This thread got me feeling some kinda way.
"I think children make a wedding" "Children make a wedding"
If you were talking about a daycare center or a nursery, you'd be right: you cannot have a daycare center or a nursery without children. But we are talking about a wedding. Children do not make a wedding. Children, IF invited, make guests. The couple being married is what makes the wedding.
And I LIKE kids! Let's not get it twisted. But I have been to weddings where the children were horribly behaved (to the point where they were literally having a punch up in the middle of the outdoor area where we were all seated, and their parents were studiously ignoring them). I have been to weddings where the toddlers threw tantrums and everyone shrugged their shoulders and said "that's what toddlers do". I have been to weddings where the babes in arms cried through the vows and everyone shrugged their shoulders and said "that's what babies do".
Okay. But I don't WANT there to be any punch ups, any horribly behaved children and feckless wastrel parents ignoring them at my wedding. I know toddlers throw tantrums, but I don't WANT there to be any tantrums thrown at my wedding. I know babies cry, I don't WANT my vows interrupted by crying babies.
If and when I get married there will be no children at my wedding, no elementary aged children, no preschoolers, no toddlers, and no babes in arms. As a "bride" I would be asking for ONE special day that was about me marrying the person I love. ONE. I do not think it is too much to ask that I get one day. And if people who are invited to my wedding cannot make other arrangements, that is sad, but ultimately their choice. My choice is not to have anyone under the age of fourteen at my wedding. And I am the "bride", so on this one day, my choice trumps anyone else's.
And here's something else. Even if you do take your baby out (and be f*cking honest, you won't), the damage is already done, the wonderful special moment where my partner and I are pledging ourselves to each other for the rest of our lives has been broken, the attention firmly placed on your baby.
But it's not your baby's day, is it? It's MY day, and my partner's. Our ONE day. I'm not going to come to your baby's birthday and insist that everyone look at me, look at me, look at me, because that would be your baby's day, and that would be selfish and unreasonable of me. I don't understand why you get to make my day all about your baby or child, and somehow I am still the selfish one. Get your life! People are TRYING it, but not on me, not on my day.
I'll say this, too. No wedding I have ever been to has given me less than five or six month's notice. You have time to find childcare in all but the most extreme cases (you're pregnant now and your baby will be a newborn; your child has special needs that can't be easily seen to, etc). This "I can't afford a babysitter" is crap - with five to six month's notice you could put aside five dollars a week, and just about cover it. It's about priorities, and while I know that your child will take precedence over me (and so they should), if I mean enough to you that you're considering sharing my special day with me, that should not be too much to ask.
So. In short. At my wedding, there will be no children under the age of fourteen. No correspondence will be entered into, and there will be a bouncer at the door for those people who inevitably think the rules do not apply to them. Call me selfish if you want, but I think on my wedding day I get to be selfish. I'm not the one making someone else's special day all about me.