Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Child-free weddings

128 replies

Googlebabe · 14/10/2016 16:35

Are there any ladies here who had a child-free wedding but now moan when their kids are not invited to one?

It will be extremely interesting statistics.

OP posts:
ChocolateWombat · 15/10/2016 19:00

Babes in arms are a different matter aren't they. They really can't be left and I think most people will accommodate them, although it's polite to ask. They aren't mobile and so won't be tearing around shrieking.....and somehow people with newborns do seem willing to take them out of the service or speeches if they get very noisy. It is very different.
Trouble is when people decide their 18 month old is the same as a newborn so should come because they just can't be left. An 18 month old who is mobile and vocal is very very different.

altik · 15/10/2016 19:29

However, you don't seem to get the same opinions when it comes to taking toddlers on long haul flights.

Actually, we didn't have a foreign holiday for almost a decade because I hate screaming children on a flight and didn't want to inflict that on others.

MyGiddyUncle · 15/10/2016 19:31

We're having a child free wedding next year (been together 20 years) and there'll only be about 8 kids there including our own

I really don't understand how that could be considered child free!

Kittykatmacbill · 15/10/2016 21:03

Had a childfree wedding.

Have subsiquently had a fairly miserable time at family weddings with dd1 at 3m and at 18m. I have absolutely no intention of taking either dd to any wedding ever again. Childfree weddings rock.

thewavesofthesea · 15/10/2016 21:31

We had children at ours, though we were the first of our friends and family of our 'generation' to get married so there were very few kids. Never even crossed our minds not to have them. We have been invited to both child free and

thewavesofthesea · 15/10/2016 21:32

Whoops!! Posted too soon. We have been invited to both child free and wedding with kids; we quite like the child free ones as it is a lovely excuse to go away and leave the kids with the grandparents! Clearly we are lucky to have people who will have them for us though.

BowieFan · 15/10/2016 21:51

MyGiddyUncle

Because 2 of them are our kids, 2 are our nephews (in the groom party), 2 nieces (bridesmaids), DP's goddaughter who he is very very close to and a cousin of mine who is more like a daughter to me.

They're all over 14 anyway so not really children.

We're planning on it being CF on the night as well.

bananafish81 · 15/10/2016 21:57

Those who didn't have child free weddings

We had 100 guests and a max capacity of 100

If everyone with children had brought their kids along that would have meant at LEAST 40 extra places to be accommodated

Which would have meant we'd have been unable to invite a lot of dear friends

(and in London the cost of a venue accommodating 150 people would have been exorbitant)

How do people without child free weddings manage it? Do you have very small guest lists and large venues?

Bedsheets4knickers · 15/10/2016 21:58

I wouldn't want to take my kids to a wedding .

NicknameUsed · 16/10/2016 08:36

bananafish
Small wedding. Small families, but scattered so babysitters not available. Just a handful of friends invited. Easy.
We had about 40 guests.

In our families weddings are family affairs rather than huge bashes with hundreds of friends. Besides we only had a small circle of friends anyway.

Aquasport · 16/10/2016 08:37

I think the long haul thing is a pretty unfair comparison. As someone with close family on the other side of the world and who has travelled with toddlers I would have loved to have taken them outside the air craft or anywhere frankly. Not a pleasant experience for anyone and in our case we were rushing to a seriously ill relative, I have never been so stressed.

NicknameUsed · 16/10/2016 09:16

OK. I will change that to long haul flights for holidays rather than visiting relatives.

abeandhalo · 16/10/2016 09:22

I have to say I find the whole concept of child free weddings bonkers. So many people do it, it obviously isn't bonkers, but for me personally if somebody was so important enough to me that I wanted them at my wedding, I also had a pretty close relationship with their kids? I just can't imagine not wanting the entire family to be there celebrating with me?

But like I said, obviously it works for some people. But it would've been v weird for our wedding!

RubbishG3nericUsername · 16/10/2016 09:31

We had children at our wedding, pre DD. I Love a good wedding with just DH! We haven't taken DD to any weddings yet, although she's been invited most. We currently have the oppisite problem, friends are having a wedding next summer, and have insisted that they would like our DD there, DH and I much prefer to go on our own, so that we an have a lovely day/night off from baby duties and let our hair down! Oh well Wink

bananafish81 · 16/10/2016 09:43

If I'd had a child free wedding, then to invite all the people whose weddings we had been invited to, we'd have had to then NOT invite (m)any of our unmarried friends

So we'd have to ditch some of our best friends, who happened not to be married or have kids, to accommodate the kids of those friends who'd invited us to theirs.

Or we'd have had to not invite the friends with kids whose weddings WE had been invited to (which would have been pretty rude, esp if they knew our mutual childless mates had been invited while they hadn't)

Or it would have been family only with no mates at all. Again, not desirable

I've never been to a non child free wedding because of the reasons above. How on earth do you accommodate friends and family AND all the kids in tow?

MargaretCavendish · 16/10/2016 10:46

bananafish it just depends on your guests, really. We got married in our late twenties - exactly two of our friends had babies/toddlers, so we had a baby and a three year old and that was that. My husband's cousin asked to bring his son, and we said he absolutely could but that with no other children to play with it might be a very boring night for him. He decided not to bring him, and that was the only family child on either side. So we had eighty guests and two children.

So it just wasn't an issue for us. If we were getting married now, though (a few years later) there would be a lot more children, though still nothing like your numbers!

BoredBaker · 16/10/2016 10:57

I had a child free wedding - 28 years ago, and still don't regret it! Yes I have had invitations since that included children and some that didn't - either way I was okay with it as the wedding day should be about the couple getting married and what they want. Kids can take over a wedding and distract attention - and let's face it, it's nice to have time away from your own (and others) children for a bit...Smile

Tiptoethr0ughthetulips · 16/10/2016 11:15

My nephew was a page boy at our wedding he was 4 at the time, no other children were invited ( including babes in arms) and nephew was collected my his other grandparents at the end of afternoon.

Nobody complained and I was very happy with the arrangement, I do prefer child free weddings. However when I had my own DS he was a bottle refuser it would have been almost impossible for me to leave him and I would have had to refuse an invite.

ChocolateWombat · 16/10/2016 13:26

I wonder if those who go to weddings with loads of kids in attendance are the type where there is a buffet rather than a sit down meal? Are they the type where there is a very short civil ceremony and the type where people don't tend to make long speeches?
In those types, there is more wandering about and less sitting still for long periods, for adults or children. Even in those, there are periods when sitting still and quietly is needed for short periods......if there are loads of small kids there, it's hard to see how you would achieve the quiet and calm for the vows, or the speeches.....but perhaps some people don't expect or want quiet and calm for their vows and speeches even.

SpecialStains · 16/10/2016 13:31

No, we had all our friends and family and their children at our wedding.

I tend to think that the organisers of child free weddings are a bit Hmm. Thought this pre-DC too. We've only had one child free invite, which I guess reflects the fact that most of our friends and family are child friendly people.

I love seeing all my friends and their children!

Eevee77 · 16/10/2016 13:40

I had very few kids at my wedding. Kids get bored at weddings, or they get tired, and even the best behaved kids get cranky when they're tired. I went to a child free wedding last night and it was wonderful. I left a very happy DS with his grandparents. Happy all round.

bananafish81 · 16/10/2016 14:42

Special stains - I also love seeing my friends and their kids. But see my earlier question. We'd have needed either a venue significantly larger just to accommodate kids if everyone with children decided to bring theirs. Or we would have had to not invite dear friends in order to accommodate kids

It's not that we don't like kids. It's that a wedding venue for 150 people seated is very different to a wedding venue with 100 people seated in London!!

SpecialStains · 16/10/2016 14:57

I see your point banana fish. We aren't London based and as friends were traveling from far and wide, we couldn't exclude their families (particularly as we were the last, particularly of DHs friends to reproduce). If it really is a numbers issue and your friends are local, it's a non issue. If it's a control thing where you can't bare the thought of a child making noise in the ceremony (a baby made squeaking noises through ours) it's a different kettle of fish entirely. I wouldn't say anything to anyone with a child free wedding of course and if dc was a bit older I'd leave him and go! (I love weddings! It's been a bit slow on the wedding invites this year though!).

There's just nothing cuter than little kids toddling round the dance floor, and I like the idea of weddings a family events. Sort of celebrating the start of a new family! (I do know you don't need to be married or have children to be a family - dh and I were our own little family before marriage and baby!).

pinkunicornsarefluffy · 16/10/2016 15:00

I had a child free wedding due to cost. I have a large family, lots of cousins and they all had children, so none of them were invited. The only children there were the bridesmaid, pageboy and 2 babes in arms who didn't eat!. If I had invited all the children, it would have added on another 25 people and we couldn't afford that.

Now I have a child, yes, my views are slightly altered. I am a single parent and if my child is not invited and I can't get childcare then I can't go. This happened recently at a family wedding, as my family were at the wedding and my friends were all busy. I was unable to attend my cousin's wedding.

I did not get upset about it though, I respect their decision. The only thing that annoyed me was when her mother said to me -"oh what a shame you can't come, can't you really find somebody to have her". No I can't so don't try and make me feel bad for not coming, when it's your decision not to have kids there!

HeyOverHere · 16/10/2016 16:22

Well, lucky you having a babysitter on tap. Not everyone has this luxury. If they did there wouldn't be any threads about child free weddings would there. D'oh!

There sure would be! Just not as many. :D Some people feel that to leave their children behind with a sitter is tantamount to some sort of deprivation or child abuse, which just boggles my mind. They refuse to go anywhere they can't bring their kids (and then there's those who cross into offender status and take their kids wherever they want, even adult only bars/events!).

Swipe left for the next trending thread