Children at weddings

[mintich]

Not exactly AIBU, but what do you think of children/babies at weddings? Do you get offended if they aren't invited? Do you prefer to go to adult only weddings?

There will be no children at my wedding because I'm old and I don't like them.

I feel a bit sad if children aren't welcome but wouldn't argue about it. We married a few weeks ago. We had almost 20 children present, as we are at a stage in our lives when most of our friends and family have young children. It was our son who was the noisy one during the vows - bit tricky to take him outside! It was lovely to see them playing on the village green afterwards. They had their own table at the party, and threw themselves into the ceilidh with great gusto. Our wedding was a very relaxed, informal affair and was a big family celebration. It would have been wrong to exclude the children.

I have to say I love watching the little ones dancing on the dance floor and running around during the reception. Some of my favourites photos of my daughter ever are of this ❤️

The other thing is, for all people say, oh I'll take the baby out if it cries - they don't. And then you end up with a crying baby drowning out the couple saying their vows. This happened at a friend's wedding recently - no one anymore than two rows back could hear a thing.

This... completely this.

I was a wedding photographer for about 18-20 weddings where this happened about 50% of the time and went to a wedding on Saturday just gone. This happened... baby cried.. Parent just kept saying 'Shusssssssh' and not taking the child out of the room. I was really close to the bride and groom and all I could hear was loud wailing from the back of the room.

Not fussed about children at the rest of the wedding, but for the 30 minutes of the day where you say your vows, I really don't want any child there.

I'm getting married next year, we're not having children. If that means people can't come due to childcare, that's absolutely fine, I completely appreciate it and would like to think our friendship would remain the same.

Before my own wedding I had only been to two weddings in my whole life, and they were both when I was early 20s. So I don't think that child free weddings are quite a new fangled thing

if we were invited to a wedding and children aren't invited we wouldn't be able to go because we have no one to babysit

www.sitters.co.uk/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwnPLKBRC-ARIsAL_JTCyBVDwWWx7n8tzWcsdwIThiRx_3_BlxXAA9-6EoduCynu_24VqOmQIaAp3iEALw_wcB

HTH

I think the big fuss of 'my day, my way' events are a newer thing, though. Plenty of old wedding photos are just a couple in their nicest clothes having rice chucked at them, rather than Pinterest-fuelled extravaganzas.

Not that new, though. Weddings 20, 30 years ago were big extravaganzas.

My DD ran into the middle of a friend's ceremony and pulled her nappy off.

Luckily my friend is super chilled and found it hilarious (it didn't disturb ceremony and she didn't know until I told her after).

I'm having a child free wedding.

Speaking to our friends who are parents they are thrilled at getting a night away.

Anger over child free weddings must be a mumsnet thing, I've never come accross it in RL.

Suppose it depends on if your life is basically your children and you derive all your joy through them (look at their little cute outfits and dancing awwwwwww) or if you still consider yourself to be an autonomous person with friends to catch up with, dancing to be done and nice food to eat without having to watch your children.

The other thing is, for all people say, oh I'll take the baby out if it cries - they don't. And then you end up with a crying baby drowning out the couple saying their vows. This happened at a friend's wedding recently - no one anymore than two rows back could hear a thing.
Same.
Everyone always says they will take the kids out, well guess what, people don't!
I'm quite happy at completely child free weddings, it means i actually hear what's going on!

There will be no children at my wedding because I'm old and I don't like them

I love children at weddings - it's a family and friends celebration so why shouldn't they be there? I had 4 bridesmaids, not one older than 6

Toddler comments as I went up the aisle were just part of the day. Main drawback turned out to be being utterly upstaged by their cuteness in all the photos.

They were fine for the reception too - they were all together and childfree friends/relatives got on with their thing as well.

The people who had brought children wanted to spend the day with them - they like their children mainly

Plus we had no intention of having a giant adult's only piss up. We wanted it to be a whole family day.

True, River I'm only that old, but I was thinking more of the preceding generations. Though I'm sure that's a whole Pinterest theme in itself.

margaretcavendish

You're so right about people who get married first not having to think about it and getting a childfree wedding by default!

Bemused and irritated by comments from weddingsarestressful and others that weddings are a family event so should include children.

A wedding is whatever kind of event the bride and groom want it to be. No one gets to dictate what kind of wedding someone else should have - a wedding is not inherently a family occasion. You see weddings as a family occasion. That's a different thing.

Also, someone's children who I've never met are not my family. We have never met a lot of the children of our guests, why would we want them there?

I much prefer adult only weddings or weddings with just a few children. I hate being seated at the wedding breakfast with children or babies if the baby is fractious. I really don't think children and formal white weddings mix, but a more informal picnic style wedding I went to had loads of kids and it worked well there.

We did invite newborns to our wedding but I actually agree with pp who said it should be all or nothing, because I disagree with judging the validity of someone's reason not to be able to get childcare.

All or nothing age wise I mean. We had our nieces and nephews and couldn't imagine excluding them.

The other thing is, for all people say, oh I'll take the baby out if it cries - they don't. And then you end up with a crying baby drowning out the couple saying their vows.

In my experience they will begin contemplating taking the baby out if it goes into a full-blown, purple-faced, screaming tantrum - thought it'll take them about five minutes to actually do so. If it is 'just' shouting, grizzling or squawking, though, they will happily sit there, beaming at their baby that they will later describe as 'gurgling a bit'. I think that parents of babies just develop a totally new sense of what is and isn't 'loud' that doesn't map onto the ears of either the childfree or people whose own children have got past that stage.

I like both. In fact I quite enjoy that we take DC to some and not others. What does annoy me though is:

Invites that say "we want you to be able to enjoy yourselves so no kids please". Why not just say they don't want kids there - it's fine! And also I don't like the insinuation that I wouldn't enjoy it if my kids did come. I work full time so any time spent together is very much anticipated!

People presuming that any of their childcare solutions for other peoples' kids are perfect and that you must be completely unreasonable to take them up on the idea. Things like, why not just express enough milk for your month old BF baby for the day and dump them with granny they have met twice, despite the fact they've never actually fed from a bottle. Or dictating that since the DC are a certain age that everyone should leave them for the night because that's what XX are doing.

People turning up to weddings with their kids and then not taking them out if they cry/make too much noise etc in the ceremony. I went to a friend's wedding once where there was only one child invited out of a wedding of 150. They cried all the way through the vows and the dad just walked up and down with them in the aisle at the side, letting the noise reverberate over the whole building. I was so cross for my friend that he didn't just take the kid outside!!

I think that parents of babies just develop a totally new sense of what is and isn't 'loud' that doesn't map onto the ears of either the childfree or people whose own children have got past that stage.

I couldn't hear the vows at my friends wedding because the grooms bratty cousin's kids were making a racket throughout. And the speeches the older ones were running around and being v distracting. It was meant to be child free but the cow kicked up such a fuss and created WWIII they let her bring her brood and it spoiled it for my friend.

Hipster I doubt that is helpful, as most people can use the internet, but just think that it wouldn't work to have a stranger look after their children for a long day and possibly night. Also presumably not cheap.

HTH is in the same twee line as 'leave your kids at home and let your hair down'.

snotato how could you possibly recognise someone from such a vague OP?

Hipster that post with the link to sitters is massively dickish.

HTH 😊

During my childhood I was a bridesmaid eight times and attended other weddings. In those days it was unheard of to exclude children but we were all pretty well behaved if I recall correctly and had great fun.

In contrast I attended a wedding as an adult where a gang of children ran rampage up and down the aisles of the church, screaming and shouting at the tops of their voices during the whole ceremony, with no attempt by their parents to get them under control. After that I could definitely see the benefit of no children weddings.

I don't like weddings anyway but wouldn't go to one requiring travel if my kids weren't invited, and DH and I wouldn't attend together if kids weren't invited.

I'd go to an evening do alone if I knew and liked others who were going without their partner... maybe,if I really liked the person getting married. Otherwise I'd decline.

Anything requiring attendance as a couple is declined unless kids can come as we simply have no overnight or late night childcare options what so ever, and I can't imagine being fussed enough to bother trying to make massively complicated arrangements to palm all 3 kids off.

I really wanted kids at my wedding even though we didn't have any ourselves at that point - I wanted a very informal wedding and kids always help keep things informal :o