“Weddings are family occasions to celebrate the formation of a new family. It’s just miserable to exclude children.“
This!
I’m from Scots background of Irish catholic descent, all family weddings included children, my own wedding had loads of kids, they were fab and loads of fun and quite honestly better behaved than many of the adults, with a joyful, appreciative attitude. If I could have had ONLY child guests I would have, those children are now adults and the ones who were old enough at the time to remember the wedding still on occasion say what a great time they had and how well looked after they were.
I’ve never been invited to a child free wedding even before I had dd and all the weddings I’ve been to the children at them were loved and welcomed by bride and groom and entertained and looked out for by pretty much all guests over the course of the weddings.
To me weddings are about the joining of 2 families (and when I say families I include closest friends who I love just as dearly) it’s a joyful, celebratory occasion that those who love you want to be there for.
“The anti-children thing is very much a British (and from what I could decipher of the OP's post) Irish point of view - children not being allowed or welcome in certain restaurants or pubs, or after a certain time in the evening etc.” I would go as far as to say an English thing, after living many years in England when I moved back to Scotland with dd I noticed children much more included up here, events I was invited to which are very much seen as adult only events in England are less likely to be so up here, eg engagement parties, adult milestone birthday parties...
And having lived in europe and with many friends living overseas I see it’s the case there too in their sm posts and discussions I have with them, with the possible exception of USA.
I had an Italian boss once and we got onto discussing that difference and he was saying it made sense to include children as the presence of children tends to influence adults to behave more calmly, sensibly than they do when there is the combination of alcohol and no children, I thought it an odd attitude at the time (I was only 19) but as I’ve aged I can see what he meant.
“When I look back at all the decades old family photos of weddings there were children at every single wedding. It is only in the past 20 years all this seems to have changed.” Totally agree with this
I actually worked in the wedding industry for a time and towards the end of that time the social media thing was just starting to take off and I saw the beginnings of style over substance of weddings happening. People seem to be losing sight of what weddings and marriage are about, I foresee a big spike in divorce rates and I am a divorcee myself but I suspect there’s a fair increase in divorces happening before the marriage hits the 5 year mark.
“The main reason for not inviting children to the weddings? Numbers. Nothing to do with letting parents relax or child hating. Just simply not having space for another 20+ guests.” Actually I think “money” is more accurate, it’s to do with the change in the type of venues used for receptions and how their pricing is structured. When weddings were of the church + village hall for reception variety and the village hall aspect had numbers limitations on fire regs only but how many were being fed wasn’t strictly a price per head, numbers could be more flexible. That’s the type of wedding I had and the caterers quoted price on approximate numbers eg £500 for 30-40 guests type idea not per head which is what most popular venues do now to maximise their profit. When my parents got married they didn’t even have caterers, their mothers and other relatives sorted the food, dads and others organised drinks.