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?

If there is no expectation then my refusal shouldn't cause any offence then should it

@engineersthumb

Finally we agree on something! No one is obliged to attend a wedding, B&G need to understand it's not as important to most other people as it is to them and not get stressy you if people can't attend, especially if they are not inviting children/it's a weekday/far away etc.

Parents shouldn't get shirty if kids not invited just decline and B&G should accept some people won't come. No need for fallings out.

Another vote for 'babes in arms'. It's a bit shitty to expect parents of very young babies to leave them overnight. But I wouldn't take my toddler to a wedding again. So stressful! I wouldn't enjoy it while trying to look after dc.

Re destination weddings, mentioned by a pp up thread; the kind of wedding that involves a few hour long flight to get there, hotel stay, days off work etc. I've been to one and vowed never again, unless a) the couple is a really good friend / family and / or b) the couple actually lives in, or has strong links to the destination they are getting married in. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having a destination wedding if that's what you want, but it's such a lot of expense, days off work (the one we attended was a weekday). It just isn't something I'd be willing to do again, as a guest at the wedding of a couple I am not especially close to. It didn't help that the wedding was poorly organised, (no shade for the entire day, during a heat wave in southern Italy, destination really difficult to get to, hotel where we all stayed didn't have a restaurant). I know it's the couple's 'day', but it did feel a bit like our comfort, as guests hadn't been considered at all, which wasn't great. It's put me off.

If only it really worked like that though McTufty - in reality there is often fall out and offence taken by not only the couple but wider family, if a family wedding invitation especially is declined.

And YY, people should get better at saying no to wedding invites. I've turned one down this year as I really don't know the couple well, had a dreadful time at the last wedding I went to with the same group of people (some of DH's uni mates who even he doesn't see anymore) and basically didn't want to shell out for a babysitter so I could come. I doubt the couple missed me and I don't feel I missed out either.

drinkingtea I accept that and I would be very critical of a bride and groom who took umbrage at someone not coming to their wedding for childcare reasons.

I am recently married. We had a few couples (childless as it happens so it wasn't that) decline our wedding. A couple of them didn't give a reason. We didn't ask. We are still friends

I don't think that makes it ok for people to expect a bride and groom to make their wedding a glorified children's party by inviting everyone's kids- that's my point. Not defending a lot of brides and grooms who behave like dicks but I don't think not inviting 50 kids (in our case!) is behaving like a dick.

We had about 150 guest and about a third of them were children of all ages. We specified on the invite that it was to be a fun informal family friendly occasion. We laid on lots of things to entertain the kids, toys, colouring, dance ribbons, light sabres twister, balloons, sweets, donuts, pizza and the dancing was a ceilidh so the kids danced with with everyone. It was great fun for everyone. I chose the venue because it was all in one big room so the parents could go to the bar and still have eyes on their kids racing around the big dance floor. I don't understand why people don't want kids at their wedding. How boring!!

I've had one person take offence at me declining their wedding invite (evening do on other side of the country. DH wasn't invited, I can't drive and was heavily pregnant). The groom sent me an arsey text for declining . Just confirmed to me how much of a wanker the groom was tbh. I haven't really spoken to him since. Glad I didn't go! His wife's lovely though.

"Weddings are family events"

Cool. I have one very aged grandparent, my parents, no brothers or sisters. Better hope when I find my future wife she has an enormous family or obviously our wedding would be shit.

Nope I'm with you on that McTufty - I'm still getting grief from my mother and occasional digs from other family members for not going to my cousin's wedding over a decade ago though! It actually wasn't child free but was a full weekend deal a long way from home and would have been logistically incredibly tricky, though not quite impossible, to attend, and had a full program of semi compulsory, gender segregated "fun" activities around it which really isn't my thing! Tbh I'd only seen the cousin a handful of times as an adult!

Events for the family you have, shatner. No-ones saying you need rent a crowd to make a wedding good

I think the only time I've known parents be offended is a couple who were pressured to attend less than a month after the birth, and then had the bride and groom tell their mutual friends that they had 'kicked up a fuss' about bringing their baby. The B&G apologised loudly to mutual friends that the baby would be at their table, and basically made the poor guests feel like pariahs. The poor woman had had a difficult birth and even the car journey was a big effort on her part, and was made to feel like she wasn't their friend anymore, just someone with an annoying infant.

We had a mixture at our wedding due to number restrictions. So those who travelled had DCs included plus close relatives, but not those who lived more locally.

One friend contacted us to check if they could bring their bf baby - I didn't realise the logistics of this at the time- but as the baby was too young to need a high chair ( and thus didn't add to the table numbers) I was happy to agree.

One couple (DHs friends) let their 2 year old shriek through the service. Didn't impact on us but spoilt the enjoyment of many of those sitting near by.

If I was doing it again I would have had less peripheral people i.e. Work friends and would have invited all DCs . But it's hard to know how your friendships will pan out. I try to give bride and groom benefit of the doubt most things are governed by costs and numbers.

We had about 150 guest and about a third of them were children of all ages. We specified on the invite that it was to be a fun informal family friendly occasion. We laid on lots of things to entertain the kids, toys, colouring, dance ribbons, light sabres twister, balloons, sweets, donuts, pizza and the dancing was a ceilidh so the kids danced with with everyone.

That wedding sounds like my idea of hell. Which is fine - I'm not one of your guests! But let's not pretend there is one template of wedding that suits everyone and so which is 'better'. I'd much prefer a more sophisticated, grown-up event and I don't think I'm alone in that.

Scribble What I'm saying is that some posters seem totally fixated that weddings are "about" families. Not everyone has much family, some have none at all. What weddings are about are two people declaring their love for each other and hopefully wanting to spend the rest of their lives together. How they chose to have that wedding is up to them. If they want to elope with no one present, doesn't mean that wedding means less than one with loads of family and kids present.

Don't worry, shatner - I too apparently had a shit wedding because I have a small family with no children. To think that we were silly enough to enjoy the day enormously even though it must have been, according to many of these posts, 'unmade'.

drinktea really pathetic especially as, and I mean this nicely, if you aren't close to the cousin they may well only have invited you to be polite.

shatnerswig exactly. A wedding isn't a 'family' event it's an event to celebrate the couple's union and anything beyond that is up to the couple. However I am unclear what it being a 'family' event has to do with me inviting my friends' kids who I have never met to my wedding.

I hate no children at weddings. I think they make a wedding feel more complete and more family orientated and fun.
For example, my sister was 2 and a half when I got married, she was my flower girl. When we were signing the register, followed by the witnesses signing. Then the photographs with the dummy register and quill (not allowed to photograph the official register), the guests may have got a little touch bored. But my sister was up having a little dance around in front of the table, and it gave the guests a bit of entertainment and we loved it.
No one else there had young children as it was a small wedding due to a very short (3 month) engagement. But if they had they would have been more than welcome.

Oh absolutely McTufty - I had had a small wedding a few years before the cousin got married and hadn't invited any cousins! The cousin never said anything - we're not even in touch except when we bump into one another at other relatives homes or events as we simply don't know one another well! It was wider family and especially my own mother (who does have a relationship with the cousins, more so since they became adults for some reason) who took offence and like to remind me!

Families are odd and declining wedding invitations does often have fallout.

As I'm not a big wedding fan I'm quite glad to have an excuse to turn down a childfree wedding if there's a travel component tbh. I wouldn't want to go to a child free wedding but I'm perfectly happy not to go at all :o People do get funny with you for turning invitations down though, that is what's unreasonable!

The "I couldn't go as I have no-one to babysit" argument is one that intrigues me.

We have no family living near us and as a result, I have really actively sought to make friends with people who know that they can rely on us and we can rely on them. Some of them have local family and some don't so it's not that I've looked for friends who are necessarily in the same position as me. We've had to call on that once in an emergency but also once when DH and I were invited to family weddings, on the same day. We left the children at home with a friend of mine.

For people who say "I don't have anyone to babysit," what would you do in an emergency? And surely weddings have enough notice that you can plan for it.

If you don't want to go to a wedding without your kids, then fine, but it seems an odd excuse to me.

Weddings aren't an emergency. If we absolutely had to leave our son with someone, we would be able to find someone but it would be difficult for that person and not something we would ask unless it was an emergency.
We usually attend weddings on our own with the other person staying home to do the childcare.

1big I have emergency help - neighbor-friends who also have kids. We look out for each other's kids and do reciprocal favours, driving about and dropping off etc. I would only ask them to have all 3 of my kids overnight in an emergency though, not for a jolly that I probably wouldn't even enjoy enough to owe such a huge favour!

We used to have family help and then would leave kids overnight (mil and fil used to ask for the kids to stay even when we had no reason to want them to, which was fine and lovely) but mil became ill, so it is no longer an option.

If I desperately wanted to go to a kid free wedding I'd leave the kids with DH, but going to weddings alone is usually pants so I'd have to either really feel the bride or groom needed me there, or know other guests whom I really liked would be there solo, to or feel very much duty bound to to bother.

1bighappyfamily

it is the hassle of it all. Childless couples, decide more on the fly - "oh yes, we'd love to come"

couples with kids - "who can have the kids?", "You go, I'll stay with them",
"Do we want to use up a big favour to go to a wedding - evening only invite?",
"What if the kids are ill, wet the bed when we are there?",
"How the heck do I manage going off to pump milk whilst at a wedding in the middle of nowhere?",
"4 months notice of a no-kids wedding - How long will it take to wean my then 5 month old to take a bottle, do I need a reserve of breastmilk?"

easy answer is "Sorry, no-one to babysit"

Where I come from, weddings are a family affair - the joining together of two families

would be a bit naff if anyone under 16 was not allowed to join in

IntheBEST It's the joining of two people. The groom does not marry the bride's family, just the bride. If the two families dislike each other, you don't divorce them, you simply go no contact.

We don't go if DC aren't invited as childcare is a ballache. I don't get offended though. We just RSVP and send a gift.