What was your real reason for a child free wedding?

[pookachook]

If you had a child free wedding and were being 100% honest, what was your real reason for it? Weighing up pros and cons atm. Seems to be a bit emotionally charged.

Technically not child free as my two year old niece was there. If I look back at who we invited only one other person had children (4). We didn’t want children running around doing knee slides on the dance floor. It wasn’t really discussed, we were in agreement that we didn’t want them there.

This, people invite the people they want people either go or not

Why the need for people to turn going to an event like planning to hold a war?

Exactly

How rude ! Did you have to pay for their meals ?

I also don't understand why people gets their knickers in a twist about their kids not being invited. We enjoy the day/night on our own. And if we can't get a sitter either don't go or only one of us goes. No drama!

Got married in our late 30s so many of our friends had 2-3 children meaning that on top of the 100 adults we wanted to invite. There would have been around 50 children which would just have been mayhem and ruined the whole vibe of the wedding. In the end we invited only our nieces, nephews, godchildren and the bridal party’s children (bridesmaids were travelling far and had young kids). Also babes in arms (meaning very small babies who wouldn’t need a seat or food and wouldn’t run around - not a 1yo who is breastfed)

We were the first in our generation to marry. None of our friends or family had children apart from 1 cousin and 1 uncle on DH's side who we weren't particularly close to. I think you either have a full family event with lots of kids, or adults only. We just felt that it would be very hard to accommodate just 4 very small children in 150 guests and have them enjoy it. So we just invited the adults.

Cost
Space
Don't like them

Had 3 dogs tho 😁

Because none of my friends bar a few had kids, but DH was older and it was second marriage, so inviting his all guests kids would have massively increased the numbers. Immediate family and very close friends kids were invited. General guests, no. It wasn’t explicitly ‘no kids’ but I’m not sure why people would think children were invited if their names weren’t on the invites (we had a few queries).

Day was lovely; close friends children are lovely. No kids running amok.

I totally agree with this. Any other event and people would just decline if they didn't suit them but make it a wedding invite and all hell breaks loose!

I'm not married yet. I am a mother. My wedding will be child free. In fact my child is invited to an upcoming wedding and I'm not bringing her.

The only weddings I've been to that had children at them have had the children running around, hyper, with the parents either nowhere to be seen or absolutely hating the whole event. Any wedding I've attended has been mostly geared towards adult, long-ish ceremony, formal sit down meal, formal dress which is usually uncomfortable for children, alcohol, loud music, long day, late night... Not really what children would enjoy in my opinion. And on a funny note, I'm early 30s and am already getting a bit sick of weddings, imagine if I started attending them if I was 5! 😂

I remember a cousin having a child free wedding and another one saying huffily "Well if our children are not welcome, we won't be going either". No loss.

Yeah i'd be upset too if everyone with kids just left come 9pm, but from my own experience I never went home that early we'd just all stay up together and leave late. It was exciting as a kid. But that was the 90's and noughties so maybe parents just aren't like that anymore. I think its different if you have babies and toddlers as they can't stay up that late.

My dogs don’t like children, and it’s their day too 😀

Yup. Had a friend who was very proud about her child friendly wedding she had planned. Masses of kids.
Sweetie carts (disaster, sugared up kids, sweets tipped everywhere and thrown about), popcorn machine (same), an indoor play area, bouncy castle.

This meant screaming throughout the wedding breakfast from the play area and loads of injuries and tears, parents up and down to check on them and tend to said injuries, many just didn't ever go back to their food as the parents all started chatting outside round the play area and so much was wasted. Carefully curated kids meals ignored as all stuffed on sweeties and overexcited by bouncy castle. Tables were half empty because of this or the room was an extended play area for the kids as they ran around the tables. The bride looked pretty upset as she came around the room and saw untouched meals and half empty tables.

The wedding was deserted by 8pm when all the kids became fractious and overtired and all the parents left. The band hadn't even come on yet. They were devastated. A handful of child free friends left to rally round make the dance floor look busy and give the couple a good evening.

Man that wedding was hard work.

Cost.
Room size.
So that drunk people aren't tripping over exciteable children running around: neither enjoy it.

Personally not a fan of children being around drunk people, especially those who turn lairy and swear a lot.
I only had family and wedding party children at the wedding breakfast- plus any babies
then no children at all in the evenig: Nobody complained or asked me for an exception.

You have to draw a line somewhere and cost is a big decider, along with venue size.

Because parents think it's cute when children run about/get in the way on the dance floor/make noise, most if not all of my friends don't have kids and we wanted a good party - we wouldn't invite children to a normal party so certainly not to a special one!

Our favoured venue had an 80 person limit and was an adults only hotel. We had 75 adults we wanted to invite. Inviting everyone's children would have added a whopping 21 guests and most placed charged full price for children (most were aged 3-6).

We don't have kids, don't want them and don't enjoy kid related stuff- we felt that if we invited 21 kids, we would have had to go with a less favoured venue to accommodate them, pay over £2k for their places (£100 per head) and provide suitable entertainment which seemed like an overreach.

We said no kids except immediate family and babies under 1, so ended up with my nephew and my cousin's baby, which was a number of children that the preferred venue could accommodate. We did spread the world quietly amongst friends that we really would have missed that we could fit an extra kid or 2 if it had realllly been a big problem but no one asked us to. Most couples arranged childcare, booked into the hotel for the night and embraced the childfree party. The wife of one of my husband's friends couldn't attend due to childcare but that was more because her DH originally told her the wrong date and her Mum wasn't available once she knew the correct date..,

We were both upfront and polite about it and it doesn't seem to have caused any issues!

We didn't have children at our wedding because we didn't know any. I was the first cousin and the first of my friends to get married, nobody had kids and my youngest cousin was late teens.