Weddings where children are not invited

I think it’s def up to the bridge and groom as it’s there day. When I got married in the 70’s we had a no children rule as several of the cousins invited had 4 or 5 children each and it would have increased the numbers and costs hugely. As a general rule I think it’s lovely to have children at weddings, but only if they are well behaved and quiet, especially during the proceedings. You’d hope that parents would take children out if they got fidgety or noisy but sadly that’s not the case. Now that the bride and groom are more likely to pay themselves, they probably choose more friends, instead of a host of unknown small relatives who they may never see again!

Why on Earth would you think a child would upstage you?

marriage is not just about two people is it? It is about the joining of two families, who will hopefully support and love the newly married couple. Be there in good and bad times which includes all the warts. Children are part of the package in my opinion. We are going to my nephews wedding in September and the children are all included and being specially catered for with their own food and outdoor games etc. He by the way does not have children neither does his soon to be wife.
Both my son and daughter had all the family children and none of them distracted the congregation at the ceremony. I can’t even remember the children at my wedding of which there must have been quite a few.

Children are the result of these unions and bring joy and love.

It is imo a very weird thing to want to exclude children from such an important part of family life.

Hetty58 the wedding of the year in Perugia was like that. My friend wasn’t invited, but the ‘no children’ on the invite was accompanied a note that said perhaps Gran (my friend) would like to go over and look after the children for the day!
One DGD who is contemplating marriage after Covid says hers is a ‘no children’ affair. I wonder if she’ll stick to it?

Mmm...I'm unpopular enough on GN today so I'll go the whole hog WWM2 .

My marriage is about 2 people, nobody else. I'm child free. I wasn't fond of children then. I'm not fond of them now.

I cannot imagine having a special games room for children at a wedding. Never been to such a wedding. Maybe its just me and my friends.

My DD had a no kids policy except the one flower girl who was her cousins daughter. Their wedding, their decision. If parents who had kids didn’t like it, they didn’t come. No big deal. At £60 per head there was no way we were going to pay for children too, 2 of her friends have 4 kids each. No one complained, from what I remember, the people that seemed to have the best time were the parents without their kids in tow!!!

We married 45 years ago. We only invited 2 children. Mainly because our venue had limited capacity. Nowadays it is costly to provide meals and entertainment for little ones.
We went to a couple of child free weddings when our 3 DDs were young. No problem.
Most children see a wedding purely as a party and it occurs to me that parents don’t usually take small children to a evening party.

Alegrias1

Mmm...I'm unpopular enough on GN today so I'll go the whole hog WWM2 .

My marriage is about 2 people, nobody else. I'm child free. I wasn't fond of children then. I'm not fond of them now.

I cannot imagine having a special games room for children at a wedding. Never been to such a wedding. Maybe its just me and my friends.

My nephew and bride are what would call alternative I guess.

But I’ve honestly never been to a child free zone wedding?

But on the other hand whatever floats your boat I guess.

Perhaps it’s a Scottish thing?

IMO it’s the bride and grooms day and if they decide to have a no children policy at their wedding it’s their choice! Their wedding their choice

I did wonder if its a Scottish thing WWM2

Come tae oor weddin'. Dinnae bring the bairns!

When dh and i married we had all 27 G/children at the wedding/reception.
They were golden at the ceremony and reception.
But i have been at a few weddings where a few children were a nightmare,but i put it down to the parents not warning them in advance to be good.
Some of our g/ children were told they must behave before hand,as i used to say to my sons when they were little.
I have found adults to be more of a pain tbh.

timetogo2016, yes - especially adults who've had a few too many!

We’ve been to one recently which was babes in arms only, fair enough IMO - they don’t need a seat at the table, or a meal.

It was evidently a fairly low cost do, but that didn’t stop it being the nicest we’d been to in a long time. A substantial afternoon tea in the village hall after the church - tables set with pretty, mismatched charity shop china, garden flowers in ditto teapots. But wine on the tables too!

That sounds like my sort of wedding Witzend

It can be really expensive to invite children to weddings with some venues charging £50 for the children's option on the menu, so if you start inviting everybody children it can up numbers and the cost. So perhaps they might just be inviting children that have a special meaning to them or it can be easier to say no children as a blanket thing. Also if the wedding is in the afternoon by the time the photos are done it can be the evening before you start the meal by which time the children are grouchy and tired.

Perhaps more people would invite children to weddings if parents accepted responsibility for them and their behaviour. And grandparents didn’t think that whatever the child does is just so cute and funny.

Sorry. The three weddings I went to pre-Covid were just ruined by attention seeking children and their adoring adults.

Afterwards I was proudly shown the phone video of the moment in the ceremony that wonderful grandchild tottered up to the aisle and demanded to be a bridesmaid, seizing another small bridesmaids flowers and pushing her way in between the bride and groom. Parents were videoing her, not attempting to stop her. Sooo funny.?

Of course it’s up to the Bride and groom, but I like to see children at a wedding.
My daughter had children at her wedding, she probably didn’t have a lot of choice because her sister and her cousin were children, and there was no way they would have been left out.
There were quite a few children, and they had a great day, dancing, and playing. We had a lovely day, but I think it would have been less lovely without the children.

We banned children from our wedding. We were both teaching and by the summer holidays when we got married we'd had enough of children for the time being!

What's more, the only children this affected were those of cousins and we didn't know the children at all. Some cousins had no childcare available so couldn't come. One phoned on the morning of the wedding and wished us well so clearly wasn't too put out, one managed to come.

There weren't many children thus involved, so providing childcare wasn't worthwhile, but I certainly think it's worth consideration.

Peasblossom this is exactly the sort of behaviour I’ve witnessed too. Bratty children indulged by the parents and grandparents that were allowed to attention seek during the ceremony.

I’m going to sound old but here goes, in my youth (I’m late 50’s) children were seen and not heard, and when I raised my own children I was slightly less strict but still, the children knew not to draw attention to themselves at adult events and to go and play amongst themselves. I can understand why modern bride and grooms aren’t inviting children, because they, rather than their parents are paying, and badly behaved, precocious children are a liability. I agree, that weddings with children when they are well behaved are lovely. And I love children, I enjoy my friends gc that have childminding duties abs FaceTiming my own gc.

When DD got married she was 35, DSiL 41 so most of their friends had children. We had a separate marquee and menu, two wonderful Norland nannies, videos and musical instruments. Getting them to go home was the problem!

Before the service started the priest, a university friend of the bride, told parents where to take children who were bored or fidgety and it all went off very smoothly despite the presence of some thirty children aged between six weeks and fourteen. Planning is all important.

I dunno, I’ve always thought it a privilege and an honour to be invited to a wedding. I’ve never tried to make it all about me and mine.

Years ago when my girls were young a friend’s dd was getting married. They didn’t have much room at the venue and so, apologetically, they said they could only accommodate two of us. I didn’t have a strop and flounce off because we weren’t all invited. Instead, we decided that as my 12yo and I would enjoy it much more than my Dh and the 2yo, I accepted happily and we had a great day. Sadly, the marriage didn’t last, but I don’t think that was because my 2yo wasn’t there!

Interesting perspective SueDonim. I've never seen it as an honour to be invited to a wedding. I always saw it as an honour to the couple to have people come to their wedding. Attending a wedding can be expensive and I hope couples appreciate that sometimes their guests are having to give quite a lot to just be at the wedding. I was grateful for every guest that came to my wedding because they were coming for me and doing it for me. They honoured me with their presence.

In the late 1930s my parents had a children free wedding. Neither of them had nieces or nephews, but many cousins who had large families and they had a lot of friends. My mother said the only disappointment expressed was by those mothers who had envisaged their offspring as bridesmaids/pages etc., which was not at all what she had in mind.

When we got married in 1970 we said no children because one of DH's cousins had particularly bratty children. Come the wedding day the cousin turned up with all three of her children, She said "I know you said no children, but I knew you wouldn't mind mine"!

Deedaa did you tell her no! My gosh what cheek!

That's so rude Deedaa. She knew it would be hard to turn her away when everyone was busy with the wedding.