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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Child-free wedding

296 replies

GingerbreadGingerbread · 29/08/2016 09:17

Posting on behalf of my best friend as she doesn't have an account I hope that's OK.

My best friend is getting married in March and she and her fiancé want a child free wedding. They don't have children themselves and not loads of close family with young children. The wedding is in the city where they live but they have some family travelling from further afield (Manchester, wedding in South East.) After this decision was made the bride's cousin announced his wife is pregnant and due to give birth in December so baby will be very young at the time of the wedding.

The couple plus brides aunt (cousin's mother) are putting pressure on bride and groom to allow the couple to bring their young baby. Other family members are getting i olives saying cousin and wine won't be able to attend without the baby. My friend and her fiancé are very stressed about this as they want the cousin and his wife to be present but they have already told others it's a child free wedding and it's going to be quite a formal affair and they personally want it to be just adults.

Who is being unreasonable?

OP posts:

JacquettaWoodville · 31/08/2016 16:17

"I love the messy haphazard come one and all weddings where usually its all pretty cheap as you just pay one flat cost for the venue and the food may be a home made affair."

I think I've been to one of these weddings out of 10-20 I've been to in my life. And that was in a pub on a weekday (school day) so
not many kids there either!

Most venues charge something meaningful for kids and of course there's the space issue

TurnipCake · 31/08/2016 16:19

I love the fact that in Spain and Italy people more often take kids to restaurants in the evenings and no one is annoyed and everyone seems more relaxed

I come from one of those cultures and children get taken to restaurants because they behave - and any misbehaviour - they'd get a ticking off from either their parents, staff or other people at the restaurant. Try that in the UK and you may avoid getting glasses for daring to expect someone's precious to behave in an adult space.

I did chortle at the idea of my wedding being a joyless petri dish will we be tying ourselves in knots if anyone with children can't make it? Probably not. The B&G's family in the OPs case probably want the B&G to do this, but ultimately it's their decision and they can plan their wedding as to what reflects them best as a couple.

TurnipCake · 31/08/2016 16:19

*glassed

FrancisCrawford · 31/08/2016 16:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Breadwidow · 31/08/2016 16:47

kids behaviour in places like weddings and restaurants is a bit of a self fulfilling cycle . . . . they learn through experience so kids that do it regularly will be quite good, if its unusual then they may play up (I know my kids behaviour in these situations has improved after being on holiday when we eat out more, after a few weeks back home it can be worse again) . . . there are also degrees with all of this - I would not tolerate my kids screaming or kicking etc at a wedding / in a restaurant but am also not going to expect them to sit really quietly, they are chatty kids so they will talk to each other / other guests (or actually if appropriate sit at all - went to my a cousins wedding in the summer which was outside and my son went off playing with some other kids while we ate, he wasn't bothering anyone and would have winged if forced to sit at the table).

I am not expecting people wanting child free weddings to tie themselves in knots / worry about offending those with kids who cannot or don't want to attend without their children . . . what I am expecting is for these people to respect that some people with children will be unable to go or won't want to go . . . it is their right to have a child free wedding but it is also their invitees right to decline an invite because its a right pain in the arse to attend without their kid(s). Its the nit picking over your reasons to decline that cause most of the bother. I recently attended a friends wedding on my own as kids weren't invited and my husband decided he didn't want to go enough to go through the effort of sorting childcare for a whole day and night (our DD is pretty young so its a big ask). I was a little put out at first but as my mum could not do it (who is my first childcare choice) I could understand and it was really nice that the bride didn't pick at this decision when I said I would be going alone, just said that she hoped I had a good time without DH. At the wedding itself I worried about getting questions about the absence of DH and was pleasantly surprised that no one really queried it despite other guests having similar age kids, after all, everyone situation is different (e.g. a friend left her daughter with her mother who happened to live very nearby so she was away from her for a much shorter time than we'd have been) . . . this really helped me relax and meant I was having a really good time until right at the end of the evening when one friend asked nosily 'didn't you look into family options' . . . . mega grr

Passwordfatigued · 31/08/2016 16:48

We had a child free wedding but allowed babes in arms and also kids of friends travelling from other countries as it seemed a fair compromise, it seemed unreasonable to ask people to leave their kids for a few days. Roll on a few years and kids and we are over the moon to get an invite to a kids free wedding ....wine, hangover and no kids to look after

Breadwidow · 31/08/2016 16:50

Francis Crawford: I'd love this! I was in bangkok with DS when he was little and it was bloody fab to have resturant staff pick him up and entertain him, meant I had some peaceful meals. What I notice in these cultures is that people talk to children like they are human beings, which can be both nice for them in terms of entertaining them and not so nice, in terms of telling them off when they do something wrong. Both are great IMO and it takes the pressure off the parents massively

Notmuchtosay1 · 31/08/2016 17:34

I'd say child free with the exception of small babies. Sorry if that's been said as I haven't read every comment.

JacquettaWoodville · 31/08/2016 18:57

Yeah, in 12 pages, that has come up, notmuch

If you don't already know, there's a good feature in Customise to highlight the OP's posts so these can be read more quickly.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 31/08/2016 19:07

Glad I'm not alone in noticing the different national attitudes to others "having words" with our children

It's sad to see the countless outraged MN threads along the lines of "I can't believe they said this to my child!!" but let's look on the bright side and remember we still have plenty of decent parents too

AppleSetsSail · 31/08/2016 19:08

So if you wish to embrace our wonderful European ways of welcoming children into restaurants, then please also accept that we will want to cuddle your baby and we will speak to your seven year old if they start running around and getting in the way of the wait staff.

True. Here you have neurotic, miserable mummy martyrs who can't accept that a child-free wedding. They negotiate exemptions only to ignore their toddlers/fret over their babies/'politely' declining any help because they've got it all under control.

MargaretCavendish · 31/08/2016 19:39

Turnipcake that is absolutely not my experience of Italy! Children are very much indulged. It's my least favourite thing about going out there - tons of children, badly behaved because they're still up at midnight. Maybe it's an Abruzzo thing...

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 31/08/2016 23:20

Margaret - I was an au pair in Italy for a while, so don't have a huge amount of experience, but mine was that yes children were allowed to run around later at night, but only up to a point - the minute they started annoying someone/getting in the way, they were chastised. I was also told roundly by an uncle to sort out one of the small boys who'd just smacked him on the head with a plastic sand spade - I hadn't wanted to do it because "not my child" but they expected me to.
I was later told by my boss that English and Austrian (iirc) nannies/au pairs were the best to have because they were the most strict (possibly not now! We're talking 20 years ago here) and would keep the children in order better.
So maybe a "thus far and no farther" attitude? I was in the South of Italy, don't know if it IS a regional thing.

TaterTots · 01/09/2016 12:44

I do wonder what people with no small children in their families are meant to do if child-free weddings are 'joyless'. Hire orphans and demand they create joy for all?

FrancisCrawford · 01/09/2016 15:44

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

IFinishedTheBiscuits · 03/09/2016 06:56

I had just such a couple who (perhaps unsurprisingly) ignored the child-free request and turned up with their three anyway. Worse still, they arrived late and noisily and allowed them to stampede across my train as I waited to walk up the aisle.

Oh my goodness... I don't think I would ever have forgiven them.

One of my sister's friends asked four times if an exception to family children only could be made for her child at my sister's wedding. And my sister stood her ground, partly because the child had been allowed to talk loudly all the way through another friend's wedding ceremony.

ForalltheSaints · 03/09/2016 08:12

It is their wedding and so whom they invite should ultimately be their choice. I would only think it unreasonable if they were excluding someone on the grounds of disability or race.

SandyY2K · 03/09/2016 08:35

Most superstitions aren't true, but people go along with them anyway. Like not walking under a ladder or not seeing the bride before the wedding in the day. Cultures vary, that's all I was saying.

I only had children of the family (nieces and nephews) at my wedding and I have DCs of my own.

Of course who you invite is down to the bride an groom, but if it's going to cause a family rift for ever more, is it really worth it? If the family aren't that important to you then it won't be a problem. If they are, then you might want to rethink the decision and find a way to make it work.

Finding someone to look after your toddler, for a whole day and night isn't possible for some people.

m0therofdragons · 03/09/2016 08:42

I had dh's 90 year old great aunt stomp across my train with muddy shoes. Actually the stopped in the middle of it and it wasn't even that big! You don't need dc to have badly behaved guests

Puzzledandpissedoff · 03/09/2016 15:41

I had dh's 90 year old great aunt stomp across my train with muddy shoes

Good grief - at least with me it was children who hadn't been taught any better, so perhaps weren't to know. Was the very elderly lady just inconsiderate, or were there perhaps some other issues going on?

Angelina7 · 08/09/2016 21:04

My friend had this same issue last month, the newborn wasn't allowed so the couple didn't attend either ...one of the groom's closest friends. I was expecting to bring my DD as invite didn't specify children not invited & I asked her outright 9 months in advance & she said it was up to me! She finally confronted me a few weeks before the wedding & I was sad but relieved to know one way or the otger, I prefer children at weddings I thinks it's part of the fun but I do wish they would specify either way on the invite from the outset & respect their decision it's their day! There were children actually but not many & they all seemed to be above the age of 7. She said she had paid a fortune to have ceremony filmed & didn't want babies ruining it which I think is more about responsible parents sitting in the appropriate place & swiftly exiting if need be. It's very controversial...

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