Child Free Weddings have always been normal - stop pretending otherwise

[thelakeisle]

Just that really. Every other week some entitled family member trots out the "reasons" why she is super special and her children MUST be allowed to attend someone else's wedding. It's batshit, over entitled and frankly weird.

I do not understand this desperate need to control other people's lives or inability to just turn down an invitation politely.

Other people's weddings - no matter who they are or what your relationship is - are not about you. The bride and the groom are the only people who get to decide anything.

No ifs, no ands, no buts.

So, when you receive a child free wedding invitation these are your options.

1. You can ask very very very politely if your children are the special exception - the answer will be no, by the way.
2. You can accept the situation like a grown up and say yes.
3. You can accept the situation like a grown up and say no.
4. You can accept the situation and throw a tantrum in real life, on mumsnet or any other platform of your choice.
5. You can turn up with your kids and be exiled from most family events for the rest of your life.

And for the hard of thinking:

1. Child free weddings don't mean they hate your children or any children.
2. They will be fine with you turning down the invitaiton, you won't be making any great dramatic stand by doing so, few will notice, probably none will actually care.
3. There are extremely good reasons why some people have made the choice to not have kids at their weddings, dating back right through history this has been a common practice.
4. Again, this is not a new thing. Not at all. You're just not very well educated about the past, or are wearing your Pollyanna goggles.
5. Not wanting kids at the wedding has nothing to do with aesthetics and everything to do with adults enjoying themselves unencumbered and uninterrupted.
6. Your kids are only cute to you, your spouse and maybe the grandparents. Everyone else is just being nice.
7. Your personal story doesn't matter to the bride and groom, and nor should it.

I think that covers it. Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

Stands back to await the hurricane of entitlement and faux shock and horror.

Posting with a poll for a bit of a laugh, mumsnetters do love their polls :)

Very anecdotal but of the weddings I've been to over the years, the 'church hall afterwards & lots of kids running around' couples are the ones who still have solid marriages 15-20 years on. The 'me & my perfect day' couples..not so much.

I only went to 3 weddings as a child, all of which I was in the bridal party for (flower girl / bridesmaid). At all 3 I was bored out of my brain. But there weren’t lots of kids there, because in the 80s and 90s where I grew up, it just wasn’t a thing. Weddings were for grown ups.

I still think they are - in fact I’ll happily accept invites my kids are on, but leave them at home.

It’s fully the wedding couple’s choice who to invite though, and anyone taking offence is wrong to do so. Just as the couple are wrong to be annoyed at a decline.

The only thing that offends me are the people who bang on about weddings being about your community or your village, and that just isn’t complete without kids there. Sure. TO YOU. That means you get to invite them (and enjoy their presence) at your wedding. It does not mean you get to invalidate other people’s choices.

Weddings are a bloody minefield. I’ve now got to the age where my heart sinks slightly when we get a wedding invitation. 😀

"Literally everyone who has ever looked after my children was invited" is relevant because it explains the lack of any childcare options which would have enabled the poster to attend the wedding.

Oh, yes!

Other people's weddings - no matter who they are or what your relationship is - are not about you. The bride and the groom are the only people who get to decide anything.
This is where it has gone wrong. It used to be the parents who issued the invitations and they understood family politics. The B&G don't just marry each other, they marry into families.
People should think beyond the wedding, to the years of marriage that follow.

I grew up in. The 80s and children at weddings was a thing where we came from.
All tbe cousins and friends of family brought children.
It would have been unheard of otherwise

Yes I realised that, we were past that 10 pages ago ... 🙃
That poster was the only one who has had a legitimate reason.

They will be fine with you turning down the invitaiton, you won't be making any great dramatic stand by doing so, few will notice, probably none will actually care.

If this were true, I think the rest of your TED talk would stand up.

But it isn't.

"Are you really not coming because you can't bring your kids? You're supposed to be my friend! Why can't your mum look after them for the weekend? I can't believe you're doing this to me! Look - tell Pete to look after them and just you come. Why are you being so mean to me? It's my day!"

...and so on, intermittently, for weeks.

I agree with this, it can be tricky to find childcare for small babies and they're less of an issue (as long as they're taken outside if they start wailing!) We were invited to a child free wedding when DD1 was about 4 months old, plan was I would watch the ceremony while DH entertained her outside the church, then we'd swap in the car park and he'd go to the reception while I took DD1 to our hotel (not the same place as the wedding). The bride(zilla) vetoed us bringing the baby to the church car park... DH still went but I have to say I've not bothered to make much effort with them since!

We had one 52 years ago!

@Ashwapanda That's bizarre, why would anyone veto bringing a baby to a car park?!

I’m 52 and I’ve been to lots and lots of weddings. Not one of them has been child free, so YABU to state it’s ‘the norm’ regardless of your own personal opinion on whether or not they ‘belong’ at a wedding.

I am always bemused at the whole child free wedding debate! In my family & most people I know the only children invited would be the close relatives of the couple! So nieces & nephews & maybe the child of a best friend. On MN it seems people expect any guests with kids should bring their DC. Never experienced this IRL. My DS1 has been to 3 weddings, his siblings to 2. All of these were my siblings weddings & only the immediate family children were invited to the whole do. Some extended family who came at night brought their kids for the disco as their usual babysitter was also at the wedding. I have never been to a wedding with no children at all but there are usually a very small number of DC. Is it the norm in some circles to invite a large number of DC? Must be very expensive!

Hear hear !!

Someone's got under your skin!!!!
Child free weddings have never been normal in my white working class background, no idea if they were in other cultures or with posh people but ime YABU about that!
But you are right that the B&G can choose who to invite and equally the guests are able to say sorry no childcare we won't be coming and that should be that-no drama.
However if you have nieces and nephews and a child free wedding, especially if it would mean your siblings and their partners couldnt attend then it is likely to cause drama.
I always loved a wedding as a child and my children love them too, they don't find them boring neither are they badly behaved.,its actually a really lovely thing for them to witness and experience and in my background weddings were always about the whole family coming together to celebrate.
Just from my experience child free weddings have only become a thing in the last 15 years or so.
Certainly when I got married 25 years ago it wasn't the norm at all.

YANBU. Every so often, someone is on here pouting because their kids haven't been invited to some wedding. The only time when a B&G (or B&B or G&G) are unreasonable in that circumstance is when they won't accept that the wedding being childfree means that some people won't be able to make it. If they do accept that, then it is their day and their choice. I don't think that kids belong at weddings, at least not the sort of weddings I've been to. People tend to get very drunk and a bit wild as the night goes on. Plus there is ALWAYS a baby screaming in the church, it seems to be a rule of law.

I am 60 and the only weddings I ever went to as a child were my older siblings weddings. In my teens in the 80s I did a lot of babysitting, often for people who were guests at weddings, so it certainly wasn't unusual for dc not to be invited. It was different then though, people tended to get married locally, and it was mostly smaller dos with close family. Weddings are more of an event now i feel, and it's a much bigger ask to expect people to go to weddings hours away and stay for the weekend, or even abroad and to leave their small children behind. Personally I prefer to leave my dc at home and have more of a 'grown up' experience.

When DH and I got married 12 years ago we chose to have a child free day. My DD, from a previous relationship, was 18 and DH has no children of his own. The only exception we made was for DH's youngest niece who was 13; we couldn't very well invite her parents and older siblings and not her.

We wanted to celebrate with our adult friends and family only and the majority of our guests were absolutely fine with that; in fact my DB and his wife were thrilled at the chance to have an adult weekend and leave the toddlers with her parents! One couple were unable to attend due to childcare issues but there were certainly no hard feelings on either side.

One guest however asked me (politely, I may add) to contact his 14 year old DD and explain to her why she wasn't invited because apparently she was extremely put out and giving him a hard time about it! After I'd retrieved my jaw from the floor where it had dropped I politely replied that the invitation was self explanatory and he needed to tell her that!

Edited to add: YADNBU!

The bride said she was concerned the church didn't want non invited guests on their premises. We said we could park nearby the church, that was also vetoed but no reason given. I suspect the real reason was because she didn't want to share the limelight even for five minutes!

Children are part of the family. Would you have a wife free wedding or a husband free wedding? No because that would be weird.

So, either invite a family or don't but to pick and choose which members attend is bit shit tbh.

If you can't afford to invite everyone have a smaller do. If i choose not to take my kids that should be up to me.

This bollocks that people put on invites 'we want you to have fun so your noisy smelly kids are excluded' or similar is pathetic. I'll choose thanks.

No, it's the couple's choice, not yours. You can, of course, choose not to attend. Your post about 'husband free or wife free' makes no sense whatsoever.

I was born in the 70s and the weddings I went to back in the 70s/80s/90s all had kids there. Wasn’t an issue as far as I know. I was even bridesmaid at a couple. Don’t remember my parents going to one without us.

Maybe they existed but not in my family and friends group.

For me, as much as I respect anyone’s choice, I do find it a bit strange and very ‘British’ to want a child free wedding. As someone who’s lived in Spain where a child free wedding would be almost unheard of, where child-free spaces do not generally exist and children just come along to everything and ‘do life’ with their parents, it’s bit odd but each to their own 🤷‍♀️

Entitled much 🙄

The only scenario that enrages me is when you do as you're told without complaint and then discover that somebody else's kids ARE the special exception. And, unlike yours, they're hellions.