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.

Weddings are the joining together of two families. Why would anyone exclude members of the family from the event?

Agree with @outsidelookingout.

Why should hosts invite children or anyone they don't know or have a social relationship with.

It's not an automatic right of children to attend someone's 'do', wedding, dinner party or anything else.

What do parents usually do with their kids if they want to go out for dinner etc?

Parents need to nurture relationships with babysitters/ child minders etc if they want to go out without the kids or stay home till the kids are 18.

Apart from anything else, adults are usually bored to sobs by other people's kids, and kids are usually bored to sobs by adult parties.

I have never been to a completely childfree wedding, the type of B&G who would have one are probably not my type of people 🤣

It is completely acceptable and usual to not invite the children of friends or extended family due to cost/numbers especially if you don't really know the children very well, but I have never been to a wedding where immediate/close family/friends children have not been warmly welcomed, even if they do make a noise during the vows.

I have been to extended family/friends/colleagues weddings where closer children have been invited and ds has not been invited and I would not have expected him to be.

We’ve just started planning our wedding and are having child-free with the exception of children of the immediate family (my brother and sister, and FH’s brother).

The decision is purely based on numbers and costs. If we were to invite all children of attendees, we would be looking at 24 children, rather than just 4. All the venues we’ve looked at so far charge children the same as adults. For us, it’s just not affordable.

I agree with PP’s though that if/when people decline, there will be no hard feelings😊

Im always surprised when people describe this. Are a lot of people getting married at weird times of life?

Surely the whole point is when you & most of your friends/cousins etc are getting married, that window in your late twenties when you get a glut of invites, hardly anyone has actually got kids? We only had a few friends who had very young babies when we got married at age. Now our own kids are of an age where wedding invites would be a hassle, we haven't had one in four years! Everyone is already married. The next wedding is likely to be my niece who's a teenager.

Also, no wedding covers both halves of your family except your own. We just used PiL to babysit for weddings including all my family, and used my parents for weddings including all DHs.

Weddings are the joining together of two families. Why would anyone exclude members of the family from the event?

Because the evening party is usually a boozy affair running til midnight, no one wants tired or hyper children there. It means you can't relax, invariably the sort of parent who keeps a 3 year old up til 10pm is also letting them run riot/not watching them closely enough which forces everyone else to be keeping an eye on them/make sure they aren't knocked over on the dance floor etc and most people just want to let their hair down and dance.

And I've never yet known a wedding exclude a baby of under 6 months, and very few exclude under 1s.

Because cousins kids aren't exactly central to that union of families.

Sad but true, many will only see cousins at family events, weddings, christenings and funerals.
It makes little difference to the couple if cousins kids are there or not. Other than the venue limitations and the financial burden.

When did you last see your cousins or their children?

We just used PiL to babysit for weddings including all my family, and used my parents for weddings including all DHs.

Well that's great for you that you have four willing and able grandparents to babysit. Some people like us are 0/4

@ContinuousProcrastination your basing your views on your family. Where the first cousins generation are fairly close in age.

DH has first cousins with about 20 years between the oldest and youngest. He's somewhere in the middle. Some of his older cousins had teenagers he'd never met when we married - 15 years ago - we've still never met them!

If cousins are invited to a family occasion it seems bizarre to me not to include their children when they are small. Every family has a core of people who are included in family events. This of course changes over time as offspring grow up and form their own family units. But children of family are family while they are dependent. Not every family includes cousins but this one OPs does.