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.

Relatives/friends too elderly/infirm/busy to care for them, no living relatives on either side of family, distance too great for either to travel, not enough money to pay anyone, no local babysitters to pay in the first place, children with higher care needs who no one else can/will look after, lack of suitable accommodation and/or transport - there are quite a few reasons I can think of off the top of my head, I'm sure they're are other reasons too.

I don't see how it's that's bemusing?

Am wondering if there's anything left to be said on this topic...

That would be quite an extreme set of circumstances.
Presumably anyone inviting you to a wedding would be aware, and understand the fact that you’d have to decline?

That you couldn’t have a night away from your children until they were 17 is mad!!!

and not typical of most families

Same!

@Hannahsbananas , when I was little, if there was a wedding or funeral, we'd spend the day at a friend's house or with cousins.
Now weddings are often much further away and involve an overnight stay or two, or even abroad.

Because some parents are entitled and would just rock up with their children anyway.

I didn't say all at once - any one or combination of a few of them would be reason enough, surely?

Probably not typical, but I would say most people don't have babysitting for the purposes of going out (as in not for something like work) on tap - most people I know have to plan well in advance, and most don't have access to it unbridled, whenever they feel like it. I can't just have a night away without a fair bit of forward planning, and me going out with my husband only happens maybe twice a year?

It's luck of the draw, unfortunately, not everyone gets the same hand dealt to them!

I do but they all have family around so had babysitters available if they needed them.

DH and I went out often, just not together unless we could take the children. My friends all have children too so nearly all our get together were child friendly (and still are, our now adult children are all still invited if they are around).

This post interested me so I looked back at our guest list. We had 60+ children between us at our wedding :)
Nearly all family children, I couldn’t imagine not inviting our own small family members to my wedding.
We selected venues to accommodate everyone as inclusivity was so important. It’s sad that this culture of not including children is growing, it seems selfish to me. I’m with you OP

60+ children wouldn't feel like a wedding to me, it would feel like a children's party.

There's nothing wrong with not wanting your wedding to be like a children's party.

@Hannahsbananas Not sure why you're bemused. Not everyone has help. I'm not from the UK so no family and you can't impose overnight stays on friends.
Do you have children?

@Hannahsbananas your comment Don’t you have any friends?? Is just nasty. You're obviously not someone who can compromise or sympathize with people - essentially traits for a good marriage/partnership.

@Dontworkmondays , in my circle, children weren't invited. Many of my cousins are much older than me, and it was my parents who went to their weddings. In my late teens, I was invited to the evening party but not the ceremony or reception.

If the cousins or friends were close to my age, I went to the ceremony and reception.

Children weren't there, unless they were bridesmaids. It wasn't an issue.

FWIW, a typical wedding would be a chapel ceremony, with a sermon and hymns and taking the vows, followed by the registrar bit.

Then lots of standing around for photos, then into cars to go to the reception, a sit down meal with lots of speeches.

None of it was particularly suitable for children. TBH, it's a long day of sitting still or standing around making small talk.

It was a question.
I wondered how anyone could lead quite such an insular life, but I wasn’t addressing you directly so please don’t pick apart all my posts, please…
Maybe you could respond to some other posters as well?
Oh, and yes, I do have children but I’m unsure of the relevance, really.

@Hannahsbananas I can't help it...I'm ...bemused by your combative attitude.

I promise you my life wasn’t / isn’t insular. DH and I both had time on our hobbies while the other one was with the children. I didn’t go back to work until youngest was in secondary school (and then only term time) so I had quite a lot of “life” with other school Mum’s during the school day as well as volunteering at the school. We went out a lot together as well - but as a family. DH has a Mon-Fri job so weekends were time together. Holidays as a family and as a group of friends all with our children.

The “children” are adult now and only one still lives with us so no issues but both DCs were invited to the last wedding I went to (last Autumn).

Ive only been to one child free wedding and the invitation DID explicitly say “sorry but this is a child free event”. Bridegroom was fine that DH and I had tag team it but his new wife was “if they were really your friends they’d get the grandparents to babysit” - BG pointed out that as dead grandparents are really rubbish at that.

And just to avoid your next question…. No DH wasn’t there when I had our second - he was at home looking after our eldest.

I don't see how it is selfish at all! 🙈

I find it weird to not have any children at weddings. I’d trust my friends and family to make appropriate choices, take them out for downtime if an issue, provide activities for the children to occupy them, get them to bed at an appropriate time. I’d expect their parents to know whether the children would behave.
I wouldn’t go if I couldn’t take my child. Would they be excluded from birthday parties too? Odd.

Birthdays happen every year, weddings don’t.

It would depend on the birthday party too, casual BBQ? Of course but a formal sit down expensive dinner? No.

Adults birthday parties?
Yes, probably. Why would anyone invite their friend’s children to their birthday party?
Most adults birthday celebrations are not planned with under 10’s in mind.

People may well feel they can call on a neighbour or acquaintance for help in an emergency, ie going to A&E with another child. But not feel they could ask the same neighbour to babysit for an evening.

I find it weird that you can't manage to do anything without your child. It's not healthy for you or your child. Do you never have 1:1 with your partner for dinner or go out with friends for an adult evening out? Have you never been to a adult birthday party? Think you might be the odd one here

Haha funny. I’m not sure how you got ‘I can’t do anything without my child’ from my post 🤣🤣
I just think it’s strange to not invite a family unit including child/ren to a wedding and I wouldn’t go. I didn’t say I wouldn’t go out anywhere without my child ever 🤣🤣
I was thinking about daytime birthday parties too really tbh rather a boozy evening do type affair where I wouldn’t expect to take my child as it might be inappropriate.

I’d take a younger child home from a wedding at an appropriate time or have a room booked to enable them to go to bed as required.
Fortunately all my friends and family have similar views and no children have ever been excluded from our weddings and they’ve all been amazing.