Will children ever be invited to weddings again

[georgianwindow]

We have been invited to quite a few weddings in the last 12 months - seven of them. All of them have been child free. The postman has just been, with another invitation arriving, also adding to the child free wedding invitation pile.
We have a 5 year old and are expecting a baby in 2 months time. Two of the recent invitations have said that we can bring the little one but not the eldest. The ones that do not welcome the baby have been declined because we can not leave such a young baby.
We don't have childcare options readily available to us and have to drive a 2 hour round trip for this.

I have done a couple of the weddings on my own, and DH has as well (and the other of us has stayed at home) but this isn't particularly enjoyable for the one of us that goes to the wedding.

I understand that everyone can make their own decision regarding their weddings but it really it a shame missing out on events because of this, especially when in most circumstances, the bride & groom have children themselves so know how tricky childcare can be. It is the decision of the bride and groom for their wedding day, it does just mean that some guests will decline attending, or attend but possibly not stay for the reception.

Light hearted thread but will children ever be invited to weddings again! We had them at ours and many of them brightened up the day, making people laugh or getting involved, there were no issues regarding behaviour of children and parents were sensible with keeping them occupied during the ceremony. I can't remember the last time I received a wedding invitation that didn't cause some level of stress.

This. The child friendly weddings are in a hall, children runninga round everywhere, pretty basic and nice. Now people like to have smaller, intimate wedding, dress up have a good meal and a nice atmosphere, don't see what's wrong with that. Both very different types of events, don't like it don't go. At the end of the day it should be what the couple want. Also, generally the reasons behind people complaining sound more like logistics and costs, nothing really to do with having the kids there, more because it's an inconvenience due to childcare

Agree. It's called shit parenting! I reluctantly let children come to the ceremony (put my foot down about the reception). Had one baby cry during the ceremony, another toddler urinated in a tree! And an older child purposely photo bombed some pictures so then had to be photoshopped. Never again, and fully supportive of childfree weddings!

In my group of friends and extended family, everyone wants THEIR wedding to be child free then once they've had kids themselves they're horrified at other people requesting the same.

Not my experience
I had an all welcome wedding
when DC were younger all the weddings were child friendly and some they were asked to be page boy, flower girl or bridesmaid
DD getting married soon and children are included
that doesn’t mean I am unable to understand other scenarios

@Feelinadequate23
I'd forget the big wedding and the headache at go with it, and instead Id get that legal protection around your family unit now.
Small immediate family only wedding. Less hassle and less money.

I've got a wedding coming up next weekend my children are invited, I'd prefer they weren't so I can enjoy a little drink child free, maybe next time haha.

Some of my favourite memories as a child are family weddings. I was one of over 30 grandchildren (one one side) and weddings were full of us. My wedding had lots of children, I just made sure my catering plans didn’t include paying extortionate rates for the children (venue and catering separate, under 5s parents brought food, older ones we catered for separately) I couldn’t imagine having a wedding that excluded my closest friends and families children. But that’s me. I’ve been to child free weddings and to be honest find them a bit boring.

One of my younger cousins had a child free wedding, many of us sucked it up but it was such a head ache of many of us, from grumpy uncle and aunt who were pissed of with declining invites due to childcare to some parents needing to leave early for various reasons. I only accepted and sucked it up due to my DF recently passing and knowing he’d want me to keep his brother happy and my mother wanting all of us (her adult kids) there. It meant leaving my children including a baby with an extended relative of my DHs that I really wasn’t comfortable with so we left early which pissed uncle up his own arse, who claimed he paid for it all when he didn’t, off no end.

I actually don’t have any friends who have had child free weddings, unless you include the ones who eloped or married overseas, then it was if you want to come come, no obligations, children welcome.

If your willing to cut off friends because they see you and your child as separate individuals that's your problem.

Do you still expect an invite to every event your parents attend?
Likewise will you be upset when your kid gets invites you don't get?

There's only one woman in my close friendship group (8 of us, friends since school) left to get married and if all our kids were invited to her wedding that would be 19 children! And then the bride has nieces and nephews and her husband to be has nieces and nephews and his friends have kids. I'm baffled at anyone wanting upwards of 30 kids at their wedding. I've been to lots of weddings (im in Ireland) and it's only ever children directly related to the family or tiny babies.

Inviting children to weddings means:

• Extra headcount (so chairs/ spaces on tables)
• Extra cost
• Guests leaving early because the kids are tired/ had enough/ need to get them home

The older the bride and groom are, the more likely their friends are to have children. I say this as someone who got married in my late 30s. If I'd have invited children (we only had our own 2 children and nieces/ nephews), then our guest list would have more than doubled. The grand majority of our friends have at least 2 children.

Our venue charged only £10 less per head for children than adults. It would have cost us a fortune and we probably would have had a mass-exodus of guests at around 8-9pm, so they could get their kids home.

Weddings are much better as adult only/ small number of immediate family children.

That's it exactly. You get married later everyone else has kids.
You can't invite one friends kid and not another's three. We could have potentially had 36 kids going from about 19yo down to 3mths.
Even little ones eating of the kids menu, the older ones would need a adult meal (bar food & party bag isn't going to cut it).

Venues generally only hold 100-130 people. 36 is a lot of seats

This was the problem with mine. I would have had 20 under 5's just with my immediate family, um no thanks!!

Totally! Also when I go to a wedding, I want to relax, enjoy myself and let my hair down! I feel I need to moderate my behaviour when kids are around (and rightly so) which completely changes everything. I like the party atmosphere of a childfree wedding, rather than a family event which are nice but usually very boring!

Exactly! Much more relaxing.

I'm always disappointed if my son gets invited too. 😂

We don't have childcare and zero chance of me trusting a teenager with a 1 and 4 year old for 10+ hours. Professional agencies around me are £20 an hour most weddings we get invited to would be overnight somewhere.
My friends all have 2 children all same ages roughly so adding another 2 in the mix is just unfair and unmanageable. Family is 600+ miles.... so yes it's completely reasonable to say we have no childcare options which wouldn't cost over £300 to attend one event.

DS1 is also classic covid kid due to being 12 months when lockdowns hit (were longer in Scotland with no nursery etc) it's not possible to leave him with people he doesn't know extremely well would cause distress.

Your issue is really due to lack of childcare and the inconvenience to you, it's nothing about the couple or being with your children and celebrating

I love children at wedding and have really wonderful childhood memories of being involved in weddings (but was flower girl at these so I guess VIP child, not sure if there were non family children at those even in the 90s!). For my first wedding, children were invited - and no one brought theirs as they wanted to party without them! Only the wedding party kids were there.

Well yes but my response was to a poster saying lack of childcare isn't a issue.....
We take weddings in turns between DH and I individually if our children aren't invited or decline the invite all together if unworkable and have zero issues in doing so.

I do find this sort of question a bit shortsighted as I think everyone looks at their one or two children and thinks surely there must be room for my little angels… and they forget the bigger picture. We got married a bit later than all of our friends and had a guest list of 65 adults. We opted for family children only to take it to 74. If we had opened it to children outside of our family it would have entailed 27 children under the age of 5 being invited. The cost alone would have been insane but equally it would have dramatically changed the entire wedding and turned it into a nursery play date.

Most of weddings we have been to in past few years are child free. Doesn't bother me as I would prefer to enjoy the day without the kids but appreciate it's difficult if you don't have childcare.

We had family children only at ours. All our friends have multiple children and the children would have near enough doubled the adults. We also had a small venue. We did however make a few exceptions with a friend that had a disabled child who couldn’t be left and also a friend that had a newborn.
we have been to many weddings where it is no children allowed apart family only and that is fine it’s there choice, it could be a cost thing it could be a size thing. I think that if you have been invited and have had that invitation with plenty of notice then hopefully childcare can be arranged.

Exactly, it's very odd. Some people seem to suddenly lose all perspective once they have kids. No body wants to go to a wedding overrun with small children (including people with small children, some of us want a chance to relax and enjoy ourselves!!)

Are you getting more child free invitations because most in your social circle now have kids so inviting them would basically double the guest list and mean that you could only have half as many of the adult guests? I know I found basically the older people were getting married the more likely they were to have child free, or specify only close family children, just because the number of children was getting unmanageable. It's easy for people who only had a handful of children involved in their wedding to think having children at your wedding is easy, but sometimes I voting the same adults 10 years later means a lot more kids involved!

these days i tend to think I'm lucky to be invited at all given costs etc and if it's no kids or no invitation at all if chose the invitation, because I can always decline if I can't sort childcare but it's nice to have the option.

I know what you are saying about that not applying to babies in arms, and I agree it seems like a good compromise to invite them, but I've also seen some people complain about that because then their older child feels more left out (I personally think you can sell that positively to the older child about having more fun with babysitter, but my point is you can't please everyone).

Im surprised if the weddings in question are either family or a circle of friends that you wouldn't enjoy it on your own. Surely you know lots of guests well and people don't want to spend the whole day talking to their partner! I'd only not want to go without my partner if I wasn't going to know any other guests well, in which case I might well politely decline if we couldn't both go, rather than moan about invitations causing problems.

I don't think all wedding are child free now though, or that they didn't exist in the past. I can only remember my parents going to one wedding when I was a child in 80s and I was left with grandparents for that. But then I think with people marrying younger, not living together for a long time first back then, there probably were less children born in friendship groups by the time people got married - and there were more small registry office weddings etc, or church ones that focussed on local congregation, so I don't think my parents went to every friend or cousins wedding anyway. Whereas with civil ceremonies, weddings in hotels etc, people seem to be invited to more now, and it's more if a full weekend event.

We didn't meet until our mid 30s by which time our friends had 34 children between them so, apart from one family travelling from the other end of the country (and whose daughter was a bridesmaid) and a newborn, we had to restrict it it to family children only. It certainly wasn't out of principle or cost, it was more of a space thing.

I know it pissed off a couple of friends until we explained.

Thank goodness my niece and her five children were out of the country!

Thinking about it though, I can't remember the last time I saw a child at a wedding.