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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

388 replies

WanderingNotLost · 02/07/2016 00:51

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??

OP posts:
converseandjeans · 02/07/2016 01:57

We invited kids to our wedding and nobody brought their kids - but they had the choice. A lot of people had just had kids at that point so we also planned it so that the ceremony was at 3pm and food about 7ish - so if they needed babysitters it didn't need to be for the whole day. We also had lots of people travelling down & a 3pm start gave them time to do this. People with young children/babies don't find it easy always to find a babysitter for a whole long day, so for that reason we had afternoon through to evening. So depends on how important the needs of the guests are vs your own needs. I think we were fairly considerate and ended up with everyone partying til the end of the night.

nudeynuderson · 02/07/2016 02:04

A tricky one, id invite them, perhaps older generation could take them home, also you might want a few people to leave by that time. More room to have a good old party.

Original poster
WanderingNotLost · 02/07/2016 02:04

We're thinking fairly late in the day, wedding at say 4 pm ish or maybe later, definitely not an all-dayer.

I promise I'm not a bridezilla in the making and I'm certainly not going to stamp my feet and scream til I get my way! I really want to get this right for everyone, not just me, hence getting a few extra options

OP posts:
Original poster
WanderingNotLost · 02/07/2016 02:10

^opinions. Not options

OP posts:
DeathStare · 02/07/2016 05:11

I don't think you are being unreasonable to have a child free wedding if that's what both of you want.

I do think you are being unreasonable to try to impose one on your DP if that's not what he wants.

In terms of there being a mass exodus if you invite children - I doubt this is likely. My children have been to weddings and I've never left early and I've been to other weddings with children at and the littlies have often been the last people on the dance floor at the end of the night. To be honest the early leavers I have seen tend to be older people rather than those with DC.

Also several people may not be able to come if you don't invite children - not out of principal but out of practicalities. Many people don't have a babysitter they can ask at all (I didn't when my DC were very little) and even more people don't have a babysitter they can ask for THAT length of time - if your wedding is at 4pm they might need a babysitter from 2pm until 1am, which is very different to finding a babysitter for a quick evening out. It's also a different type of babysitter you need for this sort of time period. An evening babysitter usually just gets to sit and watch TV while the children sleep. A babysitter over this sort of time period has to entertain the children, feed them, and do the bedtime routine. A babysitter who is happy to do all that is even harder to get hold of.

Even if they can find a babysitter that's likely to be very expensive for them (a recent post on here showed many people were paying over £10 per hour).

You also might find that there is more of a mass exodus if you don't invite the children, as some people will need to leave early as their babysitter won't be able to stay that long.

puglife15 · 02/07/2016 05:23

YANBU IMO.

We had an (almost) child free wedding but hardly any friends of ours had kids at the time. The only other children were our cousin's children who don't even know our names, one of my cousins turned down the invite. We were at full capacity for our venue and If I'd have invited them I would have had to strike 14 friends off the list... we only invited people we were very close to and 7 years later are still very close friends to all but 5 invited (due to relationship breakups etc), whereas I don't think I've seen or spoken to my cousins at all in that time let alone their children.

I guess if you are close to your cousin's it might make a difference?

Now I have children of my own I'm completely fine with people having child free weddings too.

harrowgreen · 02/07/2016 06:15

Having a childfree wedding is great in principle: a night without the kids! No screaming babies! - but for the parents it's just an an arse, to be honest. We have three children so we have to find someone to have them for30+ hrs, sort out everything they need (for classes etc), miss out on time with them (unless a wedding is local it takes up most of your weekend) and normally not even be able to really enjoy the day because we know we have to be up early the next morning to get back and relieve the babysitter/granny.

I like my children. I like spending time with them. I like partying with them! We come as a package. Weddings are about creating families which include children.

We've been to three childfree weddings this year alone and I will decline any more we get invited to I'm afraid.

Obviously it's your big day so your choice but I think a lot of people with children find then quite annoying and, dare I say it, a bit rude.

harrowgreen · 02/07/2016 06:17

And ps my children are always the last ones to leave the dance floor!

LynetteScavo · 02/07/2016 06:22

We were invited to a child free wedding.

We wouldn't have taken our 4yo, because he wouldn't have enjoyed it anyway, and he would have lived a weekend with granny. We couldn't have left DS2 because he was too young to leave. I told DH to go on his own but he wouldn't, so we just didn't go.

At another child free wedding we had to leave straight after the meal because the baby sitter wasn't coping well. If we'd had DC with us, they would have stayed up reasonably late.

LynetteScavo · 02/07/2016 06:24

The difficulty with baby sitters us finding someone to put the to bed. I can find sitters for the day, or sitters for once they're in bed but finding someone to do bed times is difficult.

Believeitornot · 02/07/2016 06:28

Are these children part of your or your partners family?
If so then I'm sorry but it is sad to exclude them because of their age?
I really don't like child few weddings - I just don't like the message it sends. We got married and children were there. I've enjoyed weddings with children there.

Believeitornot · 02/07/2016 06:29

child free* not few

ENormaSnob · 02/07/2016 06:43

If going childfree then don't dress it up as doing the parents a favour. You aren't.

And did you mean no babes in arms welcome?

Lighteningirll · 02/07/2016 06:47

I think childfree is fine but babes in arms are not included in childfree, babies go with their mums other than that yadnbu.

Oysterbabe · 02/07/2016 06:51

Ours wasn't child free, more child discouraged. We didn't put kids on the invites and just told those with kids informally that if they couldn't get childcare to bring the kids as it was important to us that they came, just let us know. We had a couple of babies attend but all the other kids had babysitters and their parents happy to have a night off.

waterrat · 02/07/2016 06:52

We are having no kids at our wedding it's completely normal. It would have been 23 children at ours mainly under 5 and I felt thst would have been a different dynamic.

It's standard and you shouldn't worry about it. I made an exception for people travelling long distances and even those people have chosen not to bring theirs anyway.

It's a big party with booze...why should children have to come? I've been to weddings with my own children and it's extremely tedious trying to get them to calm down and go to sleep after dinner. Older children not such a problem as I presume they would stay up .

SlimCheesy2 · 02/07/2016 06:57

I think it is definitely up to you to have child-free or not. But can i make a plea. Please make sure the two of you decide and that you stick to it. We had a family child-fre wedding earlier this year. It was DH's family and there was no way we could get a sitter for overnight. (Wedding 7 hour drive from us). So DH went and I stayed at home. All fine, but it turns out that what 'child-free' meant was no children on the groom's side, but loads of children- between about 2 years old and 9 years old- on the bride's side. It has created quite alot of bad feeling. There may have been a communication problem between bride and groom, but it has basically made alot of the groom's side feel a bit sour.

So make a decision and stick to it. If you go child-free you may find someone thinking their child is an obvious exception, but you must be firm.

zad716 · 02/07/2016 07:02

16 is just the children. Sixteen plus two parents is closer to 50. Only if its one child per couple which would seem unlikely.

For us if we couldn't find overnight baby sitters then we would leave early anyway. Where if we were allowed to bring DS (6) and he was enjoying himself we definitely wouldn't leave early (not on a Saturday night anyway).

peppersaunt · 02/07/2016 07:02

Having recently been to two weddings where someone's "adorable" toddler loudly accompanied the bride down the aisle, we had a "no children under 12" wedding. It meant we could include all of the friends we wanted there. It's your (collective) choice!

Silvercatowner · 02/07/2016 07:05

Weddings should be family celebrations not some sort of staged showy occasion. I just don't get child free weddings and consider it very sad that youngsters do not 'fit' the required profile of the invited guest.

Pearlman · 02/07/2016 07:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

onecurrantbun1 · 02/07/2016 07:09

I can only talk from my own experience but if our kids were invited we'd leave around 9.30pm (kids are 4, 2 and 4 months). If it was child free we would only be able to attend if it was local - within a hour's drive. If the baby wasn't included I would not (be able to) attend at all. If it was a family child free wedding we would not attend at all as our only babysitters are my parents who'd presumably be at the wedding!

It's up to you and your partner. Don't dress it up as doing the parents a favour - childfree would be a massive ball ache for us! Because our kids have been included fully in everything we do since being newborns, they know how to behave at such occasions. And frankly, if DH and I are getting the much-lauded "night off", we'd spend it eating food we chose and drinking non-extortionate wine, not at some one else's wedding.

NattyTile · 02/07/2016 07:12

I'd be leaving earlier if I'd had to leave the children with a sitter than I would be if I'd got them with me and they could doze in a buggy.

hilbil21 · 02/07/2016 07:14

We are getting married in November and not having any kids there. Literally all of the people we have invited are over the moon about this - they're glad of an excuse of a child free night !

What I did do was sound them all out before deciding on it being child free. If it had been a problem for more than a couple of them I would have invited children. Could you text/email the people concerned and see how the land lies?

FoxesSitOnBoxes · 02/07/2016 07:14

Totally fine not to invite children but really really do not dress this up in a "hey parents, we are not inviting kids so you can have loads of fun without them" way.
Also, don't take it as any sort of personal slight if parents either can't come or still have to leave early to put children to bed.

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