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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think childfree weddings are pretty normal now

256 replies

LeVole · 23/09/2021 05:02

We got an invitation for a wedding and the couple specified no kids. This didn't surprise me at all but DH and my mum were both surprised by it.

AIBU to think it's very normal nowadays to exclude children? Personally I didn't as we had a lot of close family with young kids and very few friends with kids but it makes sense if you're in the opposite situation. I think we payed £20 per head for toddlers!!

OP posts:
LilyE1234 · 24/09/2021 10:35

When all our friends got married, no one had children.

Now we’re getting married, they’ve all started having families and there are now about 20 additional children in our friendship group.
We just don’t have the capacity to accommodate this and I’m not cutting friends from the guest list so their toddlers, who we’ve met a handful of times, can attend.
Of course, they can decline the invite if that is an issue but I’d be really disappointed if I knew they were moaning about it, especially as it’s an issue they didn’t have when they were planning their weddings.
Either decline gracefully or accept the invite and enjoy yourself 😊

aSofaNearYou · 24/09/2021 10:39

My wedding next year is child free because my friends' kids are a pain in the arse when they are together and I just don't want my day being ruined by them.

Really wish I could do this. Sadly for me the kids that are a pain in the arse are my nieces and nephews (DPs side) so probably the only kids that will be invited Gin

YouMeandtheSpew · 24/09/2021 10:46

I think they are becoming more normal now. I didn’t have a childfree wedding and tbh I regret it. Actually that’s not fair. I don’t regret having children there but I do regret being bullied into having the least photogenic one as a ‘bridesmaid’. She ruined the pictures.

Bonnytoon · 24/09/2021 10:47

I really loved having kids at my wedding. Their little faces lighting up when it was time for the ceilidh are some of my fondest memories.

LukeEvansWife · 24/09/2021 10:47

@YouMeandtheSpew

I think they are becoming more normal now. I didn’t have a childfree wedding and tbh I regret it. Actually that’s not fair. I don’t regret having children there but I do regret being bullied into having the least photogenic one as a ‘bridesmaid’. She ruined the pictures.
Wow. Just wow.
AudacityBaby · 24/09/2021 10:51

@YouMeandtheSpew

I think they are becoming more normal now. I didn’t have a childfree wedding and tbh I regret it. Actually that’s not fair. I don’t regret having children there but I do regret being bullied into having the least photogenic one as a ‘bridesmaid’. She ruined the pictures.
Christ, that is an awful thing to say.
YouMeandtheSpew · 24/09/2021 10:52

@LukeEvansWife

I wish I could post the photos. You’d understand if you saw them.

RampantIvy · 24/09/2021 10:58

[quote YouMeandtheSpew]@LukeEvansWife

I wish I could post the photos. You’d understand if you saw them.[/quote]
I still think that is a horrible thing to say. Weddings should primarily be about a couple getting married, not about the photos Hmm

Some people have their priorities wrong.

aSofaNearYou · 24/09/2021 11:00

Tbf she may have meant she messed around during the photos, which I would understand.

YouMeandtheSpew · 24/09/2021 11:01

@AudacityBaby

Is it? I stand by it. Not everyone’s photogenic. I barely knew this kid (had met her once before the wedding and have met her once since). She was my MIL’s best friend’s daughter and I got bullied into having her as a bridesmaid. So all my photos with my bridesmaids include a scowling pre-teenage girl who I don’t know.

YouMeandtheSpew · 24/09/2021 11:03

@aSofaNearYou

Sort of - she was a bit old to actively misbehave, like a toddler would, but what I meant was that she deliberately scowled at the camera when asked to smile. In every single photo.

AudacityBaby · 24/09/2021 11:05

[quote YouMeandtheSpew]@AudacityBaby

Is it? I stand by it. Not everyone’s photogenic. I barely knew this kid (had met her once before the wedding and have met her once since). She was my MIL’s best friend’s daughter and I got bullied into having her as a bridesmaid. So all my photos with my bridesmaids include a scowling pre-teenage girl who I don’t know.[/quote]
I misunderstood you - I took photogenic to mean that she wasn't physically attractive, not that she was deliberately pulling faces and/or misbehaving. That's different and I'd be upset by that too.

Tresal · 24/09/2021 11:08

@YouMeandtheSpew

I think they are becoming more normal now. I didn’t have a childfree wedding and tbh I regret it. Actually that’s not fair. I don’t regret having children there but I do regret being bullied into having the least photogenic one as a ‘bridesmaid’. She ruined the pictures.
That is the kind of thing the really evil character in a film would sayGrin.
Cosmois · 24/09/2021 11:09

If people want to have a childfree wedding I wish them well. But with 5 children under 9 it is almost impossible for us to ever attend them especially as I have basically spent the last decade breastfeeding or pregnant. I am not offended though and I don't think I have upset anyone but not attending their child free wedding.

YouMeandtheSpew · 24/09/2021 11:13

@AudacityBaby

I think I used the word ‘photogenic’ wrongly. I didn’t mean it as a comment on her physical appearance, I meant it to convey her behaviour/comfort in front of a camera. But I’ve subsequently Googled the word and I don’t think it means what I thought it means 😂

aSofaNearYou · 24/09/2021 11:13

[quote YouMeandtheSpew]@aSofaNearYou

Sort of - she was a bit old to actively misbehave, like a toddler would, but what I meant was that she deliberately scowled at the camera when asked to smile. In every single photo.[/quote]
Yeah, this was the sort of thing I was envisioning, I would be annoyed too if a child bridesmaid wouldn't cooperate in the pictures! Very different from what people were assuming, which is just that the child was ugly Confused

YouMeandtheSpew · 24/09/2021 11:27

Oh god no I didn’t mean she was ugly, she was actually a very pretty girl. But in every photo she’s wearing a deliberate angry, pre-teenage scowl. The photographer gave up trying with her in the end.

I was told she would love to be a bridesmaid, but tbh I strongly suspect she didn’t want to at all and her mother and my MIL forced her to do it.

LukeEvansWife · 24/09/2021 11:32

[quote YouMeandtheSpew]@AudacityBaby

Is it? I stand by it. Not everyone’s photogenic. I barely knew this kid (had met her once before the wedding and have met her once since). She was my MIL’s best friend’s daughter and I got bullied into having her as a bridesmaid. So all my photos with my bridesmaids include a scowling pre-teenage girl who I don’t know.[/quote]
OMG that has made me laugh (sorry!)

LizzieW1969 · 24/09/2021 11:42

I was told she would love to be a bridesmaid, but tbh I strongly suspect she didn’t want to at all and her mother and my MIL forced her to do it.

^I think this is very likely to be the case.

BrilliantBetty · 24/09/2021 11:46

A family event, but let’s cut off a whole important generation of the family because they irritate us. Sign of the times and then we wonder why our children detach from family matters

I think this is true.
I remember very clearly who included me in family events as a kid (and who didn't!), who made me feel part of the broader family, and it has been reflected in who I spent time with and make an effort with now as an adult.

LizzieW1969 · 24/09/2021 11:47

My DH and I didn’t have a childfree wedding. If we had, some of key family and friends (including the best man!) probably wouldn’t have been able to come, as they lived some distance away and had young DC.

I can see the advantage, though; there were quite a few friends we had to invite to the evening reception only because of a limitation on numbers.

LukeEvansWife · 24/09/2021 11:58

I think this is true.
I remember very clearly who included me in family events as a kid (and who didn't!), who made me feel part of the broader family, and it has been reflected in who I spent time with and make an effort with now as an adult.

That is surprising. I don't remember who left me about, because nobody made a big deal of children not being invited - I came to some but sometimes my parents went out and they might have gone to weddings, who knows?

Children are only offended by a lack of invitation if you tell them that it's offensive. Weddings are long and boring - if you don't tell them that they are missing out on anything, then they won't hold a grudge all their lives.

HagridHair · 24/09/2021 12:03

Well I went to a wedding recently where the bride and groom didn't exclude children and they were very upset afterwards because one of our friends from uni had her baby with her and he screeched all the way through the ceremony, she tried to breast feed him to shut him up but he kept popping off the boob to screech in apparent happiness, she didn't take him out just beamed around at everyone.

He also screeched all the way through the speeches.. both of which the bride and groom had paid to have videoed. She didn't take him out during those either just let him crawl around under the bride and groom screaming 'happily'

So both the ceremony and the speeches videos are ruined by a 7 month old baby. I know how much they paid for the videographer...

HagridHair · 24/09/2021 12:06

Oh and also the couple who got up and prayed for the bride and groom brought their baby to the front with them and she screamed all the way through the prayers and grabbed a hand full of the brides veil whilst her mum was praying. Also because her mum was holding a microphone at the same time as juggling the baby she managed to just use the microphone to project her child's cries all through the church.

So glad we had a child free wedding. We did have a baby there but they took him out when he got a bit grizzly.

PurpleDaisies · 24/09/2021 12:08

@HagridHair

Oh and also the couple who got up and prayed for the bride and groom brought their baby to the front with them and she screamed all the way through the prayers and grabbed a hand full of the brides veil whilst her mum was praying. Also because her mum was holding a microphone at the same time as juggling the baby she managed to just use the microphone to project her child's cries all through the church.

So glad we had a child free wedding. We did have a baby there but they took him out when he got a bit grizzly.

What was that couple supposed to do with their baby? Presumably the bride and groom asked them to do the prayers knowing that could happen. It’s one thing staying in the church with a screaming kid but if you’re at the front of the service actually doing something, where are you supposed to stuff your child?