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.

God forbid adults could have some downtime without kids around.

I actually agree with this part now after our wedding. I was always firmly of the belief “A wedding is better with children” - until my own. I have a friend who regretted bringing her little one after she had a spectacular tantrum during our vows. (We didn’t mind half as much as she did.) My husband has a couple of friends who also said they couldn’t really enjoy as their little ones were also having one of those days.

I will personally welcome the occasional child-free wedding invitation when my kids are older to have a night with their grandparents. But it is tricky when they are young. We just decline if it’s too far away to get back at a reasonable time/abroad as we won’t leave them overnight yet.

I agree. Many children will behave themselves but there will be some parents who will not or cannot control their children.

We only invited close family children (our own plus our nieces and nephews).

Nothing to do with total numbers, costs or ‘posting on Instagram’ but because over 50% of the guest list would’ve been under the age of 12 if we had. (Married later than most friends who now have plenty of kids between them.

Worked for us, no guests didn’t come because of it but I wouldn’t have minded if that’d been the case.

We invited 8 family children and one child of a friend who is disabled so they wouldn't have been able to attend otherwise.

No other children though. We're on the older side so many of our guests had children. Off the top of my head, if we'd invited them all it would have been an extra 20 people. That's a lot of money!

I think that's your answer.
People are marrying later, they have kids, lots of friends have kids it becomes a sheer numbers thing.

Where do you draw the line?

Children under 18 only, that can involve inviting one sibling but not another. Bit mean.

If you say all kids do you give your friends young adult kids a plus 1?

You are friends with two sisters one has kids, one has two step kids, you never see, do you invite the step kids?

Yes it's easy to say young kids don't eat much but they still take up a place.
How pissed off would you be if your wedding was full of young adult kids who were there out of obligation and who disappeared after the meal because they'd rather be with their pals on a Saturday night.
Read the thread about the girl with the weakest excuse ever for leaving a wedding early (6.30) 50% of posters thought she was right to leave.

You do know not everyone who gets married wants or can have children?

I think if a couple does not plan to have children, it's very normal to have a child-free wedding.

I'm not sure if I have an opinion on people not inviting their own children to their own wedding, though... I'll have to think about that.

God I wish people would stop with the "two families joining together" narrative.

I married my husband, not his family, I do not enjoy spending time around the vast majority of children, therefore no kids over two at our wedding.

Weddings are about the couple getting married and one of the worst things about them is relatives deciding they get a say in who to invite, how things should be done etc. If I were to get married again I'd probably elope so I didn't have to deal with all that shite.

@Bookworm20 DC aren't irriant, however, they are not as important to the B&G as other people they would like at the wedding.

We invited children to our evening reception but not the ceremony - the only children we had were my stepchildren and my sister in laws baby it was mainly for cost but also for noise because our two got quite restless towards the end of the ceremony and just wanted to run around and play (and its a moment we would only get to do once so i opted no kids)! In the evening though we opened the invites up to all and i don't know if it was because it wasn't long after lockdown or if everyone was very organised with babysitters but only one child came hahaha! I think mums and dads just wanted a child free night out thought after covid and i didn't blame them haha!

Whatever the opposite of laid-back is, is what I meant. I didn't know 'flashy' was so loaded. No intent. And I was sympathising with OP about the stress to guests. I'm not dictating how weddings should be celebrated. And I said I would find a wedding without children depressing. Not that I would be depressed spending a day without my children. Seriously, why do so many people jump to the worst possible interpretation and try to fight on here?

Of course it’s true why would I make it up?

It wasn’t cruel IMO, DS had a lovely day at the park, sandpit and splash pool. A much better day than sitting on a hotel floor for 6 hours+

Me and husband got to enjoy our day. It wasn’t in anyone’s best interest to have him there.

I don’t feel bad about it at all.

Bridezillas. The sort that end up costing their relatives the equivalent of a months spending money by the time you've splashed out on an outfit, hotel and travel, paying for their 5* honeymoon in the tropics as noted on the very dahling little poem inside the invite about not needing anything per se, and obligatory stag/hen abroad. Oh and not forgetting the annual leave you need to take as they book it mid week. It's the final "fuck you" to then add please don't bring your offspring even though all your relatives are coming too and finding childcare will cost you even more.

Tedious as fuck.

Get a bloody grip. Jesus.

It wasn’t cruel IMO, DS had a lovely day at the park, sandpit and splash pool. A much better day than sitting on a hotel floor for 6 hours+

Why would he be sitting on the floor? Surely he'd be in a buggy/high chair/someone's arms etc. babies normally get passed around at weddings ime.

I really can't imagine celebrating such a special day without your own child.

I did similar cut ours from 36 to about 9.
And some of those 36 would have been young adults so potentially plus 1s involved.

I ended up with cousins kids on my side, to keep my neices company. DH ended up with a load of his parents pals to keep them happy.

We had a child free wedding, other than our own children and our nieces and nephews. By the time we got round to getting married, all of our friends and cousins etc had already established their families. Had we extended the invites to their children, there would have been more children than adults. We did make allowances for 2 cousins who had small babies, they both said they'd much rather leave their baby at home with the other parent and attend alone.

I hate attending weddings, I find them boring, bad food, bad fashion so I am pleased when they are child free and I have an easy excuse not to attend!

Because a baby still takes up space. They might not be counted for the bill but they are still a person for the fire regulations.

A very active little one who didn’t ever sit in buggies or would never be held in arms by any one ever! Crawled at 6 months on the dot, walking at 9 months, would have been miserable in a hotel restaurant room.

Also only sat in a highchair for a month or two, always desperate to be on the go. So yes would never have sat contently in a highchair at a wedding!!

I agree but also disagree as babies and toddlers are temperamental. The best parents in the world (I think many of them are on Mumsnet, going by some of the comments I read on here… 🙄) might not be able to immediately pacify/plan for an unforeseen tantrum. Our friends are mostly all in our mid-thirties and many have a baby and/or toddler so we had about a dozen needing a high chair at our wedding! That will affect behaviour differently to having a wedding with lots of slightly older kids. The older kids were impeccably behaved.

We have lively babies in my family too, and most others too I imagine. Everyone takes turns to entertain them at weddings.

We ran off on holiday and got married, with no witnesses needed and no guests, partly because of the children issue. We'd been together a while and I had close family members with six children, others with four and it goes on, so who is the wedding for and although close to some of the children, you can't just pick the ones you like, certainly not in my family if you want to remain in it! We totted up attendance and it just wasn't viable and I'd witnessed the nastiness and bickering about wedding guests lists for other relatives, so I avoided all of it and saved a fortune. As children we often got invited to the ceremony and early reception but then went home, as the evening parties were for the adults and, unlike today, these receptions were often in pub / community halls, self-catered and with a friendly adult manning the bar, so not the productions that many of the weddings I've attended recently are and certainly not the cost either! Like any event really, up to those that organise to choose who they want at it and I am sure the costs / production of the wedding, have a big part to play in this. Just to add that I've seen well behaved children at a wedding and I've seen one where two children decided to use the dance floor as a skid pan and knocked over the table with the wedding cake on, which led to an interesting conversation in the middle of the dance floor with the groom and one of the parents!

Nope.

That's a ridiculous statement and not true in many cases.

I purposely had a hen do at my house and catered it myself, as I didn't want to anyone to be unable to come due to cost, or having to use up leave.

We also provided accommodation and all food and drink at our wedding, once again so it cost people as little as possible to attend.

We didn't invite kids because we wanted a relaxed day with family and friends - and most of our friends were grateful to leave their kids at home!

Me neither. There have been a few kids at every wedding I’ve attended.

We didn't have children apart from our own and immediate families to our wedding. Most of our friends have teenagers and I'd everyone brought their teens our head count would've doubled or we'd have had to leave some friends out. We accepted some wouldn't come (they all did tbh) and we have also declined o r only been to part of some child free weddings. I'm personally not fussed either way