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I keep reading the children threads and honestly I could care less if kids come to my wedding, but it seems like everyone is choosing to not include children. is there an aspect that i'm forgetting about?
yes, theres going to be an open bar, but whats the difference between our family christmas party (everyone drinking) and a wedding (everyone drinking)?
Bees...what are the reasons FOR and AGAINST inviting children? Maybe there is an aspect that i'm forgetting??
Let's discuss.
Children crying or acting out can ruin special moments like the ceremony or first dance.
Also, children can add significant numbers to the guest list and thus significant money to your bill.
Lastly, children tend to limit the way parents enjoy themselves.
These were my reasons but eventually I gave up.
I remember going to weddings as a kid and loving it. Everything was so fancy, everyone was dressed up, it was so different and it felt so "grown-up". Honestly, weddings are where I probably learned my "good behavior".
A lot of our friends and family members have small children, and if we invite one, we need to invite all of them. We can't afford to do that. That's our reason.
Plus, I know our friends, and I know that they'd all rather hire a sitter and get away for a night than haul their kids to our wedding.
I think for some it's a cost issue. For others it may be noise during the ceremony. Also certain kids of certain ages can be very annoying :)
For us, it was about size and cost. We're limited in the number of people who can fit in our venue. We also have a number of family members we are obligated to invite. They all have children. Our good friends all have children. If we allowed children, we would have had a 25 or 30% higher guest list. And guess who's paying for their meals? And you can't just selectively invite them (well, you could) so we just made a blanket no-kids policy. That's the way we wanted it. There have been a LOT of threads on this topic, and it always gets heated. If you want to have children at your wedding, just do it!
I am not having kids at my wedding because some of the kids (one aunts step kids aprox 5 kids) are HORRIBLE dont behave have no manners and are extremely disreaspectful. That is the main reason there are a few other reasons also.
our reason for not inviting children is because our venue only holds 128 people. i don't want to cut 15 adult guests who matter to me out of the guest list so that my cousins can bring their 7-10 year olds who will likely be pretty bored. it's an expensive wedding, and a small venue. if we had a bigger venue, sure, bring the kids but our venue has a space maximum and someone had to be cut from the list.
also, i HATED weddings as a kid =p
I have no problem with kids, but even I was tempted to not invite them originally. Mainly because the venue where I'm having the reception at charges EVERYONE regardless of age, so even the baby under 12 months will be charged not only for food, but also for alcohol.
Against- we are having a black tie evening event at a downtown location and would like it to be an adult party. I am one of those people that doesn't think it's cute when kids run around a party and scream and cry. I also do not have children, our siblings do not have children and none of our friends do. We are not having a flower girl or a ring bearer.
Sorry but I'm not paying $200 a head for a 5 year old.
I also think having kids changes the whole tone of a party and that just isn't what we want.
I have received little to none resistance about this and most have said they are looking forward to an adult night.
Here are some of the reasons we decided AGAINST children at our reception:
I didn't really have many complaints. My family was pretty understanding about everything. I even had a cousin of mine thank me for not including kids. We were married on their 5 year wedding anniversary, and they used it as an excuse to leave their kids at home and celebrate themselves. They ended up making a weekend out of it and left the kids with my cousin's wife's parents.
It definitely worked out well for us. I'm not saying what we did is for everyone, but it suited us and our situation!
Ok...so I'm seeing money and behavior...
my mom asked me this question a few weeks ago (before I joined WB) and my gut response was "I dont care" but now I keep seeing these threads and it's making me wonder. I don't think there would be that many kids...maybe 10 total.
We lucked out that our venue isn't charging us for kids under 5, which my niece and nephew are, as well as my MOH's new baby. So in that sense we said why not. Had they charged, it may be a different story.
One of my biggest reasons FOR inviting children is that my wedding is a travelling wedding for 80% of my guests (traveling either a few hours, or a plane ride). I felt that it wasn't fair to not include children as the parents would need to travel some distance to attend, and given the cost to travel, adding a baby-sitter may break the bank for some. My per person cost for food alone is $160, but my caterer is creating childrens meals for $24 per child. We also stated on the invitation that children under 14 would be provided a "special mea" - we thought about providing a baby-sitter at the hotel for the children, but as there are currently 30 children invited, the liability of doing such a gesture is too great, and we didn't want to take the risk. We would rather invite the children to insure that the parents can take part in our special day.
mostly because of the cost. We are having about 8 kids from 1 month-5 years and three teenagers. That is it...
3 of the little ones is my sister in law
3 is from the best man and one is my god daughter.
the teenagers are my little sister who is a birdemaid one of her friends and my FI's Cousin but they are well behaved.
The kids i just hope they act decent. but ou venue is allowing us not to count kids under 5 since we are buying pizza for them and they will have a seperate kids table.
I can't imagine NOT including children in our wedding. Not only do both FI and myself have children, but most all of our close friends and family have children too and we want our wedding to be a celebration of just that - FAMILY.
Do kids cry? Yes, they do. Are some children rude and disrespectful? Yes.
Will they add more to your already growing bill - yes probably (thankfully our venue provides "Children's" prices for kids under 10).
But all of those "negatives" will never, for me, out weight the positives.
Seeing the kids dancing on the dance floor. Being in awe of the beautiful bride. Dancing with mommy and daddy. Laughing. Enjoying life.
We invited kids that we knew. We had a limited guest list so I didn't want just people there that I hadn't met, including kids.
But in our family weddings the norm is for kids to come so wasn't going to rock that boat and I really love my cousins and friends kids so it just wouldn't have felt complete without them. I also trusted the parents to take their kids out if there was a lot of fussing. We didn't worry about their dinner, which is usually where numbers come into play, just had kid food and a babysitter in a seperate room while the parents ate. And then during the cocktail hour and dancing they were fun, no misbehaving but just played with each other and danced, they were really good.
Hey girls
Question for the brides not allowing kids:
What is your cut off age?? Do teens count as kids?
I don't care either but we are not having kids. Well both our niece and nephews will be there and that is it. We could only afford a certain amount of people. Yes kids are a little cheaper but not much and they add up. My mom said parents need to go out with out there kids anyways. I know the kids would have so much fun but we can't afford it.
Our invited guests means an added 50+ children, and our venue can't support it. We're already busting at the seams. 150-175 is comfortable. 200 would really push it, and our guest list is at about 210... So, add in 50 kids and... well... not so good. Granted, I'm assuming some can't travel and make it because of the no kids, but there's about 30 locally as well.... All my cousins are HS and up and they are invited as is nursing infants. The only children not invited are those of friends as there's no more "children" left in our families.
I could care less about "crying." Logistics is my concern.
We are inviting children over the age of 12. These guests are mostly teenage cousins who are older teens. For us the reason is primarily cost, space and practicality
Cost: We are serving a plated meal wit full open bar. Very adult and not at all cheap.
Space: Our guest list has been very tough to control. Currently we are inviting 178 people to wedding with a space cap of 160. The main problem is that both FI and I have large families. It's very hard to put family on a B list... basically we didn't do it! Kids would have added another 10+ guests to the list.
Practicality: Our wedding is an evening wedding with a plated dinner and a band. Seems like a pretty adult event to me. I wanted an adult feel to the event and not have kids shrieking all over the place.
I would think if a parent wasnts a night away from their kids, they can make it an adult party by choosing to not bring them. I don't think I should be dictating whether or not they should bring their kids. Just because they're invited doesn't mean they will necessarily be there....right?
For those having kids....a special kids only table? I would think if I invite the kids, they would sit with their parents so they can be watched. Plus (i dont have kids) don't parents want to make sure that the kids eat?
We didn't invite kids due to their unpredicitable behavior and cost. We had three out-of-state guests (one toddler each) and for them we had a babysitter in the hotel during the ceremony and 2/3 of the reception which we paid for. It worked out beautifully.
If I had an outdoor, more casual type wedding, than I definately would have wanted kids. That just wasn't for me with our formal reception with alcohol, etc.
This might very well be the most detailed explanation i have ever given! lol
my reasons for not wanting children (this includes anyone under the age of 18) as well as underage adults (18-20):
for the younger kids:
-not wanting them to disturb the ceremony (im paying top dollar for a cinematographer to capture the ceremony... dont need babies or toddlers throwing fits in the middle of the audio)
-not wanting kids to monopolize the reception (ALL receptions i have been to with younger kids, they take over the dance floor and change the mood of the reception. i am not going for a chuck-e-cheese "aww thats cute" atmosphere - i want a fun ADULT night out more like a romantic dinner followed by party/lounge/club feel)
-young kids are cute and will upstage me!!! lol (bottom line i know it sounds vain but i want the attention on me, not some really cute 4 year old in a ruffly dress...)
-parents dont watch their children (all except one reception i have been to, others have had to watch folks kids because the parents partake in the open bar and leave the kids to run willy nilly - often time that person is me, and if i have to do that at MY wedding, someone is gonna hear about it.)
for the older children and underage adults (teens/tweens and up):
-we are having an open bar. every event i have been to has the younger kids sipping drinks from the tables or getting wasted themselves. I work in law enforcement as does half of my guest list. at one of our past family weddings, one teenager even got a DUI - UNDERAGE dui. i can NOT contribute to the delinquency of minors.
my one concession are the nursing babies. They can be in attendance at the reception but for the same reason the toddlers and infants cannot be in the ceremony they cannot either - i cannot have a baby crying during the ceremony. oftentimes i go to ceremonies and the baby starts crying. it takes away from the moment. and instead of the parent wisking the child out of the door to calm them out of earshot, they proceed to either try and soothe them there, prolonging the noise, or ignore the crying altogether. and that to me is unacceptable. again, expensive cinematographer means i dont want crappy audio for my lifetime memories video.
specifically for MY wedding as well, there is a child of someone in the wedding party who a good kid (shes a preschooler) and acts her age which is just fine. its the parent's reaction to her (lack of discipline, not knowing what to do, etc) that bothers me. I would rather they get a baby sitter for her so they can enjoy themselves and not throw a fit if the child acts like a child.
oh and edited to add - plus our venue is very space restrictive. so in order to invite folks we WANT there, no kids or young adults.
Granted, I can be a touch paranoid, but I'm just not comfortable having children around large groups of people when the alcohol is freely flowing - particularly if lots and lots of people don't know one another and there are opportunities for someone to disappear unnoticed.
i was wondering about these threads too. Maybe its just my irish catholic upbringing---but a wedding just doesn't feel like a wedding to me without a few kids running around! If everyone i knew had kids i probably wouldn't invite them to keep the numbers down, but it'll probably only be about 10. if parents want a night off then they can leave the kids at home, i don't care either way. but they're all pretty well behaved, and i think they'd enjoy the band, so i'd be happy to have them. i love kids.
I don't want children crying during the ceremony or running around during the reception. The only kiddos in my fam are allowed to run wild by their parents. One of them knoecked over another cousin's cake table. Not gonna happen.
I'm with SanDiegoAli on this one. We are including children because we want our wedding to be a family event. The main reason we are getting married is to start a new family, so we want to include all of our families. We figure that if the child's parents want the day away from their child, they will get a babysitter. I'm also guessing that most of the parents who do choose to bring their little ones will take extra care to make sure their children are polite & not disruptive.
Our cut off age is "first cousins". We wanted 18 but FI has 2 first cousins that are around 15 so we couldn't not count them in.
@SanDiegoAli: I understand and respect your perspective, but I cannot relate to it. I think this is primarily because this is my first marriage and none of my siblings or friends have kids. I think that this was my second marriage, I had kids and was older the entire feel of the wedding would be different. There is no right or wrong way really, but I do think that the feel of your wedding is a bit more different than most brides. Just my 2 cents :)
very interesting points. glad i started this thread....there were a few aspects i had forgotten...like the ceremony. but it also seemed like most were inviting kids to ceremony only, soooo, what is the reasoning there?
Arguments FOR kids:
We have a "Kid's Table" planned with color-in placemats, crayons, colored paper, temporary tattoos, and little porcupine figures (they look like koosh balls). Plus we are getting married in a garden, so they is an acre of area to explore and go bug hunting in. And macaroni with cheese is on the menu. I'm guessing we will have 20-30 kids at our wedding and I am excited!
Also, our caterer is offering $10 per kid, $22 per adult. They actually SAVE me money!
We had kids at our wedding and it was fine. Financial reasons make sense to me, but the "kids are disruptive" and "kids prevent parents from having a good time" reasons don't sit well with me, because really I think those reasons are more about the parents than the children. Both assume that parents won't be able to deal with a crying kid in an appropriate manner and that parents won't be able to decide for themselves if they'd have a better time if they left the kids at home.
For example, if your ceremony site has a lobby, a cry room, or a room with a babysitter in it, you will be able to handle disruptive kids at your ceremony. At my wedding one of our guests used the cry room for her 1-year-old and I was none the wiser. If there's no facility for that at your site and there are a lot of very young kids invited, it might be better not to risk it though.
Likewise, if parents want to enjoy a night without their children underfoot, they will decide on their own not to bring them. Of course this supposes that people actually take care of their own children at events...if someone is going to let their kids run wild, it's probably best not to invite those kids (which may extend to all kids). If you automatically don't invite children many guests will be upset and some will not come to the wedding at all. Maybe you are okay risking that...but don't be surprised if you get that reaction.
For me it made more sense to invite the kids than not. Your mileage of course may vary.
To me it's not a wedding without kids. A wedding is a joining of families, not just a fancy party (in my opinion). I went to numerous family weddings as a kid and they are some of not only my fondest memories, but of many of our family memebers.
We invited family children (our 7 nieces and nephews), my MOH who had a 4 month old baby, and several "children" over the age of 12 that we were close to.
It worked out very well for us. Two of the children (the youngest nephew age 3 and the 4 month old baby) had to be escorted out of the church during the ceremony. I don't remember hearing anything just saw them standing outside the church as we walked out. The church has tile floor and echos really easy and I didn't hear anything.
** EDIT ** We had a videographer. Both the pastor and my husband had mini microphones clipped onto their clothes so the guests could hear us. The videographers "hooked into" this sound system and recorded it. It will be used as clean audio for the video. Yes if your videographer is recoding from the back of the church and trying to hear you in the front and a baby cries it will get picked up. However, a professional recorder should be able to do this and you won't hear it in your video.
At the reception the two youngest neices and nephews were there for about an hour and then left home with their mother (not because they were bad, they just needed to leave). I wish they were there so they could have been in more pictures. My other SIL and her family (2 oldest nieces) left after dinner. There are a few more pictures and memories with them but not many.
From what I have heard the parents did have to "parent" and run after the kids throughout the night. Maybe not a night out on the town for them, but it was important to us to have the kids there to celebrate with us as a family.
The 4 month old baby was NO ISSUE WHATSO EVER. She stayed until about 10:30 and the reception ended around 11:30.
We chose not to invite some of the other family friends that had children. We simply addressed their invites Mr and Mrs. and left out the "and family" portion. Everyone except one family got the hint (and their children are adults living at home in my book).
I guess overall we did a combination of both. I wasn't about to give up a lot of seats to kids I barely knew or cared if they were at my wedding. However, I did make sacrifices (space, etc) for kids that were part of the family.
I think it is very dependent on YOUR family (who had kids, how old they are, how many of them) and what your family thinks about including children. I absolutely see the benefits to both sides of the argument, and I really do think the right answer to this question will be dependent on the type of event you are holding (for example: an afternoon, casual wedding as opposed to cocktails or black-tie formal).
We will be inviting children to our wedding. Most of the kids are going to be in the 3 or 4 years old and under category, and with most of these guests coming from out of town, it is hard to expect all of them to leave the kids at home when most of their family will be attending the wedding. We may still look into getting a babysitter to stay in one of the hotel rooms and look after the little ones when it starts to get late so the parents can stay up and enjoy themselves. My FBIL's wedding last summer included children and there were no problems! Another factor that has already been mentioned is that unless we are ordering a specific kid's meal for them, they will not cost anything extra. We have decided on a larger venue than we were initially considering, so the space capacity is not an issue for us.
If we invited all the kids, there would be more of them than there are adults (Irish Catholic family - we breed).
1.) We can't afford that. We've already had to make some painfulk cuts such as friends and anything above 1st cousins.
2.) I don't want a mainly child-attended wedding. Yes our farm venue is child-friendly, but my wedding is not a day camp for kids.
*Note - we ARE having a few kids: my nephew who's the RB and 6 first cousins on FI's side: 2 are the FG, 2 are their brothers and the last 2 are his cousins traveling from out of state with their parents. If the kids couldn't come, the anunt & uncle wouldn't come.
I'm fortunate that I see all the kids on my side of the family anytime I visit my hometown, so it's not like missing them at the wedding means I'll go years without saying hello. I just saw them all at my cousin's daughter's 5th bday party the day after my shower last month. Which, by the way, was awesome! We all crammed in this thing:
@muratdetector - for the ceremony only children - maybe they have lots of flower girls, ring bearers jr bridesmaids and feel bad about restricting that? or its earlier in the day? or dont mind the noise?
most want to not have them at receptions due to alcohol, cost, and timing. young kids tend to melt down close to bedtime.
Also i would state, while i am NOT a kid person, there are certain well behaved kids in my family and in FH family that i know would behave themselves during the ceremony. HOWEVER. there are also kids that i know will NOT behave, and because you cant pick and choose kids who can come - i have to exclude them all. its a shame that because of some ill-behaved children (and PARENTS) i cant invite the kids i actually WANT there.
does anyone else have THAT problem? that you would invite a choice few kids because they wouldnt cause a problem, but you know it would cause an issue for picking favorites?
I am all in favor of kids. For me, weddings are quintessentially about family and the kids are absolutely a very important part of that family. Yes they are adding a significant amount of cost (no kids rates at our wedding) but our wedding is small and there aren't too many kids (5 out of a total guest list of 40 people). I can also see how kids might work less well at a very formal wedding which is part of the reason we are having a casual, family-friendly afternoon shindig.
I never thought I'd say this! But a word to the wise, I'd make sure you know the type of parent/kids you are inviting -if you are inviting kids to your wedding!!! I have a ton of cousins and went to their weddings, and don't remember anyone misbehaving, and having loads of fun. AndI love kids, but I would think twice about having kids at your wedding! OMG-my immediate family members kids are BY FAR THE WORST BEHAVED and my sibling is ONE OF THE WORST PARENTS I have EVER SEEN!!! They were HORRIBLE at my mom's wake and funeral!!!! My other sibling and I were totally shocked and appalled!! And apologized to the funeral director--SO embarrassing
My daughter's wedding (with kids) including her own was wonderful!!! Only my siblings were invited, not their children, as they live very far away! Yay!!
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