Invitations and Child Guests

[baxterboi]

I'm sending my wedding invites out in a couple of weeks time.

A few friends have children and we want to leave it up to them whether or not they bring them along.

The invites are the type where I won't actually be writing names on them, they're all printed exactly the same.

Question is - is it okay to just put Mr S Smith & Ms P Jones on the envelope or should I add "and family" or "and children" or just leave it to the parents?!

A couple of close friends have already messaged me asking if kids are invited and I said it's completely up to them and they both said they would prefer to come on their own.

Any advice?

I think you should definitely spell it out.

Do bear in mind that some people if they see "and family" they might assume you have laid on something to amuse the kids.Wedding nannies are fairly usual round here.

So be clear somewhere on the invite that it's optional ,so they can then gauge the level of appropriateness of the day for the ages/ numbers of their own.

Definitely state children's names. Polite guests will assume they are not invited, then potentially feel annoyed when they arrive to the wedding and see other kids.

I’d be inclined to include a little extra note-handwritten/printed depending how many. Just to say children are welcome but there won’t be any special arrangements for them so the parents may prefer to take the chance for some adult time!

Thanks all I’ll write or add a little note to the rsvp cards so that they know either way :)

Definitely make it clear on the envelope. If I phoned you and you told me it was up to me then I’d assume that actually you didn’t want kids there and out of politeness I’d have to try to somehow cobble together childcare or probably not come.

Even if you invite them, people can still decide not to bring them.

We did our invites to just the adults (and almost all of our guests have young children). We added a line on the extra information (with accommodation, taxi’s etc) saying that our children would be as the wedding and they were welcome to bring their children and to let us know on the rsvp. We put a line on the rsvp for them to say if there were bringing children or not.

Also, if in doubt just speak to them - they are (hopefully) your friends and family who you would speak to often anyway.