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 :)

No exactly that’s up to them if they don’t want to live a life outside of their children. No judgement at all but some will expect others to feel the same and they just don’t.

Back in the day (pre 2000s) kids knew their place, that being, second place to adults, and could attend adult events respectfully and quietly so there was no need to exclude them, it was a given that if they attended they would behave and that the parents would parent them as appropriate for an adult event.

These days parents think that every adult social event is a jungle gym, kids rule the roost, every parent thinks their child is the starring role in every social situation and kids routinely interrupt adults talking, run around adult events screaming and shouting and knocking stuff over whilst their passive parents watch on doing absolutely nothing to control their behaviour which makes the event fucking unbearable for every other adult.

Don't even get me started on kids (and dogs) in adult pubs and restaurants!!!

I agree with @ARichtGoodDram . As long as the B & G don’t get stroppy if a parent has to decline the invitation because they have a young baby or can’t get childcare, that’s fine.

Tbh if a guest had a baby under one, I’d just assume that they couldn’t come unless they brought the baby, could stay at the venue, and tag team with their partner.

Weddings are big events and people’s feelings are likely to get hurt around who and who isn’t included. I’ve seen more brides and grooms throw fits over parents declining than the other way around. But seeing as the OP has declared all shall cheerfully carry on, we are now sorted.

I think @ARichtGoodDram probably has it and it accounts for the divergence in recollection.

I’m in my 50s and didn’t attend a wedding until I was adult, however my background is prosperous middle class and my parents’s friends weddings and later mine were usually church followed by a sit down wedding breakfast in a hotel or catered marquee in the garden and maybe a disco later. When the law changed to allow weddings to take place outside of churches or registry offices there was an explosion in country house or castle weddings.

My husband is working class and his first wedding was church followed by a buffet in a local Social Club with a disco and all his friends did similar, - registry or church followed by church hall or local social club. There were no children outside immediate family at his wedding but I think children were more common at that sort of do because it was a lot more informal and the couple or their parents weren’t paying £80 per head for a sit down wedding breakfast. Now most people have what would have been considered a fancy wedding and spend a small fortune. Children are bored by a three or four course sit down meal followed by speeches. Weddings are very long days for adults, never mind children.

They were definitely not normal in my family or those of my parents' friends. It never occurred to me to exclude children from my wedding. Normal in some families, maybe. Normal in general, not sure about that, just know it wasn't in my experience.

I remember both sorts growing up.

The thing for me is that both sides can be unreasonable. For example not making exceptions for newborns, or for siblings' children, especially if long travel is involved. I've seen couples who were more keen on the childfree wedding than having a sibling present even if there were real obstacles to not having children at the wedding. Or claiming they "can't" make exceptions, which is nonsense. They could, they don't want to: at least be honest about it.

I would never have dreamed of asking anyone who wasn't a close relation for an exception to no children, and there were weddings I did not attend because childcare was an issue, but if a sibling had prioritised the child free wedding above my presence I would have been hurt.

No, I disagree, no exceptions should be required, for any groom and bride. It would be very unreasonable to expect that of them.

And generally they can't make exceptions for one without it causing them even grief among other very entitled people, as a rule. Far better that they just have a blanket ban, as it stops the what about me, main character syndrome invitees from lining up to hassle them.

But if they, the bride and groom want to make exceptions and enforce whatever child associated rules they like, then all good too.

Everyone just has to suck it up, their wedding, their rules. Just as the bride and groom have to suck it up if they can't or don't want to go without their kids. Fair's fair.

I have remembered one more wedding that had a kid at it, actually, most did not, but my cousin was getting married and she let her sister bring her daughter to the wedding. The kid, who was about 3 or 4 at that time, was up at the altar making loud noises and trying to get everyone's attention during the vows, while my cousin giggled at how cute her kid was and everybody else though FFS pick her up and leave the effing church.

But yes you are right, some people did have kids at their wedding, it was always an option to be child free though, and I really cannot be arsed with the rewriting of history every time this subject comes up, hence the thread :)

Well, it's good you got the wedding you wanted, just like the child free wedding people do. I went to about half a dozen child free weddings in the 80s and early 90s, the ones that stood out for us were the ones with kids tbh.

I don't doubt that people have different experiences, I just want to address this silly idea that it's unusual, new or or a trend not to have kids at the wedding, while also addressing a few other misconceptions around the whole thing.

I will admit I find these main character syndrome, super entitled OPs repeating the same balderdash week in, week out a bit frustrating.

Of course you can make exceptions. I did. You’re going to get entitled people either way. Someone’s always going to find a reason. If someone else does it that’s the reason. If no one else is getting one, they’re just special and deserve it.

you can argue it either way: either there should be a blanket ban because that’s simpler for the couple or people should make exceptions because having it your way shouldn’t always be the overriding priority and sometimes you accommodate family. I happen to think the “my day” rhetoric has become overdone and has become an excuse for absolutely everything.

the other half of it is that it’s not simply about what you can do. You can do whatever you want. It’s that people expect to be able to do it without consequences. If you want to prevent a sibling attending a wedding you can do that. You also have to accept the consequences of it. You can’t pretend it doesn’t send a message or communicate anything to the person.

Just because it was the norm for you, doesn't mean it was the norm for everyone else. I'd never heard of the concept of a childfree wedding (I have a huge extended family and kids would always be included) until my SIL decided to have one. I thought it was very strange, but that's just because it was outside my experience and I'd never heard of one before.

When inviting she basically told my DH that she didn't care if her childfree wedding meant he couldn't come, so he decided that with that kind thought, he wouldn't even bother with the expense and travel. It was the attitude though, not the wedding, that did it.

I think it's bizarre to exclude children from a family event 🤷‍♀️

My DD got married a few years ago and had children at her wedding. She seems to prefer the family culture on my side.

I think it's pretty simple really. Have a childfree wedding, good on you, but don't cry when people can't come.

I agree that generally kids were not as pandered to as they are nowadays, but I still nearly every wedding I went to did not have children there, even pleasant kids can have a melt down, and honestly people just don't want to deal with it, and I don't blame them.

Yeah, dogs in restaurants is kind of gross, I do love dogs but I don't eat in restaurants that have dogs there, unless it is at an outside table.

Already covered in the original post "They will be fine with you turning down the invitation, you won't be making any great dramatic stand by doing so, few will notice, probably none will actually care."

I've never known any bride or groom to make any fuss about a refused invite, but I suppose it must happen occasionally.

I think it's bizarre that you think it's bizarre to have a child free wedding.

My SIL cried and MIL got on the phone and made a big stink about us not coming because SIL was crying. So yes, it does happen.

The way I see it is she made her choice, we made ours.

If they want to make exceptions, they can. If they don't want to, they won't. They can indeed say that making exceptions causes them issues, because it well might.

Whatever the bride and groom choose is completely fine either way.

As long as they feel the same way about people who don't come. Whatever the invitees decide to do is completely fine either way.

Yep, perfectly fair.

Never went to any weddings as a child. My brother went to one at 5 days old, but that was it (which was child free but bride said of course newborn babies don't count!)

I think some people need to remember that while their child may be the centre of their world, they aren't the centre of the world.

I think that's the difference. The culture around weddings has changed from being about family, to being about just the bride and groom.

I don't think child-free weddings were as common as you're claiming.

I think the problem comes when a bride and groom get stroppy because you decline their invitation. You're very welcome not to invite my child, but I should be allowed not to wish to come if that isn't how I'd like to spend my free time.

Yes, and sometimes they do cause quite the strop when someone can't/won't come without a newborn nursling or just because they have no childcare in far away city.

We were never forgiven for not attending so that was the end of that.

I had a thought that childfree weddings weren't in my experience and seemed strange to me when I first ran into one because family culture, but they were all Catholic weddings. Does that make a difference or coincidence? The childfree weddings I've encountered were all secular.