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I don’t know the entire etiquette rule re: no children at weddings….I think you’ll be ok if you address the invitations to Mr/Mrs vs. Mr/Mrs and Family…You can also note on the card w/ the reception details 'Adult Reception to Follow.' If you receive a RSVP card that indicates they included their kids I suggest phoning them straight away and politely share with them your situation.
Friendly heads up - - You may have guests who cannot attend due to babysitting availability or who may be upset because you didn't invite their children.
I don't think you can put "No children" on the invitations. Put you can write on your RSVP card : Mr and Mrs Bla Bla accepts or decline. And have key people passing the message. Also, I think it's ok to have a flower girl, especially if she's in your family.
yeah we are making the invites out to just "mr and mrs" instead of "the smith family". we will also have the memo go out by word of mouth that we will not have children at our wedding. maybe you can do those things.
put "adult only reception" or "adult reception" in the invite, and address it only to Mr. and Mrs, not to "such and such family"
also for the response cards, specify how many seats are reserved: 2 seats have been reserved in your honour....
word of mouth works too - and yes you can do just kids in the bridal party allowed! just make a rule and be consistent with it.
i am having no kids whatsoever in my wedding or at my wedding. I got flack, but frankly they arent paying for it! ::)
we are also having an adult wedding and reception. I think its ok to have the flower girl in the wedding if she is going to be allowed at the reception. Its unfair to the parents (who Im assuming are attending the ceremony and reception) to have to make arrangements for their child thats in a wedding but not allowed at the reception. I actually know someone who did this.
You should also consider how much (or little) fun your flower girl will have being the only child. She may be really bored and begin to do the things that you would like to avoid if she doesnt have an outlet.
On our response cards we have added a line under where the names are written in that say
"number of adults attending"
We also make it pretty clear on our wedding website that it is adult only AND are spreading the word via word of mouth. You could also (this was already suggested) indicate that an adult reception will follow on your invite.
I'm doing Adult Only too, and slightly altering it to say "Adult and Teenage Only Ceremony and Reception" because I have teenage cousins. We have WAY to many friends and family with super young kids, if they all brought them we;d have a preschool on our hands! plus, and this is a personal thing, but i find it SO RUDE when people just sit there during a ceremony with their kid wailing away like they don't even hear it. Especially if they are sitting there with their uninvited baby and they just let their kid cry and ruin the ceremony. I have seen this happen on more than one occasion! in order to avoid it happening at mine I have not only stated the Adult Only rule on my website and response cards, but I've been contacting everyone we know with kids and saying something personally to them to be sure they are aware. This is one of those things people think they can ignore because they think nothing will be said. it's so rude. we're also not having kids in the wedding party to be fair, tho i would love to have a flower girl and ring bearer. i love kids, don't get me wrong, but we're looking at our wedding as an adult affair. luckily everyone has been saying they don't plan to bring the kids anyway, so yay!
It won't look rude to have a flower girl. She's part of the wedding party. We're in a similar situation...we aren't having young children attend but we will have a ring bearer. I've come to accept that our "no young children" rule will make some family members mad, but I hope that they love us enough to respect our request.
Im not quite sure if it wont look rude to do an "Adults Only" and then have a Flower Girl...
I'm having an adults only reception but having a flower girl. I feel like the flower girl doesn't "count" as a kid at the wedding, because she's part of the wedding party.
On our invites we wrote Adult Reception and people understood that meant no children invited.
The flower girl is part of the wedding party. I think guests will understand why she is invited if other children are not invited. I wouldn't worry about it too much. I really doubt your guests will say anything with the flower girl in attendance.
You're having a semi-destination wedding, right? Will a lot of your family be coming from the mainland?
You have a lot of time to plan, so I would recommend not worrying about the invites right now. Instead, check out the many threads of Bees who've also had children free receptions. It has gone swimmingly for some, not so for others. Way before you worry about invitation wording, you need to lay the groundwork with your family. I think you will find that for people travelling from the mainland, not bringing their child will be extremely prohibitive.
So, before you think about the invite, think about:
- age cut-off that makes sense (16? 13? 18?)
- whether you will make any exceptions, and how that will be received
- are there childcare options at the hotel for people who bring kids to PR?
- if not, can you offer childcare?
- if so, would you allow for kids at the ceremony, then send them off for the night-time play date?
- how will your families react to this decision?
- Are you set on this hotel? Are you positive they can't cut some prices, like the bar tab, for kids?
Really, you can worry about invitation wording, like, 5 months before the wedding. Lay the groundwork first.
I personally think "Adults Only Reception" sounds bossy to write on an invitation, even if you for sure aren't allowing children. And sometimes it works, but I think in a lot of cases people ignore it or don't look closely enough or just think it doesn't apply to them. So you end up having to tell everyone with kids their children are not invited anyway.
We are having 2 ring bearers and a flower girl but not allowing kids into our reception. It's not even about the $ for us, I just don't want them there. Call me selfish, but I want the attention to be on me and my husband, not little Johnny.
I went ahead and addressed them as follows....
We have reserved ___ seats in your honor..
Joyfully Accepts..... Regretfully delines......
We didn't even put that is was an adult only reception. Plus this let our guest know how many ppl they could bring since it is a plated dinner. Just to be on the safe side we will call them before hand and let them know.
I wrote "Adult Reception to follow" on the save-the-dates to get the word out early. I also spoke to a few close family members about the decision so they know to expect it. I also plan on filling in the parents' names on the Response cards.
I love the bees' ideas about "adult reception" or "number of adults attending"
You are not rude for not inviting kids! If I received one, I would either find a babysitter, or stay home! I think it is a very simple choice of going without kids, or not going, and people should make their own choice and not hassle you about it.
I have another reason to say "Adults only", not the expense or the fear that they'd misbehave. My venue holds 100 people, TOTAL. For every kid that attends, a personal friend will have to be "not invited" - And, several of Fi's friends have 2-3 kids each. Ack. But I do have 2 flowergirls, they are the daughters of one of my bridesmaids and I am close to them, so they will be the exception.
Honestly, on a formal wedding invitation ettiquette dictates the the word "adult" NEVER be mentioned. This is something to mention on your wedding website. Additionally, when a couple sees that the envelope is only addressed to Mr. and Mrs. xx and NOT "and family" or the child's name, they are not invited.
I told my family and my FMIL that children were not allowed at the wedding. Fortunately, everyone abided and those who had children got babysitters.
It isn't rude to say this unless you have an immediate family member, like a sister who has a child since they would be immediate family.
Most parents with young kids like having a night out away from them as a date night! I was very concerned about this topic and went to a message board for mothers and sought their opinion. They actually said that they totally understood and enjoyed having a night out with just the hubs! It's those few rude people that cause the problem and those are the same ones who will read "adult" in the invitation and still cause the problem and need to be spoken to directly.
It's not rude, we did this, but be prepared for COMPLETELY OBLIVIOUS GUESTS to IGNORE YOU (i'll spare you my RSVP rant ;-) ). We addressed the invites to only the parents, did the "TWO seats have been reserved in your honor" on the RSVP cards, AND had a page on our website explaining why our late Saturday night Art Museum wedding would not be including kids. And wouldn't you know it....people just wrote their kids in anyways.
We wrote "Respectfully, an adult affair" on the guest info insert with the invitations and on the web site and we didn't have any problems. If people thought it was rude, they kept it to themselves.
Crayfish, how are you handling that? Are you having your FMIL or mom call and talk to them? I tried playing the 'it's a cost concern' angle, but of course you get those people that say, 'Oh, I have no problem paying for them to come.' Which is obvioulsy not the point and only a small reason I don't want kids there.
I don't even know how to have that conversation without upsetting folks... because apparently it isn't enough to say 'FI and I have both agreed that we want OUR wedding to be an adult only affair.'
It's pretty much caused WWIII with FMIL freaking out that I don't want kids around. She keeps saying, well there are always kids at our family weddings and even if I tell people not to bring them, they'll still bring them anyway. Also, I'm not going to approach the hiring childcare for them... they all live within 40 minutes from our wedding venue, they can hire a babysitter themselves.
WHAT'S A GIRL TO DO?!
I'm thankful that my excuse is non-negotiable. 100 seats is 100 seats, its not like they can say if I bring my kids "they'll behave" or "I'll pay".... My answer is, if you bring your kids I will not be able to invite _________.
"...be prepared for COMPLETELY OBLIVIOUS GUESTS to IGNORE YOU (i'll spare you my RSVP rant ;-) ). We addressed the invites to only the parents, did the "TWO seats have been reserved in your honor" on the RSVP cards, AND had a page on our website explaining why our late Saturday night Art Museum wedding would not be including kids. And wouldn't you know it....people just wrote their kids in anyways."
That is exactly how we did our invites...we had people add their 3 young children to the RSVP card ...TWICE.
My Fiance and I politely put Adult's only please on the bottom of our RSVP's card.
We are having his two young nieces as flower girls, his teenage nephew aS a junior groomsman, and my young nephew as the ring bearer, BUT we are still having an adult ONLY reception. Right now we are spreading it word of mouth and our website says,
"We look forward to celebrating our special day with all of you, but with the exception of our nieces and nephews are hosting an adults-only evening and ask that you plan accordingly. Thanks for your understanding."
Part of our venue is a huge lake house and so because in total we have 6 neices and nephews under the age of 7 we are hiring a babysitter to watch ONLY them during the reception so our sisters (me) can have a breather.
I definitely love the idea of putting Adult Reception to follow on the invites mmm...I'll have to run that by the FH
We put only the adult names on the invitation. Then, to make it more clear, we also included a blurb on our wedding website that said there were no children under 12 permitted at the event. Those people that pressed us on it were told that our venue (a winery) did not allow children so there was nothing we could do. :)
I would say ignore ettiquette and have ADULT ONLY on everything connected with the wedding...save the dates, invites, rsvps, websites, etc...and I would have someone willing to turn away anyone who does turn up at either the ceremony or reception with a child.
The reason I say that is because my wedding was supposed to be adults only, and we'd made that crystal clear to all our guests...but my ex H's cousins thought that it didn't apply to them. Where they got that idea from I still don't know.
They bought their baby with them...who then proceeded to SCREAM throughout the vows. The stupid parents did nothing....not even WHEN THE REGISTAR STOPPED THE CEREMONY AND GLARED AT THEM 
They ruined what was supposed to be the most meaningful part of the whole day. It's now 10 years later, my marriage is over, and I'm still angry when I think of it.
F**k ettiquette.
Making the decision to have a "no children" wedding is not rude, but it is going to cause a lot of troubles with your guests. Make sure you make it very clear on your invites that children will not be at the wedding. Also, it is not rude for you to have a flower girl, but I wouldn't broadcast that to everyone.
Most would say to just address the invite to the parents and not put and family. I on the other hand rude or not know my family or his wont get it unless its spelled out so our invites say right at the bottom "Adult reception to follow" You could also do no children unless in the bridal party so your flower girl could be there. I dont think that having a no children wedding is rude. It will be a nice get away for the parents. Also I know a lot of people like to have kids attend and thats just fine, but it does change the whole atmposhere of the wedding.
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Hello!! Im a really budget wise bride and I don't want to have children at my wedding because the Hotel charges me per person doesn't matter that is a kid. Also don't want the guest to be worried about their kids running around and making noises.
So I decide to have a "No Children Wedding" but how do I put it on the invite? Does it go in the invite? I heard some people go by word of the mouth but that is too risky.
Another thing, Im thinking of having a flower girl. Would it look bad if I don't invite guest's children but have a flower girl?