People offended by kids not being invited to wedding

[Timeforachange2018]

Going to a family wedding in June- the couple aren’t inviting kids apart from their own 2 and have made that clear. It’s for financial reasons and they are keeping the wedding small to 50 people.

Found out that some relatives are offended by this because their kids aren’t invited and were off with the groom about it.

Aibu to think WTF is wrong with people. I have been to plenty of weddings where my kids were not invited- I totally get why that would be the case & I am not remotely offended by it. I am just happy to be invited and am looking forward to a childfree day sipping champagne and celebrating with the couple.

Aibu to think WTF is wrong with people?

Oh, I totally see why some people don't invite kids. The threads on here from OPs trying to work round prima donna guests/relatives who think their young child walks on water and won't hear of taking them out should they disrupt the wedding are legion. The overwhelming advice is to go no kids for the wedding.

Just as long as the couple don't get their hackles up if people decline due to its being no kids. There are a lot of very sneery comments from brides and grooms who claim to have inside knowledge of the minutiae of their guest's lives and are quite judgemental about how these people simply won't dump their kids in order to come to the wedding. Who knows? Maybe they don't want to use up favours. Maybe they don't really like the bride and groom and are using the kids as an excuse. Maybe they're secretly skint and can't afford to go along.

All kinds of reasons.

We have got a wedding later in the year which is strictly no children. I completely understand that it's their decision, for whatever reasons they choose. However its made it exceptionally difficult to organise from our end. We will have a 4 month old (hopefully breastfed) baby, it's 100 miles away and DH is an usher. This fact alone makes it very difficult to decline the invitation, and means we have to pay for our parents (who have kindly agreed to help) to come and stay at the hotel to babysit. I will have to either express if he will take a bottle, or continually leave to feed. The wedding and reception are not actually at the hotel so trying to figure out logistics will be fun. The stress!

'We will have a 4 month old (hopefully breastfed) baby, it's 100 miles away and DH is an usher. This fact alone makes it very difficult to decline the invitation, and means we have to pay for our parents (who have kindly agreed to help) to come and stay at the hotel to babysit. I will have to either express if he will take a bottle, or continually leave to feed. The wedding and reception are not actually at the hotel so trying to figure out logistics will be fun. The stress!'

Then why on Earth are you doing it? He goes on his own or he pulls out of being an usher and declines the invitation. Sorted! Unless you enjoy being a martyr, of course.

Definitely not a martyr expat, bloody naive to how hard it will actually be perhaps.

The groom is one of DHs best friends and I do actually want to go to the wedding. They are a lovely lovely (currently childless) couple. It would just be 10X easier if we could just stick DS in a sling and head down.

Most parts of wedding celebrations are painful for kids, I don't understand why people would want to have their kids sit their for hours through speeches, dinner and chit chat. The start of the disco part is fun for kids but by then it's too late for them really. As for babies at wedding, the same except they obviously don't enjoy the music. But as above if inviting people to weddings that have kids but you don't invite the kids, don't get offended if they can't make it

We had a child free wedding due to cost. It’s hard now that I have a child though if they aren’t invited. I declined one cousin’s wedding as I couldn’t get childcare.

I’ve accepted one this year and am hoping I can sort something out.

I think it’s totally fine to not invite but you do need to accept that people might not be able to come due to this.

Expatinscotland seems to make the most sense.
In general if your best friend invites you to a child free wedding, you a) get a babysitter or B) get the Dad to stay at home so you can go. I don’t understand why perfectly functioning human beings suddenly can’t go to a fancy meal without their husbands if it’s a wedding. One of you stay at home with the children, the other goes.

And if you’re breast feeding either don’t go or get daddy to babysit in the bedroom and pop up at feeding time.

We are only having family babies there - OH has a niece and nephew who will be 6 and 4 by then - they are page boy and flower girl. Then 3 of my cousins who are invited have young kids (1 born last year, 2 this year), they are flying to be here so they are invited.

Some of OH's cousins probs not invited (as his family is massive and we are keeping it small) but if they are, their kids are older, and we don't really know them (plus 2 are a NIGHTMARE!) so they won't be invited.

We only want our closest friends and family there, we are both not fond of public attention so we want to keep it small. And if anyone has an issue with that they can go spin, as it's our day!

However, if, between now and then, friends or family invited had a baby and couldn't leave it as they were breastfeeding or whatever then we'd be ok with that

I had a child free wedding over 20 years ago and actually my biggest dread was small babies. They were actually the ones I definitely didn’t want. The year before I went a friends wedding and there was a 6 month old.

The mother wanted to sit as close to the front as possible to allow her snowflake to see the colours! This child bawled the place down and the mother whipped her boobs out and all you could hear during the vows were sucking sounds and the mother talking to her baby. It was literally all about her and stuff everyone else.

So we had our wedding without children not surprisingly

“It's odd that we are then expected to make our wedding days about providing a family social event”

I don’t think it is odd at all. Both OH’s and my families are very scattered, and we don’t tend to see each other en masse except at weddings and funerals.

Neither of us has hundreds of friends, so our wedding was predominantly family, with a handful of friends. None of the family weddings I have been to have been child free, and neither was the wedding do we attended recently.

“How can anyone be so precious, so self-obsessed and so arrogant as to think somebody else’s wedding is not about the bride and groom on one of the most significant days of their lives, but is about their own children?”

Don’t you think that some couple are precious and self-obsessed about their forthcoming nuptials? IMO a wedding is a social gathering where the bride and groom are the centre of attention, but the celebration shouldn't necessarily be all about them. It should be about the guests attending as well.

This thread just gives the impression that we are either a nation of child haters or we have friends/relatives who make no attempt to make their children behave during formal occasions. Although I think peacheachpearplum might have a point in that young children are never given the opportunity to feel bored these days. They always have to be occupied with something – usually a screen.

“Weddings sound absolutely horrible occasions!”

They really aren’t Letdownnn. Only MN weddings are. I have been to a few weddings and have never been to a horrible one. The only one where I have negative memories is one where the reception was held in an unheated community centre at the end of November. We left early because we were so cold.

Both OH’s and my families are very scattered, and we don’t tend to see each other en masse except at weddings and funerals.

My family is like that too, but I didn't really see why I should pay for some people who aren't actually close enough to make an effort to see each other to have a reunion. I think a few people were disappointed that I didn't host a big family get together for them, but if they'd bothered to come and visit once in the 25 years since my parents moved south then I might have felt a bit more sympathetic towards this.

I actually like my relatives Margaret. A 7 hour+ drive is quite an undertaking just to visit someone for a couple of days. We do keep in touch regularly by other means though.

I may be in the minority here, but I think children add energy to a wedding, and good luck, too. People are odd. I also think children have the right to appear in public and fly on planes... .seeing as most of us actually were children once? But I know that isn't a popular opinion!

weddings are boring. children are lovely, especially babies. sorry... personal opinion.

When I got married, many years ago, we mainly had relatives (endless children) - many of whom we didn’t really know and not much room for friends. I think it is so much better now that close family and friends are the priority. Weddings are so expensive now that I quite understand if children are not invited. I know my grandchildren would get thoroughly bored at a wedding and my daughter would welcome the chance of a little ‘me’ time.

Would depend on where it was, whose wedding it was and if I could get a babysitter. I certainly wouldn’t be offended at my child not being invited, their wedding so completely up to them. Would love a child free day/night out sometimes! However there are times when it just isn’t possible to leave them and in that instance I wouldn’t expect the bride/groom to be offended if I couldn’t come and would wish them well. Would hope no hard feelings either way

Meh their wedding, their choice, and it's the choice of people with kids whether they go.

Two scenarios that are awkward though that I've experienced -

1. One where the couple exclude kids from invite then are upset / offended when people don't go or all the wives don't go.

Happened a couple of years back when I had an ebf baby so agreed dh would go on his own and drive back (but a longish way). Obviously a lot of families were going to do the same and the couple obviously didn't want their guests to just be a load of blokes. So then said we could bring the baby after all but by this time there were no hotels available that vaguely near by so I said I still couldn't go to which they got quite miffed about.

1. Another said children could be brought but had to be in a kind of makeshift creche at certain points of the day, they'd hired entertainment and a nanny to look after the kids etc, so I get they'd spent a fair bit of money on it.

They then got miffed when they couldn't understand that some parents weren't prepared to leave their kids with said nanny. They just didn't get that some kids wouldn't cope with being left with a stranger.

Think a lot of the tension is due to people getting married not having kids yet so not understanding that not everyone has childcare that's affordable and practical, especially if the wedding isn't local.

We spent 5k on our wedding and kids were invited. Lots of people commented how they loved the day because it was chilled. At the time I had a 3 year old, 1 year old and I was pregnant, so I was cool with kids being there.

I think it's up to the bride and groom ultimately but if they make the decision not to allow kids then they should expect I might not be able to come.

(the reason I said what we spent is because we only had 40 guests in the day- I think it's just an excuse to use money as a reason tbh)

"weddings are boring"

Not necessarily. I enjoy weddings, but I rarely go to any. All of my friends and family are either already married or don't want to get married.

Child-free weddings are fine. As long as bride and groom also accept not everyone is going to have or even want to arrange childcare covering a whole day and evening.

When my cousin did her list she depended on couples being able to attend as "one can stay home with the kids". & for single parents there was plenty of time for them to arrange childcare.

There was no understanding that you can't order people to see your event and arrangements as their priority. & even if you look askance at couples who may want to be at your event together and won't come if just 1 invited, then you simply accept that's their choice. Single parents..it can be that they can't find morning till night childcare. They have to depend on someone being available AND able to have their child(ren) for all that time.

Just as everyone else has to accept your wedding is child free.

My cousin was annoyed I didn't attend wedding. But my DCs were young and I was working full-time. If their dad had been able to come along so we could share the 6 hour round trip drive, I'd likely have made the effort. As it is, I didn't bother.

All day & evening event, and then driving back shattered didnt appeal.. I didn't want to do overnight hotel either - I wanted to wake up at home and chill with my family the day before going back to work. So that was that.

If my kids aren’t invited to weddings, I am not going to be driving more than an hour or two to attend, if I can be bothered at all (people that are that fussed about avoiding children irritate me anyway).

We are getting married later on the year and having a small wedding (close family and friends) and have decided to invite children as we have our own and are close to the children who will be invited (about 17 altogether including our own). I know it will be a little rowdy but there were a couple of children that we couldn't NOT invite so decided to invite them all- does anyone have any ideas of ways to entertain children at a wedding?

*does anyone have any ideas of ways to entertain children at a wedding?
That’s up to the parents isn’t it?

and the older 2 qould have been absolutely disgusted at the notion of chicken nuggets when we were eating proper food

Yes- I have never understood this idea that children have to have "kid's food" as opposed to a small plateful of whatever the grown ups are having. In European countries this seems to happen a lot less, so maybe a British thing (I'm British myself so not being goady.)