To think people shouldn’t bring babies to weddings full stop?

[Gazetex]

Was at a beautiful wedding yesterday, absolutely stunning venue, countryside church followed by a reception in a barn with fairy lights and all the trimmings. The bride looked incredible, everyone was emotional, proper special day.

Then literally mid vows, a baby in the second row started wailing. Not a little grizzle either, full on shrieking. It went on for ages. The vicar even paused. You could see the bride getting flustered and trying to laugh it off but honestly it completely broke the moment. The parent eventually took the baby outside but by then the damage was done.

I’m sorry but why do people think it’s fine to bring very young babies to events like this? I know childcare is hard to sort and people want to be included but surely if your baby is at the stage where they could cry for no reason at any time, a formal ceremony isn’t the place?

I genuinely don’t think I’m being unreasonable to say weddings should be child free unless the child has an actual role in the ceremony. It’s not anti child, it’s just about having some basic awareness.

It’s not a family BBQ. It’s a once in a lifetime moment for the couple.

AIBU?

One day babies at weddings turn into men in their 70s at their siblings funerals looking through photo albums that someone’s brought out at the wake and laughing and connecting over who’s who in their little short trousers and rompers.
If you want to take that away from them carry on being such an Insta perfect misery guts with your fairy lights.
Although the parents of a howler should take them outside for fresh air till they get their decorum back.

It's fine to bring a baby to a wedding, presumably you invite people who you are close to and want to be there, however if they are really noisy at a key point like exchange of vows then I think they should be taken out.

If your mum was anything like mine, this was so she could pretend you didn't have a baby out of wedlock!

YABU it’s up to the bride and groom who they invite.
But yeah the parents should have been quicker to take the baby out by the sound of it

Agreed. I was happy for my relatives to bring their children to my wedding; less so when one interrupted the vows and wasn't removed by her parents. (I'm guessing that they stayed because their eldest was one of my flower girls. Not my idea - I'd bowed to my mum's wishes after her sister had more than heavily hinted.)

Ha ha I thought the same thing. This would be my mother's thinking also.

But how do babies "interrupt" the vows? Surely no celebrant is stupid enough to keep talking while a baby is howling? Don't they just pause for a second to let the howling subside or to give parents the hint that it might be time to take the baby out?

I witnessed a celebrant, very lovely, nearly apologising but saying that by law, they must be able to hear the couple 😂

Stupid mother was proudly smiling at little Timmy who was disrupting everything, instead of taking him outside to shut him up. Llittle Timmy wasn't even a baby, was probably old enough to start school.

The celebrant should not have to stop talking, or only just while the parents are quickly and quietly removing the child.

Its a promise before their community to become a family.

I don’t get this. Most people don’t think of a married couple as a family until and unless they have children.

They become part of a wider family. My son and daughter in laws became part of my family and my son and daughter become part of their spouses families.

If a couple cant make light of a baby crying mid vow. Then I would wager a bet the marriage wont last a newborn.

So perhaps it should be compulsory. And we can lower the divorce rate.

Double post-

We had exactly this happen at our wedding and the baby and its mother hadn’t even been invited! We married in a church so anyone could attend, mid vows the baby starts screaming and the mother just sat there. Moment ruined.

I assume because babies are people who are allowed to be out in public.

I think babies should stay away if they are likely to cry . It’s not fair on them as much as the wedding party

The wedding party are the ones who have invited the babies at the wedding! So you’d assume that they want them there, as they’ve invited them.

it was fine but the parents should have reacted sooner imo

I had a child-free wedding, and I am happily married with kids. HTH

Lots of nice welcoming comments about children on this wedding thread. It makes a nice change!

It’s down to the parents to be responsible. If they take out the crying baby, then there is absolutely no issue with babies and young children attending weddings. We had loads at our wedding and I have no recollection who cried or didn’t. I am just so glad that everybody came who I wanted to be there. It was a lovely inclusive event.

our wedding was just as much about our guests as it was us. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

I don’t believe ‘most’ people think any such thing.

You don’t get it that a family doesn’t have to rely on having children to be considered a family? Very narrow-minded of you. And so excluding of childless people.

YABVVU, OP. Rating a pretty church (and fairy lights ffs) above having families at weddings is such a weird view of what weddings are actually about.

The OP not been back? Interesting.

goady bitchplop and run op
colour me shocked

I am childless. I queried it because I felt that “Its a promise before their community to become a family. *felt like an assumption that the couple would have children. That was what I felt was excluding of childless people I accept that I misunderstood, but perhaps if the poster had said “It’s a promise before their community to become part of a bigger family” her meaning might have been clearer.