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.

In which case why would you support any guest attending, with or without children?
I mean come on, we clearly aren't discussing that kind of event.

It's creepy how many European countries stereotype us, to the point they have widely held ideas on our children. Imagine us having a stereotype on Slovenian kids or whatever? lol. Sounds even funnier typed out. The only time I ever hear about foreign kids it's on Mumsnet and how superior French kids supposedly are.

Don’t worry, you’re not special in that. There are unflattering stereotypes of all countries and their citizens (Russians abroad are considered in much the same way as Brits. See also Germans and Americans) and you’ll find people in each that think their country alone is the victim of this.

I know that but in Britain they are general like 'Germans are a bit cold' they're not that specific. None about kids. The sophisticated French kids thing is a weird MN obsession. Brits don't have stereotypes for most places where I hear there are stereotypes for us. We have a few for immediate neighbours like France, or big faraway nations like China, but that's it.

The PP didn't say she would 'cut off' her friends. Merely that she would choose not to attend their weddings if those happened to be child free.

Declining a wedding invitation does not mean terminating a friendship. If it did, then it wasn't much of a friendship to start with.

Why? None if my kids attended my wedding. It was in Sri Lanka and taking them (especially the youngest) would've meant spending the whole trip working around them. None of them were bothered by it but the did all come to the party when we got home

*The PP didn't say she would 'cut off' her friends. Merely that she would choose not to attend their weddings if those happened to be child free.

Declining a wedding invitation does not mean terminating a friendship. If it did, then it wasn't much of a friendship to start with.*

This is the issue, though. Some people do get incredibly offended when you decline a wedding invitation even if your reason for going is justified (not wanting to leave children, not having the childcare - both are valid) and then it does impact friendships. I'd like to think it wouldn't, but I've experienced this first hand.

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!!)

We found this. A number of our family and friends had their hands very full all day (and my husband reckons one or two looked quite stressed, God bless em) in our wedding and even said themselves after the day that they couldn’t let their hair down. It seemed no coincidence to me that a small but significant number of the toddlers were having a particularly temperamental day - and why on Earth wouldn’t they in a boring wedding all day? I certainly wasn’t going to put on a bouncy castle and children’s performer (although we did a lot to make them have as nice a day as they could without it becoming like a child’s party - kid-friendly canapés and snacks etc, no long ceremony or drinks reception…). It beats me why people want to take them this older toddler age, when childcare is NOT an issue or if they are not v close family. Fair enough if childcare is an issue though…

We are both mid-thirties and everyone seems to have babies and toddlers (as do we now) so we needed a dozen high chairs, not even counting older kids! And this was us only inviting close family kids and kids of our friends who had come from abroad.

And they very much changed the dynamic of the day. They were good fun - especially the ones from say 4 up who could dance until later and behaved beautifully. But the toddlers and babies, as sweet as they were, did very much cry during speeches and even our vows - if anyone is reading this thread wondering about whether to go child free or not. As expected. Got both caught on film. And lots of footsteps as parents remove them. 🙈 We laugh about it now but the thought of “Ah this is why people have child free weddings” did cross my mind during our vows, I must admit… But I will be the embarrassing drunk/dancing aunt at their wedding one day to get even. 😂

Really? I’ve heard a lot of stereotypes about various countries, some vague, some more detailed, and some that are indeed about children. I’ve never found the British to have less stereotypes about other nations, than other nations.

In ye olde worlde days (at least in my living memory, so from 1970s up until now) most weddings were childfree - at least in terms of non family children! You didn't have masses of people at your wedding, usually just a few close friends and their partners, and your family, which was your WHOLE family including children; and the after parties were usually just a buffet at a local club, or even someone's house in a pinch.

I think all that seemed to change as the trend for enormous weddings grew, that seemed to start sometime in the late 1990s, early 2000s? But obviously that then set off an anti kid backlash as more and more non related children were added to wedding guest lists to accommodate the adults attending, and huge numbers of children really are a logistical nightmare for people organising a wedding, and other guests.

But now things have just gone completely bonkers by some people redefining childfree to mean family children as well, which I think is pretty disgusting, I mean you wouldn't cut out your grandparents because they're too old to party like you do because that would be ageism, so why is cutting out nieces and nephews any different?

I'd like to just go back to the old days, weddings were SOOO much better back then! I don't really like attending other people's weddings now, they're all mostly just expensive hassle and they all look pretty much identikit, so what's the point?

Haven't RTFT but I see the wedding binary thing is being peddled out a lot. The "flashy, fancy, insta" weddings I've been to have all been ones with kids in attendance, with the kids in their outfits being a focal point of the day. Lots of pictures of the kids in their pretty dresses/suits posing in pretty surroundings for insta. The childfree weddings I've been to have all been very small, relaxed, informal events - think registry office for the ceremony and pub meal for the reception.

I think the assumption that all childfree weddings are cold, formal and stuffy is a weird sibling of the myth that all childfree people are cold, rich career people who take 17 exotic holidays per year.

Anyway, I prefer childfree weddings but only because the ones I've been to with kids have felt more like very formal kids' parties. Lots of running riot, shouting out, generally being bored and creating a ruckus.

The only ones I know of are racial ones. Ex. Asian kids take their education more seriously. But nothing specific like Greek kids are 'x' and do 'y'

What kids ones have you heard?

but now things have just gone completely bonkers by some people redefining childfree to mean family children as well, which I think is pretty disgusting, I mean you wouldn't cut out your grandparents because they're too old to party like you do because that would be ageism, so why is cutting out nieces and nephews any different?

Are grandparents likely to shout throughout the vows, run up and down the aisle, or like a wedding I was at, climb on the altar and loudly rendition "let it go" while their parents indulgently video it for the 'gram "aww she thinks it's a stage"...

I never attended a wedding as a child. Close family were married before I was born or eloped. And I wasn't invited to parents cousins weddings.

But I think attitudes to weddings have changed.
B&G Parents no longer get to insist on Great Aunt Jean that nobody has seen in years.
Weddings are as much about friends as family.
Friends are more likely to be young and have children at home than Great Aunties.
So what in trying to say is the average weddings guest age will have dropped but their likelihood of having children at home will have risen.

Where do people draw the line with older kids would you invite a friends 19 yo kid to your wedding?

I've never been to children free wedding, but maybe it's cultural difference between UK and my home country. We had children at our wedding too, they're family.

A few off the top of my head:

Eastern European (Russian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Polish etc) kids are thieves. See also Roma children, and Greek, actually. See also the adult counterparts of all.

German children - same ones that apply to German adults.

American kids are fat and will possibly shoot you. Again, same as the adults.

Similarly, the stereotypes that are applied to British children are no different to the stereotypes applied to British adults.

We went went friends over family at our wedding. So had parents and siblings. GPs were asked but too elderly to travel. Both my parents were only children so no aunts, cousins etc on my side. DH does have these relatives but never really sees them, so rest of our guests were friends.

I only attended one wedding when I was a child, and was early teen at that point I think. That was a registry office do, first time my mum had been to a wedding like that and not sure she was too impressed, especially when the groom's 3 previous ex wives were guests (looking after the various children he had)

Depends - a number of my elderly relatives are developing illnesses like Alzheimer's, so a certain amount of inappropriate shouting and/or actions like wandering about aren't off the cards!

They're also without exception physically more disabled than they used to be, happens to us all when we get that old, meaning more accommodations have to be made in order to allow them the opportunity to attend. That might be something as simple as adding ramps and working out who's giving lifts to whom; or or may be something as big as changing venues because they can't accommodate them in terms of physical presence, or dietary requirements, or distance, or something else.

We don't, however, just uninvite them - we accommodate, we understand, and we get over the fact that our weddings probably won't be like you are in the movies. Because no wedding looks like the ones in the movies, they're not real!

Lol. Such bollocks. You may have heard someone say any of the above but they are not widely held. We don't have stereotypes for European children in British culture. The only one you listed that is accurate is believing US kids are fat on average (which they are).

And the last bit is not true either. Some nations stereotypes of British kids are they talk back to parents/rule their parents, take 'soft' subjects, have reckless sex as young as 12/slutty. Those are not stereotypes about adults.

If you said Lithuanian children steal, German kids are cold and US kids will shoot you, you won't find British people nodding along in agreement, they'd think you were bloody bonkers. 😂

@GeekyThings making accommodation to meet required needs is a completely different kettle of fish to having someone expect their child to disturb another's event because 'they're soo cute' as per my examples.

I don't think weddings are a great place for small children and I'm actually kind of dreading entertaining mine all day at BILs wedding in a couple of months. Not to mention he'll go to bed at 7, so either my evening is cut short or I've got to trust a local sitter who I've not met before. It's a bit of a headache and I'd rather have left him with my mum for the weekend honestly but he's a page boy so there we go. And before anyone says oh just bung him in the pram and screw bedtime, thanks but that won't work for us.

I can see both sides.

When we got married (one of the last of my friends to get married) our daytime venue only held 50 people. As most of mine and DH’s friends had a partner and at least two children we would hardly be able to invite anyone if we had children there. So we asked our really close friends what they thought and without exception everyone even the ones living 3 hours away told us not to invite kids.

Since having children like you we have had to miss some weddings completely or one of us has attended on their own.

There’s one solution to all this - elope!

Your example was an extreme, as most kids and parents at weddings wouldn't act like that - that sounds like a personality issue, not a child issue. In the same way as a best man who makes an inappropriate speech, or a grandad who gets drunk and gets into a fight with the waiter aren't good reasons for not having best men or grandads at weddings!

And accomodations for required needs includes children, they have needs that sometimes need to be accommodated. It's the same thing. Age is only a factor in terms of what particular accomodations might be required in order to include everyone.