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 :)

Growing up children very often didn't attend weddings or funerals, I remember staying with family friend's when my parents went to my grandmother's funeral. It's only fairly recently that parents can't be parted from their children and think children should be invited to everything.

I had children at my wedding, but other than lovely looking flower girls in photos, they didn't add anything and were probably bored stiff (I mean I was bored and I was the bride 😂).

Should add my dd went to her first wedding at 9 weeks old, no question of whether she was allowed, in fact I swear my dd was the entertainment for the brides extended family, they took turns in walking her around as she was not an easy baby! My dc went to a dozen or more weddings as kids of friends, colleagues etc and every invite included them automatically, in fact one friend was most disappointed we didn’t bring them to his wedding overseas (my parents babysat) because they had school, he didn’t know about fines! Wedding costs seem to be the tricky part, but if you are creative you can afford a wedding without a big price tag, we paid £6k all in last year including church, sit down meal, evening party and a live band plus extra food and all the drinks using the upstairs of our local gastro pub (caters for up to 80-100, not small) they charged us £40 for the 3 course sit down meal as opposed to £120 at nearest ‘wedding venue’

But didn't dump the childcare cost on the guests, which is an important difference. The problem with child free weddings is they make things difficult for the guests, whereas good etiquette is you make the day enjoyable for guests.

Exactly this. I had a child free wedding 34 years ago. I also invited some people just to the Evening Do which also now seems controversial. All very normal.

Who says it’s a family event? It was about me and DH committing to each other and then having a party to celebrate that and our 20 year relationship with mainly our friends and our close family.
Not a ‘family event’ it was ‘us and our tribe’ event. Every wedding I’ve been to has been exactly that.

If you want to make it a ‘family event’ go for it but a wedding isn’t defined as one as default.

It’s absolutely a cultural thing! I’m not sure why that seems so hard to get. There are 2 very different wedding cultures. The overpriced sit down wedding breakfast and the big party/buffet at the social club / village hall.

If you grew up in the former they were predominantly child free weddings. Mainly due to cost as the per head cost was the same if the guest was 2 or 72. So adding in kids skyrocketed the already over inflated price. Plus they were very formal affairs.

If it was the latter, adding in kids made very little difference to the cost and it was far less formal (Peter Kay, kids knee skidding etc)

Childfree weddings have always existed, you just didn’t grow up in that culture, it’s not because they didn’t happen!

Surely you can still have fun a lot of fun doing things without your DC? Say if you go out for a nice dinner with just your spouse or partner, or see a show or something with a friend?

I am currently a SAHM and had two under 2. I spend the week taking DC to activities on my own and share that with DH on weekends. I cherish this time with them and consider myself lucky to be able to take a few years off work.

But I also love my husband and really value time I have with just him once in a blue moon since we don’t have family nearby or a babysitter. In fact, I think it’s important we have that time with just us occasionally too.

Both kinds of weddings are lots of fun but for different reasons.

Traditionally it's the joining of two families. Obviously that has changed over the years though.

Both my aunties has child free weddings over 50 years ago, my mum happily left my baby brother with a baby sitter to have a childfree evening!

Like @luckylavender we, too, had a child free wedding 34 years ago. It was definitely a common thing back then

Yes, I think that's the point. Weddings are mostly different now.

I'm in my 50s and I never attended a wedding as a child, so I think child free weddings were a thing. I never heard of any church + village hall weddings like I read about on MN. My own parents (poor as church mice) got married in a church and then had a wedding breakfast in a hotel. Maybe it's a rural vs. urban thing? There are no village halls in a city. But as pps have said, it probably depended on your background/social circles. When my older cousin got married, only my aunts and uncles were invited - no kids. In fact, I babysat for my younger cousins, so my aunt and uncle could attend.

My aunt (the youngest of a big family) got married when I was in my mid-teens. She didn't invite us (her nieces and nephews) to her wedding, as it would have meant inviting another 30 people. We were invited to the afters though.

I was a bit surprised at the outrage I've observed on MN whenever the subject comes up - as kids, we just took it for granted that weddings were adult affairs and didn't pay much attention to them. I think I was well into my 20s when I attended a full wedding for the first time.

So much will usually depend on space at the venue, and cost. Older children will need a place at the table and a probably expensive meal.

Our wedding reception (70s, marquee in my Dps’ garden) was close family children only, I.e. my sister’s baby and toddler.

A recent one we attended was babes in arms only - and that was evidently down to space at the venue and cost.

A DD’s wedding allowed all children (a lot!) but that was only because we were lucky enough to have a lovely big venue to use for free, with ample space for them to run around and a suitable area for hired babysitters later.

In other cultures perhaps, or maybe 100 years ago. I very much doubt the two families even see each other again after the wedding

The joining of two families who will probably hate each other ever after if MN is anything to go by.

Yanbu

my son had a child free wedding and my sister was upset and said that when her and her partner get married they won’t invite ds’s imaginary non existent children and see how they like that (she won’t actually do it…she was just upset)

they wont give a shiny shit love 😀

Oh my god the comments 😆
'Well id never been to a child free wedding until the last 10 years'
'Child free weddings arent a thing in certain cultures'
... but they did still exist, as OP and other posters are attesting to, so whats the point in putting this comment down?
Why is the thought process:
'Weddings have been child free for a while'
'Well, it was NEVER A THING IN MY DAY'
Instead of
'Weddings have been child free for a while
'Oh interesting! I didnt know that. I can see how other social circles or cultures do things differently, so it would be weird for me to get the hump on about how they dont do things the way I have been taught is the 'right' way, even if i still like Weddings with children.'

Whys it always 'but its not my experience and therefore its WRONG'

I don't remember ever going to a wedding as a child (80s/90s), the first one I remember is when I was about 17. It seems unlikely that my parents didn't attend any weddings over those years.

If anyone couldn't have come because of no kids, we wouldn't have cared. We discussed before inviting, as partner said he wanted his brother to be best man - I told him he may not come due to the child free thing. Partner just shrugged and said he'll fine someone else then.

@Agix Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! 🎉

Having a child free event and being understanding if some people decline the invitation is the way to go. It’s when people get stroppy that it becomes an issue. Same with destination wedding-some people may decline and that’s fine.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s and only went to one family wedding as a child. My parents went to others that my sibling and I were not invited to.

I think what this thread overlooks is the phenomenon of the Bridezilla / Groomzilla.

I was invited to a childfree wedding by my sibling in bloody AUSTRALIA. I was breastfeeding my DD who had never been apart from me and would get lots of separation anxiety and also has a long list of life threatening food allergies AND a food aversion, which makes it difficult to leave her with random babysitters, so of course I said no, very politely with many best wishes for the day blah blah blah.

But.. the bride and groom kicked off and threw a tantrum and said I was being unreasonable and absolutely HAD to attend. My DM was supportive of me but also made it clear it would be “awful” not to go.

So what does someone do in my situation?

Option A) spend £7k (!!) on flights for my family to go to Oz to attend the wedding at the expense of my DD, who would have been distraught AND knowing that I would have almost definitely got a call from the random babysitter asking me to come back and end up missing the bulk of the reception anyway (or send my DH back so he would have missed it). So £7k to go to a wedding that I or my DH would likely miss most of, and all for the sake of someone who wouldn’t make an adjustment for me? Not a tempting proposition.

B) Decline politely, be vilified like I am the worst sibling and be considered the cause of a significant family rift.

C) Go but bring the uninvited child, keep said child away from bridezilla. Know that once it’s done, the bride & groomzilla are unlikely to make a fuss after the fact. But also know that DM at least will be happy. No big family rift, just a grumpy sibling.

I think it's probably to do with society changing. Weddings aren't a nice local family celebration anymore....they are days and days of insta worthy celebrating in far off locations... requiring guests to travel for miles, book accommodation, take annual leave. Everything must be perfect and we all know children ruin perfect.

I'm very late 50s (by which I mean 61) and I never went to any weddings as a child. Not even first cousins.

The thing is a childfree wedding decades ago held locally for a few hours probably wasn't an issue and people were far more likely to get a local teen to babysit for the evening.

Childfree weddings are more tricky now as there is often so much travelling and expectations put on guests.

@muggart Bridezilla and Groomzilla, I love it. 😂 What did you end up doing?

@Comedycook Yes, IME weddings were much simpler in the past so it was easier to find childcare for an afternoon/evening.