as you are paying for the wedding yourselves it is entirely up to you whether you have children or not. Bad form doesn't come into it.

The difficulty in having a child free wedding is how are your family going to be able to find babysitters if all the family are invited? Not everyone has a sitter they use or family on their partners side that can (or they would let.. lol)

We had a child free wedding (apart from our 2 nieces) and happy we did. We had limited budget and limited venue capacity. If we'd invited all kids then we couldn't have invited all the friends we wanted there.

We had a proper 'party' and lots of silliness, outrageous dancing and letting hair down that I just don't think would have happened with kids there. We didn't have kids ourselves and wanted the type of party we enjoy.

Some people didn't come because of childcare issues, but all our closest friends were happy to have the excuse to call in babysitting favours or even hire a babysitter (one couple hired a carer from kids nursery to babysit and the idea caught on with other friends!).

We went to our first wedding with our DS (2 1//2) this weekend. It was really hard work. He talked through half the ceremony, wouldn't nap in the buggy, got a bit crazy with tiredness and too much cake, and constantly wanted our attention (as to be expected!) so chatting to other people was really difficult. We left early (10pm ish) and will definitely try and avoid taking him to any more weddings for a few years if we want to let our hair down and have fun!

I got invited to my cousins child free wedding last year and all my babysitters were at the wedding...I didn't want to leave dd with someone the full day and possibly night when she hadn't been before. It was ages away as well so not like I could get a taxi home...and I can't justify spending money on hotel rooms on top of everything else we have to pay for so I just left it and didn't go. They don't have anything to do with me now and left me out of a family party.

Personally hate them. Little people are people too and love a party and deserve to spend the day with their parents celebrating too.

I've been to a wedding where our children weren't invited on the hubby's family side but he has a large family and the venue could not accommodate the guests including every Tom, dick and Harry! It was very local and I am lucky enough to have family who can babysit so we were OK with this, my kids aren't high maintenance either - can't imagine being called away because they won't go to bed for whoever is looking after them!
Personally I am totally over going to weddings now unless a very close friend or family member and we've turned down three weddings because we just can't be arsed to
go! Sorry! But when they are local and the same venue every bleeding time and the expense etc it's nice to turn them down!

I don't think either of you are being "unreasonable". Your wedding, your choice, so you just need to negotiate with your OH!

As a guest I find child-free weddings very inconvenient as for various reasons it's not been possible to leave my toddler overnight, so it's meant paying for a family member to come and stay in the same hotel as us to babysit. If the "child-free" status hasn't been made clear well in advance then we have sometimes had to pull out of attending weddings that we have been really looking forward to. If the adults are people you want to attend, do try to give them as much notice as possible so they can make suitable arrangements.

Personally I do find it a shame that so many weddings exclude children as they were hotly anticipated events when I was a child and we were always on our very best behaviour. As a parent I hope my friends and family can trust me to keep an eye on my child's behaviour and ensure that vows, speeches etc aren't interrupted by tantrums etc. And to be honest there is a part of me that resents being asked to come and celebrate the start of someone else's family by leaving mine at home - though I do appreciate that some venues make things very difficult for children to be included and number can and do add up quickly.

Whatever you do, don't be tempted to write anything about letting your guests enjoy a night off. I find that incredibly patronising, especially when having to leave my child at home causes me more stress than having them there.

As far as leaving early goes, I've always managed to stay until the end or thereabouts when my child's been with us. If anything we've been more likely to leave early when she's been left with a babysitter.

So if there are 16 children in total, say each with 2 parents, that makes 32 adults.
You have invited 127 adults, so if 32 go off to bed early you will still have a large crowd of 95 adults to party the night away with won't you?
So, worrying about your wedding party being empty because everyone going to bed early because of children isn't really an excuse for not inviting children along.

pink no offence but there is a huge whiff of 'the world should revolve around the fact i chose to have children' about it.

Why should children 'deserve' to be celebrating with their parents too? Should they be at drinks for a colleagues promotion? A school friends 40th birthday?