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I know what you mean. Originally I was thinking an adult only reception but then parents would be very upset plus I want my nephew to come.
Ultimately its up to you. Its your wedding and if your happy not having children there then you should do that. But don't invite your niece only and not the others. This would be totally unfair.
We did an adult only reception. It started at 8, which meant dinner near 9. To me, this is not an appropriate function for children. AND a one set of nieces/nephews are very wild and not really controlled by their parents - in one wedding, in fact, the dad was swinging the daughter around on the dance floor!
We found and paid for babysitters for our nieces and nephews so there was NO hassle for our brothers and sisters. Can you arrange appropriate babysitting? perhaps on site if that will make everyone more comfortable? We had some of our siblings thrilled to have an adult night and some rather upset. Stick to your guns, be nice, and as helpful as possible!
I forget where I read this, but I have heard that it's okay for the only small children invited to the wedding to be the flower girl and ring bearer -- and that in some cases, it's understandable if they're just asked to attend the wedding (and not the reception).
By all means, someone call me out if I'm off base, but I think if you made your niece an honorary FG, you could get away with what you're describing.
But please, don't include "Adult only..." wording on your invitation -- it sounds XXX to me; listing the invited names on the envelope should be a strong enough indicator to the guests as to who is invited.
Look, you're right people are too touchy about the kid situation, but it's YOUR wedding, it's YOUR special day. Kids are always the center of attention and this time they are not, it's you and your fiancee, so do not feel bad about not inviting children. If people are so offended by this, they can choose not to come. A lot of people prefer not to invite children and a lot of wedding attendees would rather have fun and party and get a sitter. Of course you will always have a few that are whinny and want to know why little Johnny couldn't come if little Jill was invited, but if you cut a solid line after the wedding party kids and your nieces/nephews, I don't think you should have to feel bad about it.
I think nieces and nephews can be treated separately because they are immediate family. I'm not sure if this is your niece or your fiances, but if you feel comfortable talking to the parents you could always just ask what they would prefer. I am having an adult only wedding, but I am allowing my two nephews to come because I know my future sister in law with throw a fit if I don't let them come. I don't feel like this means I have to then invite all of the other children. It's different, the other children are kids of my cousins, kids of co-workers, etc.
The problem I am having is that both parents are in our wedding and I was freaking out about who is going to watch her 1 and 3 year old kids during the ceremony. Luckily for me, our venue will allow a babysitter to watch them during the ceremony in the dressing room area.
The truth is, kids can be cute at weddings, but ultimately 90% of them will get whinny and tired before the night is over.
I agree with MagPie. I would add her as a second FG -- you could have the girls walk up the aisle together, which would be totally cute! The 7-year-old would love being "in charge of" helping the little one make it to the altar. 
I agree with MagPie. I also think that even if your niece wasn't an honorary FG, you could invite her if she is your only niece. Guests should understand that one child is there because she is immediate family.
However, if you really don't want children at your reception, you should make it clear to your mom and sister that it is YOUR wedding. Some advice my mother gave me when I told her we probably didn't want children at our wedding: Just remember that someday you may want to take your children to a family wedding, especially if you don't see your extended family very often.
We will not be inviting children (despite my mother's disappointment) but my 3 y.o. niece will be the flower girl and she will be at the reception. Even if she wasn't the flower girl, she is my only niece so I would want her there anyway.
Good luck with your decision!
I think nieces and nephews are totally legit at a no kids reception. A member of your family is completely different from your friends' children. I also think it's appropriate to invite them as most likely your family members will be much more involved anyway. I suspect that the 1 year old won't be up for most of the reception. I'll have a 2 yr old F.Niece and a 3 yr old niece...but both sister and FSIL are already thinking about logistics of getting them to sleep and still being able to attend the festivities. And to let you know that this is not weird, one member of my BP will have 2 kids by the time of the wedding. She knows my nieces will be there and on her own she started talking about arrangements for their Grandparents to babysit. She wouldn't even expect (or want) to bring her kids. I'm guessing many of your guests will feel this way too.
I think I read the same thing as MagPie. We are also trying to avoid having kids at our wedding, so we chose a venue that is adult oriented (a resort and casino) and they offer on-site child care until 12am. That way, if parents want to bring them out for the weekend, they can still enjoy a night with the grownups. We are going to be specific with the names on our invites, and we have info about the kid care on our website. We've told our close friends and family that we want to keep it kidless, so hopefully they can help spread the word for us too.
Good luck!
i think you should be consistent to be fair to other guests, who might feel hurt/angry/discriminated against if you allow certain young children and not others, even though it's your niece. my opinion...
Thank you ALL for you insight, suggestions, opinions, comments.
To answer some of your questions: I only have one niece and one nephew. My Fiance does not have any nieces or nephews.
My nephew is in the wedding party and I've decided to add my niece as a Flower girl!! However, we still do not want any other small children there. Hopefully this will not offend others or cause others not to attend. We really just want a fun adult wedding reception, party-style. (not family reunion style)
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you ALL... wish me luck!
To be honest with you there is no reason your sister needs to bring her 1 year old. I would tell her nicely that you are having an adult reception and unfortunately you cannot bend the rules for one person. I would also explain that she should look at this as a getaway for her and her husband and they should enjoy their night kid free. Just my personal opinion!
Wow, there are a lot of opinions on this and no consensus.
I think the smart thing to do if you don't want children at the reception has already been touched on: hire a babysitter. That way when their babysitter "cancels" or if they simply ignore your request, you can have a BM excort the kids to the "Kids Room" where the babysitter(s) is/are.
I wouldn't really care if I insulted my guests if they ignored my request. They can either attend without kids, or not attend. And a 1 year old is not going to miss out on the wedding. I don't think it's rude to write "Adult only" because it spells out your boundaries. I don't think it's rude to expect people to stay within those boundaries.
Why are wedding guests so self-righteous?? You're hosting a party. It's within etiquette that they follow the rules!
You don't say how far along you are in your planning, but we are having a really late reception (it will start at 8 and go until 12). We are inviting children but most parents are opting not to bring them since it will be so late.
It would also be nice to hire a baby sitter. You are right in that it will be very difficult to have your niece there, but tell everyone else the little ones can't come. We didn't even have to hire one - my future sister in law has a friend who will be watching the few children who will be in town for the wedding.
I think it's perfectly fine to tell people they cannot bring young children. It's probably better for the adults (not having to worry about/entertain/keep under control) their kids, as well as the kids (they will be bored. Really, they will.).
As for your 1-year old niece, it's probably better that she not attend, for the reasons listed above, as well as for the fact that she is not old enough to know what is going on at a wedding. I don't mean to sound like a scrooge about it, but she is one year old. She will not remember it. She will not feel that she's not being included. And I don't think most children that young can even walk well enough to participate in a wedding.
We had that problem early on. We decided that children who weren't in the wedding party would not be invited. We made a cut-off age for teenagers, and decided that above that age, their names would be included on the envelope and RSVP card count. Just don't put the child's name on the envelope. On your RSVP card, could you put something to the effect of, "We have reserved X spots for your family"?
I think the reason you have to specify about the kids is that parents will say:
"Ok, 3 spots reserved. I guess they didn't count little Jessica because she won't be eating." And they'll bring them anyway. Saying "Adult only" leaves no ambiguity.
For my brother's wedding, I helped my SIL with the invites, but they were pretty vague (she hadn't planned it all yet). She spent the next 3 months answering phone calls from people who wanted clarification. And she had to tell them over the phone in no uncertain terms that children weren't invited. AWKWARD!
Can you tell that no matter what you choose, someone will be unhappy? If you don't invite them, some parent will get offended. Although I'm a parent and wouldn't, for what it's worth. And if you do invite them, some of the guests are going to be annoyed with the kids kicking off at the ceremony/reception.
I have seen many invitations worded with adult reception. I'm nit sure if magpie's pont was to say maybe "adult reception" rather than "adult only reception". (Adult only sounds like you're showing a porn film or something.)
Personally, I think inviting your niece and nephew are an appropriate exception. I think they can legitimately qualify, wihthout having to invite everyone else's kids. IMO, don't feel bad about that at all. And if your niece is too young to walk down the aisle, have the other flower girl pull her in a decorated wagon.
And Good luck!
I had the same problem, I have 3 babies attending the wedding they do not get their own food plate of course or their own chair, the ring bearer, and my niece who is 10 and 12 are the youngest kids attending they are the only ones at that age to attend. The only reason is that I know they will stay with their parents the whole time and they are my neices not my in laws' cousins kids. I cannot allow a gaggle of kids run around a 9 acre wedding venue getting lost and falling into ponds. Therefore the very young can attend and the older teenagers can attend. Thats it. I am not adding wedding babysitter to my budget, no thank you.
oh and yeah I am sure someone will be unhappy about the my choices but they can get over it or pay for a sitter at the venue!
We decided to not have any kids at our wedding, and it worked out fine with almost everyone. Our venue's kid's option was expensive, and we didn't want to have to rent the larger size room to accomodate all the kids. Hubby's cousins are the only "first" cousins under 18 in our two families (Most of my cousins have kids of their own, plus there are some kids that we are close to because of friends of the family.) Now when we told his aunt and uncle that we weren't inviting kids, they went totally postal. (I should mention that his youngest cousin is autistic, and prone to yelling.) We were accused of leaving them out because of this, which deeply hurt my husband, as he loves his cousins and can't wait to play with them and see them whenever he can. Long story short, his aunt and uncle were very childish, didn't talk to my MIL up until Christmas (this happened in March 08) and tried to use his grandmother to guilt us into changing our minds. Had there been only this set of cousins, we would have had them no problem, but to be fair, I have at least 15 cousins, most who have kids, and some very dear friends with kids whom we also told couldn't bring their children.
I'm not trying to put anyone off kids at weddings or anything, just a warning that some people may be offended that they can't bring their kids, and stick to your guns!!
We want an adult only ceremony and reception too. We forgot to write that on the invite because I thought that when I put "We have reserved 2 seats in your honor." That they would know that it meant I'm only inviting the couple NOT their 2 or 1 year old kid. I've had a few people email me asking if they can bring their child. I had to say no because the guest list is already expanding and it's been so frustrating. I find that it's rude that they are even asking... Not to be mean but why should I have to worry about their babysitting needs? Planning a wedding has been hard enough already...
we are having five children -- our nieces and nephews. No other children. I think people should be able to handle that. It isn't unreasonable -- they are our immediate family as far as we are concerned.
I really think it's best to do what you feel most comfortable with in this situation, because the day is about you and your fiance being able to share your joy with the people who are a part of your lives. If it's important to you that she be there, then don't feel guilty about it.
We had an issue with this also and the fact we both have large families. We narrowed it down to we aren't inviting the kids of any of our friends, we are only inviting nieces and newphews, no cousins that are under 15, no kids of our cousins. We also went as far that if we haven't met that member of either of our families in the 5 years we have been dating they aren't invited (Sorry!) It is tough, we are having one of our ushers ask all kids that are coming to sit in the childrens room at the church or for the family to not attend the church ceremony.
I think it also has to do with who is paying for the ceremony, if you are paying for it then you have a right to say no, but if your parents are paying for it then you should be obligated to say yes to them, But if you decide to have them the rules have to apply for both families, so its not right to invite on your side and not on your FH side. That might cause future tension between yourself and your FH family!
Also, I would ask your reception vendor if they have kids meals. We made sure when we booked the reception that they had kids meals and they do for $9.99. We are not giving the kids choices on their meals either (because number 1 they wont remember what they choose and two they may change their mind which causes a problem on your big day!) so we are giving all the kids chicken fingers!
I didn't read the rest of these so bear with me if I am repeating. We didn't have children at our wedding and there was the potential of having 15 children under the age of 5 (10 under the age of 1) there. However, at the time, my nephew was 2.5 yrs old. Too young to walk down the aisle by himself as a ringbearer, we assigned him the role of mother-of-the-bride's escort. Not a single person was upset that he was there for a variety of reasons including 1) he was in the wedding 2) he was family.
I would steer away from having the words 'adult reception' on your invitation since that might rub people the wrong way and it actually is considered by many to be poor etiquette. Just make sure you address the invitation to only the adults. Also, we personally called each family with children and let them know that we would not be including children in the wedding BUT that (in our case) we would have a babysitter available for children under the age of 1 (so that mother's wouldn't have to leave the party to check on baby) and for kids over the age of 1 we offered the contact information of an accredited babysitting service in the area.
In the end, only one person took us up on the babysitting option and everyone was very pleased that we had taken the time to individually address their needs.
I have the opposite problem! I want MOST kids at our wedding/reception EXCEPT my brothers 3 unruly kids. I can't have their invitation say "no kids" while everyone else brings theirs so I'm just going to hope they behave or leave early! haha
I agree that it's up to you who you invite and who you don't but if your Mom is helping to pay for the wedding she may carry more weight than if she's not. It depends on your family, but I say keep your foot down. You want no kids then you should have no kids! :) BUT I can also see where kosstobe's Mom is coming from. It's a touchy situation.
Let us know what you decide!
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grumpybear722. I agree I think kids at weddings is a touchy subject with most families!
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<font face="Times New Roman" size="3">I just wanted to say that I had kids at mine and didn't have a single problem. I made a kids table with boxes of goodies and cupcakes for them and it kept the kids pretty busy. I think I had more fun putting together the kids packs then anything else, lol. With our kids in the ceremony it only felt natural to have kids there. Hopefully, all goes well and nobody really gives you a hard time about not having children there.</font>
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Hi Everyone!
After running down our guest list.... my Fiance and I decided together that we'd prefer not to have young children at our wedding. Knowing the children and their parents... we didn't want to take the risk of disruptions during the day. Also, we are trying to keep numbers fairly low (guest count and associated costs). To do this I would simply address the envelopes to the invited guests, and state "Adult Reception to follow at....." on the bottom of the Invitation.
The bridal party consists of 6 people: 1 Bridesmaid, 1 Maid of Honor, 1 Matron of Honor, 1 Best Man, 1 Flower Girl (age 7), and 1 Broom Carrrier (age5).
The problem: My only niece will be 1 yrs old when we get married. My mother and sister say that my niece should be in the wedding or at least able to attend... even THOUGH I already said "no young children." My Fiance says that its not fair for me to OK my niece being there but not the other small children, and I agree. I'm torn... I don't want to increase the size of the guest list to include nearly 40 children or add a seperate kid-friendly menu.
This is such a touchy subject. On the one hand I would love to have the children of our families attend but on the other hand I envision for us an adult reception/party. I hate to even say to people "no young children." Help!?! What to do?