Your child is causing a ruckus during a wedding ceremony. Be honest. Would you remove them pronto?

[HarrietKettle]

I'm not just talking about full on purple-faced crying kind of kicking off, I'm talking about making any noise, that is distracting, grizzling, or shouting out. Or what some parents might call 'just babbling'.

Obviously it's mega-hard to convey to a toddler that quiet means actual silence, I totally get that. And yes it's cute when they make their little noises or exclaim enthusiastically but not when I'm actually reciting my wedding vows.

I've said no children in my wedding ceremony and, preferably during the speeches, which they'll find boring (wait, I've made provisions for this!) and it's causing raised eyebrows. My nephew will be just two. He's cute. He's very funny. Everyone dotes on him. He's quite rambunctious and vocal. I've been assured he 'won't cry'. I have three other cousins around a similar age and I'm sure their parents will say the same thing, that if they kick up a fuss they'll be 'taken out'.

But will they? Because in my experience unless it's a full on meltdown the parents really don't consider it a distraction and will just jiggle them on their knees a bit and beam around the room.

My provision for the five or so young children that will be attending the day is, a nice little room in the hotel, with a qualified nanny in it, iPads, toys, sweets, colouring books. The only time I'm going to absolutely insist they remain in there is for the 20 or so minute ceremony. This has caused a bit of 'how can you not want your own nephew to watch you get married?' from my brother and a 'I'm not very happy leaving my child with a total stranger' from SIL. The consensus from them is that it's 'sad' not to appreciate the joy children can bring to a wedding that's at a really not-child-friendly- hotel with marble floors and stone steps and no outside space. The other parents don't know about any of this yet.

So, AIBU to think that any child noise in a ceremony is distracting and it's fine not to be on board with that? The inevitable scuffling out of the row and towards the doors at the back of a small child has indeed reached the point where it can be deemed a meltdown is distracting also, and, yes I know I should one of those relaxed brides that just titters and smiles beatifically, but I just won't be, I'll be pissed off.

I wouldn't leave my child with a stranger. How is one nanny going to manage 5 young children at once (who don't know her). Mine would scream the entire time.

I don't think you're U to not want kids at the ceremony but it would have been better to have a child free wedding and accept the 5 families with kids may not come. It's a bit rude to banish the little ones to a different room for the important bits.

mrshathaway my personal preference is not going followed by not going followed by not going. Unfortunately sometimes family pressures make that extremely difficult. As a result both my husband and I have spent so many very boring hours hanging around random parts of hotels with very bored children.

Love it, itsu

It's very convenient when the B&G's stipulations coincide perfectly with one's own wishes. "A flight away, in term time"? Easy decline. "No children, big booze up, within taxi distance"? Yes please, and sorry kids you can't come!

I’m with you @mrshathaway.

Yes I would absolutely whisk my child out if it made so much as a peep. Yanbu at all. Just ban kids. They’re a pita at weddings.

Honestly, no, I wouldn’t - or more accurately I would, but only in the same way that I would for anything else with no special ‘wedding’ threshold for noise-making. There are lots of reasons why, firstly being that a wedding is generally considered a family event, specifically the joining of families. This is the historical meaning and also the general consensus I’ve gotten in discussions around this type of event within my friendship group (so the people likely to invite me to weddings) everyone else likely to is obviously family so the family thing applies. Secondly it often causes MORE noise and disruption to remove a child and adult from the proceedings, shuffling, standing up, scraping chairs, all draw attention. Thirdly I’m not fussed for watching anyone get married so I’d definitely not expect the children to care, so I’d rather just not put anyone through the faff.

I’d leave them in a childcare type room no problem but whether they would actually BE LEFT is another thing entirely.

I’ve been to weddings. I’ve taken kids. Most of the weddings I have been to had general low level noise and people interacting with each other going on throughout. I’m not sure a sit still, face forward, silence is really the desired atmosphere for a happy event. It’s always been more a soundtrack of rustles, whispers, sniffs, someone drops their walking stick, shushes, grins, awwwws, someone sneezes, murmurs, laughs, clapping, baby babbles, coughing, etc, any time I’ve been. People make noises. I guess I think it’s OK/normal and silence is solemn/uncomfortable and unlikely!

We had a small wedding in a stone barn. Any noise from children would have echoed horribly.

We took our little ones to weddings ( I can't remember this fashion for children not being invited then) but we made sure we were at the back, at the end of a row, poised to whisk them out at a sign of restiveness. I wanted children to be at our wedding because it is about the coming together of two families and all generations should be included, IMO. But don't bring them if they are going through a tantrum stage and yo don't feel able to remove them in time.

I can't remember saying my vows, not because I was swept up in the love and romance of the day but because my sil gave my 3months old son his bottle from a very noose anti colic bottle just as we started.

I know if she didn't he would cry and ruin it that way but they had been in the room a good 10mins before we started so could have given him it earlier. She knew how loud they are.

I'm with you op, you had made provisions for the children but think you have to be prepared for if the children don't settle adults might miss the ceremony

OP with those ages and those numbers (2,2,2,3,4,5) you CANNOT have just one Nanny - at least you shouldn't be able to as the ratios is for those:

childminders can look after six children, no more than three of which can be under the age of five and only one of which can be under the age of one. This is too restrictive, particularly for children under the age of five. Childminders may only look after three under-5s at any one time

I would not be willing (a) to push those ratios as a parent or (b) trust someone who as a childcare provider would be willing to

I get from your perspective your view about your brother and SIL and how they view your nephew but are you in fact getting theirs.

None of your guests should be happy with the suggestion because it is just too many children for one person

Now I would have been thrilled if my SIL had set up a room that I could have been in with my DD for her wedding it would have made my life a lot easier

You are trying to have the best of both worlds. Invite children and keep family 'happy' but organise a child-unfriendly wedding, with stone staircases and silent, grown up only ceremony/ speeches, with the youngest family members shut away. You really need to go with one or the other. Either children are invited and welcome (and catered for with regards to the venue being suitable) or just don't invite them and have what you clearly, really want.

To be honest I think you are making it over complicated and really you want to say no kids at all so you should just do that.

You are not obliged to compromise when it's your event.

When you put babies/toddlers in nursery you accept the likelihood is that they will scream their heads off, often for longer than 20 mins, for the first few or several sessions until they start to trust the staff and become familiar with the environment. It's a painful few weeks but you go through it because most children settle well in the end and it enables parents to go back to work or whatever.

A nursery often only has one or two new starters at a time. This nanny is going to be left with up to 6 children who have never met her before and the 2 year olds at least may well scream nonstop for the whole time. In fact will the screaming be audible from the ceremony room?

Surely this is why so many parents are saying no they wouldn't leave their children with a nanny they'd never met before for the duration of the ceremony. It's not really to do with her qualifications - very young children left with a total stranger in a strange place are likely to be very upset, and most of us would prefer not to inflict that on our kids if we avoid it.

(For what it's worth, I'd stay well away from the ceremony with my 3 year old and 18 month old, and possibly skip the wedding altogether).

YANBU, I'd ban all kids from the ceremony, but obviously make sure parents have somewhere to take the dc during the time, or supply an entertainer or minder.

It's ok saying take them out, but by then they've already caused a disturbance.
It also isn't fair to the children to make them sit quietly if it isn't a short ceremony, they'll get bored and just be usual kids, it's not their fault.

I don't get it. I don't expect weddings to be hushed gloomy affairs. I get it's all romantic but hushed reverence is best kept for saints and the dead. Life is noisy.

Even if the nanny was brilliant, most children would not settle with a stranger. I would take my child out if he/she was making any more than soft sounds and look after him/her myself.

Life is noisy but I don't think it's too much to ask to be able to say some heartfelt words you may only say once in your life in peace.

ItsAllDoom they don't go to childminders and nurseries without a settling in phase though - a 2 year old would never be taken to a childminder or nursery they'd never been to and dropped off. With a 2 year old normally the parent stays for the first session, and interacts as little as possible but as much as necessary for their child to feel relaxed and secure. Then a plan is made for subsequent sessions depending on how that goes. Many children need 3 or more sessions which the parent stays for all or part of before they can be simply handed over to a childminder or networker they've started to form a bond with.

Some 2 year olds couldn't care less and would go off happily, but you only need one not wanting to be checked in like a piece of left luggage to the care of someone they've never met, in an unfamiliar place, to kick off full on screaming. That'll probably set the others off, or at least unsettle them, and the room will have to be soundproof for the racket not to be heard from the room where the ceremony is happening. Additionally the kids, or some of them, are likely to be clingy and weepy the rest of the day.

It's not how childcare usually works.

Some kids go off happily to anonymous but "fun" creches like the IKEA one someone mentioned, but parents know their kids mostly, and for every parent checking a child into that sort of crèche there are several who know their kid wouldn't let them go without clinging and screaming, so don't bother. I don't think those add hoc creches at IKEA take kids as young as 2, probably because most 2 year olds still have separation anxiety and need a settling in phase with any new childcare.

I guess the parents with young kids are more than welcome to join us just after the ceremony, then. Might scrap the nanny as I think it'd be a waste of money now (and it would never be as many as six kids she had on her own, as my good friends with two children would absolutely leave them with their grandparents for the night if I asked) but I'll keep the room.

*keyworker autocorrected to networker

The room's a good idea to be used any time during the wedding!

You could offer the nanny services for the ceremony, if they don't want to use it then one parent will have to occupy the children elsewhere.
It's bloody cheeky to make someone's big day revolve around your children.
it does sound like a huge fuss, maybe just say no kids and let them decline invitation or find childcare.
As for bil comments, I'd tell him I doubt your nephew would be too traumatised at not seeing you walk down the aisle.
Sil would be told to look after her own dc if she didn't want to use the nanny. She could volunteer to help the nanny, then she wouldn't be leaving her child with a stranger.

Toddlers are completely unpredictable yanbu! I had to follow mine at an outdoor wedding as she decided she wouldn’t stand still and I knew If I picked her up she would cry. I missed the whole thing and cried a little myself off in a different end of the gardens.

I guess I might have found the assumption that my child was going to be annoying offensive. But she totally was, so I think it is wonderful that you planned ahead.