Normally on these threads, someone will pop up to say that children are always at Scottish and Irish weddings where the focus is on family of all ages. Well, I am Scottish and it was perfectly normal for my parents to attend weddings without me when I was a child. I was a flower girl at my uncle’s wedding when I was 6 and also attended my older cousin’s wedding when I was around 10 and I clearly remember being the envy of classmates on both occasions – they wanted to know what weddings are like and what happens so children being left with babysitters is definitely not a new thing. (for the record I found the flower girl wedding as boring as hell because I was literally the only person there under 20. My cousin’s wedding was, however, excellent because there were other younger cousins there, party games and a children’s entertainer/comedian guy. I had a ball, although I remember nothing about the wedding itself)
My own wedding was childfree and it did raise a few gasps with friends which surprised me, due to the above reasons – I assumed everyone I knew had had a similar upbringing. Only two close friends actually had children at that time – one was absolutely fine with it and the other was upset and other friends were offended on her behalf. The thing is, I come from a very large family – I have 14 cousins (22 with partners) and despite the size, we are all exceptionally close. Not having my cousins at my wedding was unthinkable. Between them, however, at the time of the wedding, there were 27 children. Adding my friends’ kids made it 30. This brought the number of guests to an unmanageable level and would have added considerable costs. There was also not a single child on DH’s side of the family – and they were already feeling outnumbered by my side so we took the decision to go childfree. Two cousins declined for childcare reasons and we completely understood. As I’ve mentioned, one of my friends was grumpy but attended. In truth, I would have happily had my friends’ three dc but you can’t pick and choose – it has to be all or nothing.
I won’t lie though, although the space and expense were our primary concerns, the fact that we could get through the service, speeches etc without being interrupted by screaming or running around, jumping into photos etc, was a massive bonus. It’s funny because I often find that kids are great at wedding receptions – the party bit but incredibly annoying and inappropriate through the ceremony and meal. Unfortunately the fun bit tends to kick off just as they need to be taken home to bed. I wish there was some way of flipping the day.