Am I mean to consider a child free wedding?

[cinemalover]

The thought just came to me, my partner and I have been together 2 years, lived together for over a year and 6 months, not engaged yet but have been discussing what we'd like as a wedding.

We want small- maybe registry office then dinner afterwards. Or a slightly larger venue wedding (max £3000).

We don't have a tonne of family we want to invite (probably 50-60 people max) and I don't see the point in inviting random family members I see once or twice a year and have no other relationship with!

I've just realised though that I would want a child free wedding.
3 of my cousins have children, one has ADHD and is a fucking nightmare, never listening, ruins family occasions etc as the mother has always given into him and leaves him with my aunt and uncle so she can go out at night and doesn't collect him till the next evening.

Another are a pair of brothers, both absolute nightmares and again, allowed to run riot at family occasions (this time whilst the parents smoke and drink)- the toddler escaped out the garden one day and a guest coming to the party brought him back saying he'd found him wandering around in the street outside the house!

Third one isn't born yet but my cousins GF is pregnant, due in June.

(I'm 20 & my partner is 35 for reference).

Is it unreasonable to ban children under a certain age for this reason? I have a 13 year old cousin whom I love and would love to be there, more than happy to have her!

I know they'd be older by the time I get married but honestly I hate them😅 the parents are fine and I've always gotten along with them but their kids I just can't stand. (Ages of all kids currently- 8, 6, 3).

Also wouldn't do plus ones as that gets expensive and I wouldn't want people I don't know there

@NakedAvenger agree :) I've not been to a child free wedding yet as there's so many kids in my family- you can't avoid them!

Also to the PP's saying I'm mean- I acknowledged further back that my wording in the beginning was not the most friendly regarding one of my cousins children, I was just trying to get the point across... I'm sure you'd all love to be in some of the situations I've been put in with that child
(Think 18th Birthday, multiple Christmas's, friendly gatherings etc being completely taken over by this child, oh and he also wouldn't leave our puppy alone or stop tormenting him EVEN when we'd locked the dog in his cage in another room to nap as he was getting to excited).
The child just doesn't understand 'no'.

@PaddyF0dder I hope not, I'm not planning on having more than one.
At least I'll have more time to work on behaviour if needs be.
(I've probably jinxed myself for twins now😂😫)

Thank you @importantkath

@HaroldsSocalledBluetits ... You do realise that my life doesn't revolve around Mumsnet? I honestly wasn't expecting this post to get so many people upset!

'Planning' my wedding isn't a hobby. I have plenty of other hobbies I would much prefer to do.

I'm not planning my wedding either, like you said, 4 years early is rather bizarre. It was merely a discussion with my boyfriend that came up and he was pro kids being there whilst I didn't want the stress?

We might get married earlier, who knows. I know he's planning on proposing after we've got a new home (goal is to have moved in by the summer this year) as we've discussed this. He genuinely asked me if I'd rather we saved for a home first or I'd rather him buy me a ring first. Obviously I said a home as we need more space & now is the best time to do it.

@Shoxfordian have a great day on Friday :)

I'm a believer in you having whatever wedding you want. It's your day after all.

However that needs to be agreed with you And your partner as it's both of your day.

I think you sound quite immature, and probably by the time it comes around you will have grown up slightly and look back on the way you worded this original post and cringe a little!

@Desmondo2016 thanks for your input. I don't consider myself to be immature due to some issues I've dealt with in life but hey ho.
I'd say I was definitely immature if I couldn't see two sides to an argument, but I've acknowledged the pros and cons of both sides and taken them into account from this thread!

You also can't make an excellent judge of character online either so I'm not sure it's fair to just write me off as immature.

My tutors and previous employers have consistently praised how mature and articulate I am in person.

We had a childfree wedding and invited over 100 people, and nobody declined because they couldn't get childcare. Some commented they were grateful to have a nice day/night away from the children. Personally I have been to many weddings with and without children there and the ceremonies with children are always disrupted in some way, whether by older or younger children.

You hear 'it's your day' trotted out all the time and yes, it is, and it takes time to plan and is expensive - so, it is entirely up to you. You'll never please everyone.
Personally, I like kids at weddings and I'd probably refuse invitations that didn't include my kids and I think saying no plus 1's will also make people refuse.
The whole thing passes in a blur anyway, so don't get too hung up on the details. At our wedding we had tonnes of kids, so had an area with lots of crafts and stuff to do, hired a face painter and picked a venue where they could run about without being in the way. They had a great time and it was zero stress.

Thanks @cinemalover

@MrsCatKins that's exactly why I'm thinking this, I've seen kids at weddings have tantrums/steal food etc and run riot like it's a school disco! I don't want my wedding to be like that.

@Beamur I'm glad it worked out for you but quite frankly I don't want my wedding to be a craft fair- nor do I want to spend money to distract other peoples kids.

I had a child free wedding but didn’t get married until I was 35 and no children in mine or DH’s immediate family. I wanted to get married at 3pm and carry straight through so I asked our close friends (that we wanted there during the day) before we had firmed up a venue whether they would want us to invite their DC as it would affect numbers or if we didn’t invite children would they still want to come and be able to get sitters. They all begged us to to invite children as they wanted to enjoy themselves, so we didn’t invite any and it was fab.

Like I said, each to their own. I wanted a friendly fun time with my friends, their kids and my own, which is what we had - and why I won't always spend my time and money going to weddings where my kids aren't welcome.
But it does depend on your relationship to the people getting married too - I was invited (plus 1 but no kids) to a wedding last summer which I went to. But I understood why - budgets were tight and numbers were limited. We were friends, not family - only family children were invited.

Nothing better than a 20 year old parenting expert that will 'never let their child' do something and they're yet to have any. Let us know when you're how to parent book is coming out
In a few years you may be laughing at yourself op.
But anyway yes, do your wedding how you want if it ever happens but be sure to tell the parents the truth. If you think their child is rotten it's disgusting to invite them and be fake plus presumably accepting gifts from them.
If anyone felt that way about mine I'd rather know so I can cut them out of my life.

However, when we had DC we had no sitters and DH and I were invited to a wedding down south one of his close friends and no DC were invited so he went and I stayed with the DC. Inviting plus ones is a part of life when we get older and when I was single I was invited to two weddings like this and felt so uncomfortable about the whole thing that at the last minute I didn’t go to either wedding. They were both close friends at the time but since not going to the weddings we drifted apart.

Good luck with that.

I know this is going to come across as offensive, but you sound very immature and a little bit arrogant. Apologies if I’m misconstruing you, but that’s what I get from your posts.

Having kids is, I’ve found, an great way of learning humility. Before I had kids I used to look at badly behaved little kids and think “what shite parents”. I don’t now.

Parents do not have total control over kids. Far from it. So much of a kids temperament and personality is “baked in”. I view it as: they’re born with a wide motorway of possibilities. Multiple lanes they can be in. The parent doesn’t get to decide the motorway. But they can hopefully nudge their child into the correct lane.

Having a neurodevelopmwntal disability like ADHD or autism makes things even harder. My eldest has reasonably high functioning autism. He’s a good kid most of the time, and sometimes he’s a freaking nightmare. We give him A LOT of intensive parenting and structure and support, but sometimes it’s not enough. So it goes.

Don’t criticise if you don’t have kids. And don’t assume you know ANYTHING about how to be a parent until you are one. Because, right now, you know NOTHING.

OP you do sound a little young and immature. When we got married as I said up post we didn’t have any children there after discussing this with friends first. It was DH’s second marriage but my first and last. We had a nice local venue (not overly posh) that we wanted but it could only seat 44 during the day but 120 at night. As I was 35 when I got married most of our close friends had a husband or long term partner (so plus ones were inevitable) and most of them also had two or three children (who they were keen to have a good time without). If our close friends didn’t have sitters or wouldn’t have came without children we would have still wanted the parents our friends there so we would have had to change the type of wedding we had and or decease the number of family/friends we could invite to accommodate friends children.

Bloody hell OP, you're really not helping yourself with repeating all of your school reports. Believe it or not it's quite normal to behave in a mature way at 20 and even to be articulate. I thought I knew everything at 20, funnily enough I was in a relationship with a man in his 30s and believe me I used to get so irritated by being told that things would change, that I would change, but it was true. An awful lot of growing up happens in your 20s and I'm a completely different person to who I was 10 years ago. I agree with pp that you will look back on some of the things you've said here and cringe... especially when it comes to being superior about parenting! It's easy to think you'll be great before you actually have children...it's a different thing entirely when it's your child that struggles to sleep!

I htink it's fine to have no kids as long as it's a blanket rule, not one rule for some and another sor somebody else.
I've been to so many church weddings where a baby wailed through the vows, so we asked for no babies/very small children at the ceremony, although they were welcom at the reception. The 2/3 couples that had a baby that age didn't bring them at all.

but I would never, ever let my kids run riot and embarrass me/ torment other people

So what do you think you should do.

Put them in a straight jacket, tie them up, because nothing you say or do will have any affect on a child with ADHD.

I am probably one of those parents who you think is a shit parent.

My kids would run off in the supermarket. I could hear them several aisles away.

Did my shopping then rounded them up to go to the car.

They have spent many happy times jumping from bed to bed in John Lewis and Ikea. They have run around the shopping centre.

But it is now all out of their system and both have grown up to be bright hardworking people.
I have never told them they were naughty or bad and could only guide them.

Shouting screaming and saying No didn’t have any affect other than to make your blood pressure go up

Why not ban old people too? They can be quite annoying. Or maybe people who sneeze loudly, or get too drunk, or fart a lot? After all, it's your special day and you don't want human weakness ruining it for you.

Your day, your way