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?

Here's what I hate: we don't want kids at our wedding, but we want all our friends to be there so bring them if you must.

Great, so now we: (1) come to your wedding with kids that we know aren't welcome (2) we leave our two year old for several nights to come to your destination wedding because you're going to be annoyed if we don't and say 'oh but I said you should bring them' (no, you didn't) or (3) we re-mortgage the house and travel to your wedding with the kids and a grandparent to provide childcare for the actual wedding.

Phew. Feel a bit better!

I love children at weddings, but then I'm foreign so I probably don't count.

We don't accept child free invites, there's no late childcare, we've never left them overnight unless it's been for hospital (again childcare). Mainly though with the cost of travel and accommodation and the fact it's usually a weekend we all go or none but all the weddings bar one have invited us all

*If you don't want my children at your wedding you don't want me either

With that selfish and dare I say entitled attitude, I'm quite sure people don't want you at their wedding either*
Yes, rather agree

baskets yes! Some people have huge families, if theyinvited all the kids then they'd end up not inviting close friends or not inviting the family all together!
Having a ban makes it easier.

Yep...I knew there would be a few precious souls out there!

spirited nah. Watching a child slide across the floor is only cute to the parents. Come the time for adults to socialise with booze and chat to other adults, come the time for the children to no longer be requiring attention and be in bed.

Not precious engineer, just pointing out your opinion is a bit dickish.

No more so than expecting me to dump my kids for your wedding. But I'd say precious

I was at a wedding where a 3 year old kicked and screamed on the floor through out the service whilst throwing around the sweets given to them to keep them quiet.

I decided I didn't want kids at my wedding. When I got married I gave in to family pressure to have kids there. The kids were mostly well behaved. A few incidents of rudeness which but at least it was after the ceremony.

I think it's up to the bride and groom.

Or to decline engineer, I don't send an invitation to or wedding 'expecting' anyone to come. Bit precious to refuse to go anywhere unless your children can go to but if you're happy being one of those mum's, good luck to you! and even more so to your poor friends

*our

Child free weddings are much more fun.

I'm one of those fathers actually
I absolutely place time with my family above pretentious gatherings. If there is no expectation then my refusal shouldn't cause any offence then should it

I think if you have brothers and sisters with children and it is your wedding, I think it is pretty harsh to make it child free, because you have basically cut off all their usual family childcare options and they will most likely have to use a babysitter thy potentially don't know for a whole day and evening. I personally would decline a wedding with no kids as I don't enjoy any wedding enough to arrange paid childcare (live far from relatives)

Pre DD I had a partiality child free wedding. I didn't want screaming during the vows and one toddler was almost certain to do so, but as I had taken away said toddlers usual childcare by inviting all the family I didn't feel I could just say no kids. I employed two qualified, crb (back in the day) checked nannies and hired an extra room in the hotel close to the ceremony room and asked that all little darlings be deposited there for the 20mins it took us to get hitched. Seems the best of both worlds. Now I have DD I have had to just send hubby to a few child free weddings that involve overnights as I can't get a sitter for that long for my breastfeeding baby.

In my personal opinion a marriage is a celebration of family so it makes no sense to exclude.

My aim was to make everyone feel like children for the day and it worked wonderfully

How did you do that? Visions of a huge bouncy castle and everybody tucking into jelly and ice cream.

I don't like child free weddings.
I think a wedding is about families and it seems weird to me to not have children there. As for it being a time to let my hair down and enjoy myself; I love having my kids with me and that's what I enjoy. I might attend for a couple of hours but I wouldn't attend the whole day if my children weren't invited.

Children were invited to my wedding and to the wedding of my son and daughter. I enjoy children at weddings; they seem to get such pleasure from attending.

When my daughter got married, we hired a babysitter to help with the young ones at the reception.

I think if you have brothers and sisters with children and it is your wedding, I think it is pretty harsh to make it child free, because you have basically cut off all their usual family childcare options

Surely this is only true if the children only have one set of grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.? Which is, of course, the case for some people, but far from everyone

People do get offended when you turn down wedding invitations.

The MAN mantra about invitations not being summonses is technically true but in practice it often turns out that huge offence is taken when they are declined.

MN Not MAN! Autocorrect...

Went to a lovely wedding do last week. There had been a couple of children during the day but none in the evening so the guests were free to dance and have a few drinks. ( I do have DC but I think tired and bored children can spoil a party )

We didn't want a castle or any kind of magical princess days for our wedding

We wanted somewhere that 70-100 friends and family could sit down and enjoy something to eat and drink, then have a dance

I've never been to a wedding that wasn't babes in arms only for anyone but immediate family.

If you have a guest list of 70-100 then if most couples there have at LEAST one kid, then you're now looking at somewhere that can seat another 40 plus people. That's a lot

Seating for over 100 people rules out a significant proportion of wedding venues. Not fancy schmancy ones but anywhere that can accommodate that many people seated. Even if it's a buffet, you still can't have fewer seats than people. So you need table space for your guests to have something to eat

To accommodate families, you'd have to uninvite loads of your guests.

Like I said, I can't think of any wedding I've been to where it wasn't a predominantly child free wedding. In London (or I imagine most major towns and cities), you're looking at mega bucks for a conference style room that can seat so many people, because fire regs mean they're strict on numbers

Most folk I don't know don't want to and can't afford a grand ballroom just to accommodate everyone's kids.

I don't get offended by a no children invite, but might not be able to go.
We had child free except our own. If everyone had bought their children we would have had an extra 40 or so guests! I spoke to most of my friends about it and got a resounding 'god no! We don't want to bring our kids, we want to have a drink and some fun!'. I had intended to word the invite along the lines of 'we understand childcare can be an issue so if this is the case speak to us'. However MIL talked me out of it as one (not close) family member is apparently always trying to get her kid invited (who I had never met but had heard is a bit of a PITA). So I just said no kids. I was prepared to make exceptions which would have upset said relative probably. But there is a difference between one of my best friends coming from overseas with kids I know. As it happened, in the end, it was just my kids and 2 newborns.