to not be willing to leave behind my newborn for my friends 'no children' wedding.

[alannabanana]

so this wedding is taking place in august by which time i will have a roughly 8wk old newborn. i already have a 17 month DS for whom childcare has been arranged, but i have always said that leaving the newbie will not be feasible as i will be breastfeeding (boobies willing!), and to be honest the venue is a bit of a drive and i would not be able to enjoy myself knowing i had left such a young dependent baby with someone else. (i should say at this juncture that the very kind friend in question who would be taking care of DS and the new baby has v little experience of babies but great with toddlers, and ordinarily i would only trust my mum with the baby but she, and indeed my ENTIRE family, will be on holiday at the time of the wedding.)
i stipulated all this months ago to our supposedly close friends - the bride and groom - especially the part about my family being away and DH's family not being an option because they live nowhere near us, and they seemed ok with us having to bring the newbie, but have just received a phone call tonight saying that actually no children means NO children, even tiny babies. now, DH is actually more upset about this than me as the groom is one of his oldest and closest friends - i am of the opinion that if they don't get that you can't just leave an 8wk old baby willy nilly then theres nothing i can do to convince them - but poor DH is actually quite hurt that his mate has effectively withdrawn our invitation to his wedding, and i think he's well within his rights to be hurt, and a bit cross. is this unreasonable you think? im hoping that this doesnt spell the end of our friendship with them but it is disappointing.

Nope not trying to be 'biting' nor confusing you with anyone. Anyway not turning this into a personal slanging match have better things to do as im sure you do to.

Op good luck with your pregnancy and hopefully it won't damage your friendship.

oh come on mrsSmurf, cheer up and come along to the sausage roll party singing a lovely smurf song! greensleeves will you accompany her on the cello? Prety please?

whoops, pretty please

by all means

come on MrsSmurf, don't be such a minny-pinny

fiddle and mandolin, that sounds really beautiful greensleeves

My dad sang at my wedding back home, with misty eyes as he knew his girl was going to leave home for England

Aw, come on Mrssmurf - and bring along mancunia.

Nellykats that's so sweet

my dad got shit-faced and had a fist-fight in the marquee

dads at weddings are pretty brilliant!

qwertpoiuy - you totally miss the point. For me, at least, it wasn't about having all the attention on me, it was about trying to have the speeches etc without a baby crying and one of the tables distracted.
It was my wedding and I wasn't asking for a baby ban all day. just for two hours and that didn't mean the mother had to be separated from the baby, just that she was being asked to let us have that part of the day as an adult only environment.

I've had my own children since and I love them to bits but I do get it that other people don't feel the same way. So even with hindsight, and plenty of experience looking after my own 3 month olds, I still think my request was very reasonable and that the best man's wife was just plain selfish to insist on having things her way when she came to my wedding.

I have to admit to having been completely clueless about just this subject when I married DH three years ago.

We didn't ban children as such (had a couple of newborns attend along with young children from our close family) however we did suggest to some friends that they might want to leave the young ones at home and have a well deserved break - a phrase that having seen on a recent invitation I realise is actually really patronising!

I think your friends definitely fall into the clueless category and will feel very embarrassed when they later have children. It definitely changes your perspective.

I'm now in the situation of having a seven month old who despite many many many attempts won't take a bottle and we have a no babies wedding coming up in July - so I feel especially mortified about the 'challenges' we put upon some of our wedding guests.

If you feel strongly about seeing them tie the knot maybe your DH could explain in a bit more detail. Otherwise accept all the help from friends you can and organise some lovely things to do over the weekend as a family.

HI - not read whole thread. If good friend of your DH then your DH should go and you stay behind. It is what I and my DH have done. Otherwise both don't go or leave baby. People without children have no clue but it is their day but your choice. Good luck with birth.

It's an invitation, not a summons.
Lots of people have to turn down invitations to social events because of personal circumstances. Work, health, caring duties, finances.

Kids wreck your social life. Not news, is it?

Did anyone else go selectively deaf at their wedding? There was loads of child noise at mine, but I didn't hear a thing - I even missed all the gorgeous music I had carefully chosen. Must have been concentrating so hard on the vows, etc. Had to endure the wedding video to hear the music - which is when I realised how noisy the children and babies had been - certainly didn't spoil my day.

Did go to a wedding where the church had rented out the church room for a kids party at the same time - blaring disco music all the way through the service. I probably wouldn't have noticed as the bride, but as a guest ...

There is only one person more obsessive about their situation than the mother of a new born, and that is a bride to be. She is shut in her own "wedding world" as you will be (quite rightly, by the way) re your newborn. She cannot see outside the buzz leading up to her wedding, and her wedding day will be a lovely blur. She won't probably (sadly) even remember that she "banned" your child if/when she has her own baby..... unless she is put in the exact position you are now in.... and even then, I doubt it.

The mother to be, and the bride to be, there are no two more all encompassing roles for a girl.... All absorbing, nothing else going on outside that little world.

It's quite a conflict. Seriously girls????

BTW, I've been both bride to be and mother to be (leading to being a bride and a mother!), and been in the "baby at the wedding situation" and it can't be resolved.

Does it never occur to those of the 'I INSIST on taking my DC everywhere because I have no life' persuasion that sometimes people have a childfree wedding because the majority of their guests are childfree, and they are tailoring the day to suit both themselves as hosts and the larger proportion of the other guests? And it's funny how it's always some wife-of-a-second-cousin or 'old friend' you haven't seen for 10 years who suddenly starts insisting that the whole event be rearranged for their benefit?

DD was born long before any of our friends had kids or were even married, so we've been through all the variations of child-free / child-friendly / just plain can't go.

The only difficult one was when DD was five months old, BF, wouldn't take a bottle, and we got an invite to a child-free wedding three hours away. DH phoned to say that he would go but I wouldn't be able to. Groom was surprised and upset and said, "Leave it with me". Couple of days later we got a call saying all three of us were welcome. Brilliant. Unfortunately when we got there it turned out that the bride had stuck rigidly to child-free with all her friends and family, and the groom had told his to bring their kids along. We'd had no idea. Awkward doesn't even begin to describe it. I still vividly remember chatting to a woman in the same position as me, who had left her baby at home and couldn't believe that I'd been able to take DD. She left in tears in the end...

dd's godfather just got married, on our invite it was printed 'no children', then they'd handwritten underneath, except goddaughters called m.
we thought that was sweet, went along on the day, lovely service, a big fuss was made of getting dd to have a photo taken with the bride and groom etc etc.

We arrived at the reception which was a long drive away, to shocked looks from the bride and groom, the groom said they'd assumed we'd leave dd 'somewhere' after the service. So dd had no place at the table, sat on our laps sharing our dinner's, it was very awkward :-(

people without children just haven't got a clue, it's rarely malicious, they just don't understand - I didn't either.

redredwine and minthumbug how many months was the youngest child of any friends/family you invited?

I didn't have a clue before I had a baby. I was so clueless that I didn't even have a clue that I didn't have a clue. My world was full of swish baby-less professionals whose world's do revolve around them.

The wedding is about them, not you. You have to do what's right for you in light of the circumstances. Imagine the venue were another country, for example, but you were invited; you'd just decide whether attending was right for you in the circumstances.

Here, it's not.

hi, OP here. wow i've been catching up on this now massive thread! it really seems to get people riled up this subject. whats interesting is in the early pages theres a lot of 'how dare they ban your baby, what selfish dickheads', and later pages is much more 'their day their choice, get over it.' i can totally see both viewpoints - though i must admit this is my first experience of a child-free wedding which is why i came on here a bit perplexed to discuss it in the first place.
i guess the thing thats bothered me most about this whole tangled mis-communication, is the fact that we thought everything was ok - had care arranged for DS but were good to go with newborn - and now our friends are being very shifty and weird about asking us to leave the newborn as well. i wish they'd just come out and say 'look, if you bring the baby other people will kick off.' but they havent even sent our invite out and i know they have gone out, so it kind of makes us feel like some sort of dirty burden or something. i dont want them anguishing over what to do about us - just be honest. (btw, DH has sent email and text to groom asking him to lay cards on the table and tell us exactly what they want, so far no response).
by the sounds of some other stories on here - so funny robinlou that they assumed you'd leave DD 'somewhere' for reception!! - this happens a lot with childless couples having a child-free wedding. they just don't get how complicated it is to arrange care sometimes, so need to be really clear about what they want from us as guests with kids.
when we do eventually hear from the evasive groom, im going to tell him to completely remove me from the proceedings - dont even worry about it anymore - as i just can't leave the baby, and to get on with the thing because i know how mental it is planning your wedding. i will be gutted not to see the momentous end of his bachelor days (and that is momentous believe me!) but they can't have me sat there with the baby if it means other people will get shirty about it - no way they should have to worry about that on their wedding day.
see im quite grown-up really

Gosh I really hope your DH still gets his invite, alanna - sounds a bit shit that it hasn't arrived at all.