Adults only weddings - Yay or Nay

[Knittingpandas]

I am not very familiar with the concept - it only happened once to be invited in such a wedding and I have also heard of another.

But how is it possible to invite adults only? I mean if parents go to the wedding then who is supposed to look after toddlers, babies etc. ?

Is it a way to say to people “we invite you but please don’t come?”

We have no family/support around and this invite sounds a bit weird and discriminatory … If you want someone to share the joy and happiness with you then you must welcome his other half and, of course, children under 18 years old! Where are they supposed to stay while their parents celebrate with you?

I suppose it depends on the celebrations..... In Ireland, currently the most popular wedding celebration has a ceremony approx 1 hr long, drink and finger food, a 4 course sit down meal, drinking and dancing until early the next morning. Not very child friendly! Big big fan of child free weddings here tbh (and I have a child)!

I think weddings are so boring for kids. I always leave mine at home even if they have been invited. Exceptions would be my or dh’s brothers and sisters because that is a close family thing.

Other than that, I don’t even take my children to other childrens christenings either.

Love them! A chance to party and have fun without the responsibility of the children. But YABU to say they are ‘rude’. That’s ridiculous. What other people want from their weddings is up to them. What you want from your wedding, party, event whatever is up to you but I think it’s rude of you to judge others for being rude!

Makes no sense to me, sorry.

If it’s that close a relationship, in a close family, why don’t you bother with them normally? It doesn’t suddenly become an important relationship when they get engaged

you seem to want it both ways. On the one hand you haven’t met the bride and only the groom a few times so fuck one of you travelling 6 hours to the wedding. On the other hand it’s a close family relationship so how dare they not invite your kids.

I honestly can’t fathom being cross that people I don’t make the effort to see didn’t invite my children they've never met to their wedding.

I have been invited to 2 weddings that were child free. The 1st one I was able to get a grandparent to have my child. The 2nd one grandparent was unable to have them so I couldn’t go.

Each to their own if someone wants a child free wedding then that’s their choice. I wouldn’t personally have a child free wedding as I think they are family events and was brought up that they are to be celebrated by everyone, but as I said each to their own.

The reason why people now go for child free weddings is because ones they have attended previously have been ruined by kids screaming, running wild, hogging the dance floor, fingering the buffer, ……..etc etc.

I had a wedding that the whole families where invited, not half of the families.

I never felt that a screaming baby or a happy toddler that runs around full of joy destroys my wedding. I was happy to have kids on the dance floor jumping from happiness when they saw us coming. I would never want a “sterile” wedding that everyone is silent and there is no “real life” in it.

I left it to parents to decide whether they would want their children to come or not and I think it’s best for them to have this freedom.

Although myself and my husband where the most important people in this occasion , we very much wanted our guests to feel welcome and included. We wanted to make them happy and not to make them feel “obliged” to leave their kids behind.

If the issue is only financial, which appears it’s not, as many people here have issues with kids behavior, then I would choose another more economical venue, a different day etc.

It really sounds very weird to me someone to exclude their very beloved nieces and nephews so as to invite a work colleague or a university friend that haven’t seen in the last 6 months!

Apologies, but this is discriminatory and bizarre…

Agree that nieces and nephews are close family and should be included.
Friends kids, that’s a personal choice.

To me, it’s unpolite to invite half the family because you have no money to invite them all

Is this a joke? So if a couple wanted to get married but were on a tight budget, you'd still expect your whole family to be invited?
Tell us a little more about the invitation you've received OP. What relationship do you have with the happy couple? How many children of yours are you expecting them to invite and provide meals for? Would you offer to pay for their meals? Woild you be prepared to supervise them at all times, forgoing alcohol and dancing etc to ensure they weren't running riot and bothering other guests or ruining their enjoymemt of the event? When your DC get tired, tetchy and bored, are you prepared to leave the event and take them home early?
Do you insist on taking DC to every event you get invited to or just weddings?
Parents have to accept that once their DCs come along, there will just be some events they can't attend or will have to get childcare for. Everyone saying not all can afford childcare but are expecting happy couple to fork out for meals, entertainment etc. Hypocritical to say the least

My children aren't 'darling', they are normal human beings. They frankly would probably enjoy it more and be better behaved than me. At 9 and 12 years old, they are hardly likely to be screaming or crashing the dancefloor or whatever else. They are actually related to the groom in the wedding I mentioned - unlike me - I just happen to have married into the family.

I don't expect anyone to want me to attend either. I absolutely know I was invited out of obligation - seems really weird that they didn't understand that the obligation would extend to their actual relatives, just because they are under 16 years old.

Agree, Weddings are long days for adults never mind children. And I love a wedding!

This is a confusing post

How does a grown adult not understand the concept of baby sitters

Child free weddings are extremely common and definitely better as an attendee and a host on the most part.

@Knittingpandas again, you have no idea what the word “discriminatory” means.

Discrimination is a serious issue. Stop trivialising it.

This.

You seem to be arguing against yourself - pointing out why most wouldn't expect their dc to be invited to any particular wedding.

Not necessarily true. I’m Irish and the last 4 weddings I’ve been to (including my own) have been child free!

That's your wedding though. This is a different wedding.

You're sounding more unpleasant with every post.

Are you suggesting I'm making it up, or do you in fact understand that other people's lives differ from yours?

@BloodAndFire why so narky? The PP said that the majority of weddings she works with are in the couple's local area. You said the wedding was in the bride's home region. Isn't that the same thing?

@Seekandyeshallfind The invitation was from an ex colleague of my husband who asked us not to bring our 1 year old.

So this guy invited my husband who he hasn’t seen in ages and he preferred him to join his most happiest day in his life than to invite any kid who he knows well and spends weekends together. Weird!

Agreed

It’s absolutely up to the bride and groom and their circumstances.

It’s up to the guest whether they choose to go or not. A family member invited me, my husband and our second child (he was a baby- as I was breastfeeding) but not our older child to their wedding. None of us went.

I did not call them horrible. I suggest you reread. I said that I think it is horrible to exclude kids. I am fully aware that there are cultural and social elements at play. I actually was very clear, and have been repeatedly that I respect that other people think differently, yet my view is not given the same courtesy. You do whatever you like with your wedding, but people do not hold the same views about this matter and everyone is entitled to feel as they do.

Totally

It's not an important relationship to me, at all, whatsoever. They live 2+ hours away from us and we have absolutely nothing in common. Would have absolutely nothing to say to each other.

It's a 'close relationship' because my husband and his first cousin are ... first cousins. They are the sons of two very close siblings, in a small family, who grew up living on the same road.

I was brought up in a family/community where you invite whole families because that's the nature of the relationship. It doesn't matter if you are 'close' to them or not. It's really weird not to invite your first cousin's children if you are inviting family out of obligation. But weddings in his family are childfree, even if the children in question are close relatives.

Well it's an invite not a summons.

I had a child free wedding except my own 2 and it was great. There were no family kids anyway just friend's kids and I don't particularly like one of them as he always has some sort of meltdown which I didn't want to deal with on my wedding day so it was a blanket no kids. Simple. May sound mean but I don't care, it was mine and DHs day, not the kids!

What the hell would a 1 year old do at a wedding for a day?? Christ that'd be my worst nightmare tbh