Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 ··· 29 30 31 32 33 34

Original poster

To be irritated by this wedding invite?

844 replies

JukEki · 24/01/2022 04:10

We have been invited to two child free weddings, both in June. We are going to attend both and are pulling in favours for childcare. However I can’t pretend that I’m not mildly irritated by the wording in one of the invites!

One invite said “Unfortunately bearing in mind we have limited guest numbers we cannot accommodate everyone’s children however this is a golden opportunity for parents to enjoy a night of relaxation and uninhibited revelry!”

The second simply said ‘ Whilst we love your children please note this is an adult only occasion’

The first annoyed me as actually it’s not going to be relaxing for me in the slightest, it’s quite inconvenient and expensive to not be able to bring the children and I’m more likely to be hand expressing in the toilets than dancing on a table.
It is absolutely the couple’s prerogative to have the wedding they want including making a decision to have no children- just own it and say so instead of dancing around it and pretending it’s a night off for me.

Happy to be told I’m unreasonable- first also contained a money poem which may be biasing me 😂

OP posts:

Witchcraftandhokum · 31/01/2022 14:50

We had a child-free wedding because we don't really like small children. But we didn't put anything on the invite, we just didn't send invites to the kids.

FirewomanSam · 31/01/2022 15:19

If family are invited to weddings how can close relative children be excluded for a totally kids free wedding? People obviously have different family set ups but as I said I would think it not easy for most to exclude very close family children like siblings children for example?

@Hadtocomment in my experience nieces and nephews are usually invited. Maybe a godchild or two too. My nephew would have been a babe-in-arms at my wedding (which didn’t happen in the end due to covid) so he was included anyway, but if he’d been older I would still have invited him. But not any of my friends’ children.

In my experience when people post on here upset about child-free weddings they aren’t usually talking about close family, it’s usually friends or more distant family weddings where the kids tend not to be included and which causes upset.

appleturnovers · 31/01/2022 15:21

The wording of the first one is just so patronising! Say if they had invited kids: the people who have cheap and easy access to childcare and really want a night off from their kids would just arrange that for themselves anyway.

It reminds me of some of my clients who will ask you to do a job for a lower rate than usual, but phrase it as though they are somehow doing you a favour. Like "Hi, appleturnovers, we've got a fantastic opportunity! It's a lower rate than normal but the volumes are massive so it'll mean you have a constant source of income for the next two months!" (Um, no , it'll mean having to turn down all of my other clients for two whole months whilst earning less than I usually do for the same workload...). As opposed to the ones who will just straight up say "look, we don't have much budget on this one, this is the top price we can pay, do you want the job or not?" which I have much more respect for.

The last child-free wedding I went to cost us £350 in childcare arrangements alone, as we paid for train tickets and hotels for my MIL to come down and stay in a hotel near the wedding venue, due to the logistics of where the wedding was, and all of us having to leave after work on Friday and get home Sunday evening. It was worth it for one of my closest friends, but there was absolutely nothing relaxing about it for us.

SVRT19674 · 31/01/2022 15:22

I have never been to a childless wedding, not even the only one I have attended in England, but then this is unheard of in the country where I live. Actually, my wedding ended up being with no children, their parents just didn´t bring them, although they were perfectly welcome.
I think your first invitation is tongue in cheek, but with my 3.5 year old not invited I would turn both down.

Smorgasborb · 31/01/2022 18:46

@Shunter350

I think it's awful that people don't want kids present at time of happiness and joy. We were all kids at one time. Just my pov obv!

I don't like small children. I do not enjoy their presence. My happiness and joy would be increased severalfold if they weren't at a party I hosted and paid for and strangely enough am in a position to decide who to invite. Additionally I don't have friends who are so self important and obsessed with their offspring that they wouldn't attend if their children weren't invited. Not my kind of people.

surreygirl1987 · 31/01/2022 19:21

@SMORGASBORB absolutely! I fully agree with you.

blyn72 · 31/01/2022 19:33

@Mojoj

I don't see what the fuss is all about? If you can't get childcare, don't go. Kids can be a pain at weddings. It's too long a day for them. I always enjoyed leaving the kids behind when I attended weddings - way more fun.

Quite agree.

I do not understand why such a big deal is made out of this. If you cannot go, for whatever reason, you cannot go. People send many invitations and don't expect them all to be taken up.

I sincerely hope the bride is not a member of Mumsnet, and sees what has been said here, maybe recognising themselves.

surreygirl1987 · 31/01/2022 20:03

Yes exactly! My children were invited to a wedding with us in the summer and I left them at home anyway.

appleturnovers · 31/01/2022 20:43

I do not understand why such a big deal is made out of this. If you cannot go, for whatever reason, you cannot go. People send many invitations and don't expect them all to be taken up.

I don't get why some people have interpreted this as a swipe against childfree weddings, when the OP very clearly said that's not what it's about. It's about the irritating, patronising wording of one of the invitations.

blyn72 · 31/01/2022 21:37

I doubt very much the couple meant it to be patronising in any way. Presumably the op knows them and likes them, and they her, otherwise she wouldn't have been invited. I don't think the wording was bad, it wouldn't have bothered me. People can't win whatever they say or don't say. Anyway it is done now.

FirewomanSam · 31/01/2022 21:54

Threads like this make me so happy I live in the normal universe where people who invite each other to weddings actually like each other, people are excited to be invited to said weddings, and friends talk to each other about things.

Not the strange parallel Mumsnet universe where people hate all their friends, wedding invitations are an annoyance and an inconvenience, and every couple who gets married is self absorbed and definitely only doing it for the ‘gram.

GillianB2990 · 31/01/2022 22:00

So I'm totally going to get hate for this, but I never take my children to weddings unless it's close family as my husband and I take it as our opportunity to let our hair down and enjoy each other on our own. We also didn't have children at my wedding in June apart from our 2 and the only person who had an issue with it was my MIL who doesn't even have young children my husband is her only child 🤦🏻‍♀️! I agree the wording could have been better but I would just take it as a time for you and your partner to enjoy each other's company on your own as it's very rare we get that opportunity. We are lucky to have family close by to mind our children.

I love my kids dearly but sometimes a day or night just me and my husband is just what we need!

RampantIvy · 31/01/2022 22:59

I don't understand the MN hatred of weddings either @FirewomanSam. But then no-one I know has had a destination wedding requiring everyone to spend £££ to get there and £££ to stay there.

The last one we went to was just the evening do, and the B & G laid on a luxury coach from the local pub for all the evening guests to get to and from the venue. It was a lovely gesture from them as taxis are as rare as hen's teeth round here.

surreygirl1987 · 31/01/2022 23:12

@GillianB2990 I totally agree!!

Marvellousmadness · 31/01/2022 23:42

It could have said" kids not welcome ". Would you rather it said that?

ThinWomansBrain · 31/01/2022 23:50

I don't think I'd even want to be friends with anyone that wrote (or nabbed) that yukky poem.
Much less attend their wedding.

blyn72 · 31/01/2022 23:56

I'm very conscious that this thread is in the public domain, I saw it in the Independent. The op is not the only person to have received such an invitation from her 'friends', and it could get back to the happy couple who will be mortified.

I think if you have a problem with what somebody says, you either speak to them or keep schtum, but don't broadcast to all and sundry. It really is a storm in a teacup but this has blown it out of all proportion.

*GillianB2990(
So I'm totally going to get hate for this, but I never take my children to weddings unless it's close family as my husband and I take it as our opportunity to let our hair down and enjoy each other on our own.
.................
Quite right too!

DaisyMum40 · 01/02/2022 06:50

@ThinWomansBrain

I don't think I'd even want to be friends with anyone that wrote (or nabbed) that yukky poem. Much less attend their wedding.

If anyone gets that offended/irritated by this then I don't think they'd be much loss.

Grasping · 01/02/2022 07:11

I do wonder if a man (father) would be irritated or annoyed by this comment on the invite. I suspect most would thinking ‘great!’

Although I doubt they would admit that to their DP/DW

Grasping · 01/02/2022 07:14

Lots of pearl clutching on this thread at the thought of parents letting their hair down.

Go on, give it a go

bembridge11 · 01/02/2022 07:16

Yep. Bloody irritating. Both of them.
They should just own it.
Hope after all of it you do have fun days at both though.

DaisyMum40 · 01/02/2022 07:21

@Marvellousmadness

It could have said" kids not welcome ". Would you rather it said that?

Can you imagine the uproar on here if a wedding invite said "no kids, we just can't be bothered with them". I mean, that's being honest and "owning it" right? The moaning minnies would still be offended.

appleturnovers · 01/02/2022 10:24

@Grasping

I do wonder if a man (father) would be irritated or annoyed by this comment on the invite. I suspect most would thinking ‘great!’

Although I doubt they would admit that to their DP/DW

Yeah, maybe if they're not the ones having to go to the headache of organising overnight (possibly two nights, depending on the location) childcare, maybe it will be "relaxing" for them!

MrsBaublesDylan · 01/02/2022 11:42

I would think it is a money thing - weddings are extortionate and not inviting kids is a way of keeping costs down.

I wouldn't be offended.

How else could they word it?

"Our wedding has cost us a fuck tonne,
Please tell your children to do one"

Womencanlift · 01/02/2022 12:10

@MrsBaublesDylan

I would think it is a money thing - weddings are extortionate and not inviting kids is a way of keeping costs down.

I wouldn't be offended.

How else could they word it?

"Our wedding has cost us a fuck tonne,
Please tell your children to do one"

Exactly.

Although I would bet most of the moaners on this thread would expect the B&G to not invite their own friends in order that the posters “little family” can come.

The entitlement of some posters on this thread is unbelievable

Flip

1 2 ··· 29 30 31 32 33 34