Invitation wording for child guests

[abbaroony]

I am in the process of making my wedding invitations and am not sure if I need to add a specific bit of wording regarding children.

We are inviting the children of all of our guests (except the evening guests) however I know that some of these guests will want to have a night / weekend away without their children. I know this because they always tell me about how excited they are to have a night ‘off’ when they go to other weddings!

Do you think that I need to say something along the lines of ‘we would love for your children to join us but we also understand if you’d rather party without them’ so that our guests know that we don’t mind if they bring them or not?

If you got an invitation that included your children’s names but you’d rather not bring them, would you just RSVP to say that you’ll be coming without them, or would you feel that you’d have to bring them because they’d been invited?

Well aware that I am probably looking into this far too much - thank you if you’ve got this far!

I think you're over thinking .

It's nice if children are invited as then you know you can attend without worrying about childcare but equally, unless they're family children, no one will feel obliged to bring their DCs so will leave them with a sitter if that's what they want. I don't think that needs to be spelt out.

Maybe write something like 'You're children are more than welcome to join you, if you would prefer to come without them, please just let us know' or something a bit more eloquent?

Good wording @KingKillerKvothe

You are over thinking. Just invite all family members and the parents decide themselves if they want to bring their kids or not. You don’t need to tell them it’s ok if they don’t want to bring them

Just use the wording you put in your op!

Have a RSVP card with tickable options. Something like:

Will your children be accompanying you?
A) yes, the little darlings would love to attend your wedding
B) Nah, we'll leave them at home so we can party all night.

Thank you all so much, as suspected I was overthinking it!

I think I will include something to get them to let me know if they will / won’t be bringing them as I’ll need that for numbers. Thank you @Treem and @ for your suggestions!

Also think you are overthinking it. Just write the names of everyone on the invitation and don't say anything else. Nobody will feel obliged to bring them if they don't want to and mentioning it at all is just confusing.

I just assume 'and family' means kids are welcome or just our names means not. Personally I would usually rather not go to a wedding than take my kids, because I'd be stressing about their behaviour because they aren't kids that will sit still or be quiet. When they have been invited and I RSVP I just let them know the kids won't be coming.

You don't need to include anything extra, if they don't make it clear to you when they RSVP, ask them then.

I don’t think you need to say anything. If people don’t wanted ti bring their children, they’ll tell you that when they reply.