Kids at the wedding!!! Loved it!

Vivandiere8

Ok, I have seen a lot of brides come on here and panic at the thought of kids being brought to their wedding. Some are afraid they will be brought even if they were not invited, and others are upset because their fiance really wants his nieces and nephews there, and now all they can picture is the kids throwing a tantrum in the middle of the dance floor, running around and knocking over the cake, and just generally ruining the adult fun by their presents.

Well if you and your fiance decide to have a kid free wedding I am not here to judge. Go ahead. But since many are feeling forced and are now convinced their day will be ruined I want to post something to shed a little bit of a positive light on kids because I feel like they are being given a bum wrap. I don't think the majority turn into monsters at weddings. When I got married this past spring we decided to not exclude any children. Some parents decided on their own to get sitters. The children we did have were not only perfectly behaved, but they enhanced the night. My new nine year old stepson, the flower girl, and her brother decided to surprise us with a dance at the reception (they put it together with the help of flowgirl's mother who is a dance teacher, but it was my new stepsons idea to do it). It just filled my heart with so much joy! Later my stepson was out of the floor dancing with the flowergirl as well as the adults and not knocking anyone down. I hardly noticed my husband's eight year old cousin who was there because he just sat and ate quietly, and my two toddler nephews danced about and charmed everyone.

One of my friends this summer put a child ban on her wedding, but last minute relented and let the ring barer, flower girl, Jr brides maids/groomsmen, etc come. Same sort of thing happened. The very small ring barer had a hip hop style dance off with one of the adult gusts that was amazingly good and is now a cherished memory (as well as being captured by her videographer of course), and she couldn't be happier with the decision to let the kids come. The rest were well behaved, and frankly weren't even noticed much.

Moral of the story is both of our receptions were actually enhanced because they were there. I am so grateful me and my husband allowed children to come

Link to Kids surprise dance


Link to step son dancing with Flower girl just for fun





Little nephew dancing with a guest

holyguacamole79

I'm the same way.  We had a 6 year old start breakdancing at our reception and challenged my uncle to a dance-off.  The kids made our evening memorable, and in a very good way.  CONGRATS!

pinkcow13

Awww that is too cute!!!! We are going to have a child free wedding (except for the flower girl/ring bearer), because the cost will go up astronomically if we invite all the children. There are a lot of kids in our families lol. We are already having a really tough time keeping our guest list to 125 as it is! And we won't invite some, and not others. Additionally, our venue leads directly into a lake. There are 3 steps that lead into the water, and I know I might be paranoid, but I don't want to worry about someones kid running into the water. I had a cousin that drowned as a child (I was a baby when this happened), so that's always in the back of my mind. I love that stepson and flower girl were dancing to Salsa, btw! I need to step up my salsa game for the wedding. I'm thinking of enrolling in salsa lessons again since FI is too lazy to teach me, and for years I can't get past the basic steps (1,2,3,5,6,7) lol. WTA: I swear I had paragraphs

sarahufl

I think the kids at our wedding had more fun than anyone and nobody misbehaved.

That said, I get why people don't always want them.

CMGragain

I love family inclusive weddings!  Do the Hokey Pokey with the kids!  Great photo op!

holyguacamole79

CMGragain said:

I love family inclusive weddings!  Do the Hokey Pokey with the kids!  Great photo op!

The kids at our wedding were straight up Gangnam Style!

slothiegal

I completely understand not wanting kids at a wedding.  Luckily, we only had four or five guests under the age of 15, plus, H and I LOVE kids (he not-so-secretly can't wait to be a father), so it was an easy decision to include them.  They had a complete BLAST.  Very well behaved, danced the night away, and gave us some of the best memories (H's cousin's toddler was standing nervously near me.  Mom told him to not be shy, to come up to me and tell me how pretty I am, or congratulations, or something.  He shuffled over to me, looked me up and down, and exclaimed, "Happy birthday!"  I told him thank you very much, and before I could explain it wasn't a birthday party, he put his hand on his hip and said, "I'm THREE.  That's a VERY good age", and off he went.)

(On a completely AW note, here is me and my niece/flower girl [who, I mentioned before, has bounced back from multiple surgeries and is a total rock star....spinal tap ain't gonna slow down my homegirl]:

Vivandiere8

Awww.... @Sarahufl and @Slothiegal I love your guys kid pictures. There should be a thread started with kid pictures from weddings! I bet people have a lot of great ones!

Cookie Pusher

Yea, nope. Still glad we only had kids in the WP attend the wedding. Don't get me wrong, the pictures look adorable and I'm sure everyone had a great time. But I could not imagine having a bunch of children running around my venue.

manateehugger

Our wedding was in a children's museum, so we obviously invited kids. It was a blast, and more than one parent came up to us and said how cool they thought it was that the kids (and adults really) had fun stuff to do. Wouldn't have changed it for the world.

Sugargirl1019

Very cute. Those kiddos made for some great memories!

We had children at our wedding, our flower girl and ringbearer and then their cousins. Looking back at our pictures, I actually don't like a lot of the ones that they are in. (I can't verbalize this even to H!) They were climbing on the grand staircase making it look like a jungle gym, and they were flailing their arms all around running around the dance floor, lifting their dresses up,... So there's quite a few pictures of them in "not calm poses". I love these kids to death, I'm so glad they were my flower girls and ringbearer, but the zoo that it looked like compared to the rest of the wedding in some of the pictures threw me off.

Sorry, I'm that girl!

Peaseblossom55

We had 4 kids at ou wedding.  Two were the flower girl and ring bearer.  They were the only kids invited, two were H's cousin's kids and they were coming from OOT.  I'm so glad we had them there were well behaved and they were so much fun on the dance floor.

banana468

We had kids at the wedding and I'm glad we did but I know that doing that isn't for everyone.   The time of our wedding and the setting were family friendly but we fully recognize that doing it that way isn't for everyone. 

theartistformerlyknownas

We'll have about a dozen kids at the wedding. I'm super excited for them all to be there. A few of them have told me they've been practicing their dance moves for months!

sarawifenow

My cousin's 6 year old son has already informed me that he can't wait to "break it down on the dance floor" at FI and my wedding. This should be adorable!

LadyMillil

lolo883 said:

We'll have about a dozen kids at the wedding. I'm super excited for them all to be there. A few of them have told me they've been practicing their dance moves for months!

My 5 year old cousin had never been to a wedding before. After my aunt told him there would be dancing he started practising his dance moves for my wedding. He was so cute. 

We had a few teenagers (cousins), my 5 year old cousin and a BM brought her newborn. A lot of DH's friends have young kids that we have never met so we didn't invite them. 

kaos16

Vivandiere8 said:

Ok, I have seen a lot of brides come on here and panic at the thought of kids being brought to their wedding. Some are afraid they will be brought even if they were not invited, and others are upset because their fiance really wants his nieces and nephews there, and now all they can picture is the kids throwing a tantrum in the middle of the dance floor, running around and knocking over the cake, and just generally ruining the adult fun by their presents.

Well if you and your fiance decide to have a kid free wedding I am not here to judge. Go ahead. But since many are feeling forced and are now convinced their day will be ruined I want to post something to shed a little bit of a positive light on kids because I feel like they are being given a bum wrap. I don't think the majority turn into monsters at weddings. When I got married this past spring we decided to not exclude any children. Some parents decided on their own to get sitters. The children we did have were not only perfectly behaved, but they enhanced the night. My new nine year old stepson, the flower girl, and her brother decided to surprise us with a dance at the reception (they put it together with the help of flowgirl's mother who is a dance teacher, but it was my new stepsons idea to do it). It just filled my heart with so much joy! Later my stepson was out of the floor dancing with the flowergirl as well as the adults and not knocking anyone down. I hardly noticed my husband's eight year old cousin who was there because he just sat and ate quietly, and my two toddler nephews danced about and charmed everyone.

One of my friends this summer put a child ban on her wedding, but last minute relented and let the ring barer, flower girl, Jr brides maids/groomsmen, etc come. Same sort of thing happened. The very small ring barer had a hip hop style dance off with one of the adult gusts that was amazingly good and is now a cherished memory (as well as being captured by her videographer of course), and she couldn't be happier with the decision to let the kids come. The rest were well behaved, and frankly weren't even noticed much.

Moral of the story is both of our receptions were actually enhanced because they were there. I am so grateful me and my husband allowed children to come

Link to Kids surprise dance


Link to step son dancing with Flower girl just for fun





Little nephew dancing with a guest

I think that in giving all of the reasons that you did in your OP it comes off as if everyone who has a child free wedding is forced into doing it, or thinks that children will ruin everything that a wedding is.  I do find that to be quite judgy of people who had or are having child free weddings. 

I didn't have kids at my wedding simply because I didn't want to.  Not because I think there would be a tantrum or a cake knocked over, but because I don't think that all events are events for children to attend.  (My wedding was at an aquarium, btw).  It was a personal choice that DH and I made, just as you made a choice to include children.  I don't think there is a right or wrong with respect to this decision, and I don't understand the point in trying to sway people into allowing children at their weddings if they already made the decision to not have them. 

I'm glad you had a great wedding full of wonderful memories, I did too!  Nothing about how special and memorable my wedding was to me was lessened by the lack of children present.

Your pictures are nice.  I even watched the video all the way through of the choreographed dance number.  Nothing about that changes my opinion about the option to have a wedding without kids.

KPBM89

I'm glad we had kids at our wedding: they made the $700 I spent on a photobooth worth it.  Not only did they enjoy it and use it a lot, but their pictures are incredibly hilarious.  Some of them tore up the dance floor and it was awesome.  Annnnd one of my new little cousins gave me the most adorable handmade congrats card and we totally shared a moment over it.

That being said, I completely understand not wanting kids at a wedding.  

artbyallie

We invited kids to our wedding, but I do find that some people here (like OP) who advocate for doing so come off as judgmental and somehow holier-than-thou.

It's okay if a couple chooses, FOR ANY REASON, not to invite children. Sure, OP, your pictures are cute. But I generally find (not-tantruming) children cute anyway. Not everyone does.

jdluvr06

artbyallie said:

We invited kids to our wedding, but I do find that some people here (like OP) who advocate for doing so come off as judgmental and somehow holier-than-thou.

It's okay if a couple chooses, FOR ANY REASON, not to invite children. Sure, OP, your pictures are cute. But I generally find (not-tantruming) children cute anyway. Not everyone does.

I have to disagree with you. I think that people read it in a tone the OP didn't intend. I used to think that the people who were anti-kid at wedding (sorry can't think of better warning) used to come off sounding judgmental of kids and kind of up tight but after a bit, I realized that was the tone in my head and not the tone of the commenter. I think it is hard to read tone on the internet sometimes.

hellohkb

@jdluvr06‌ I agree. I used to feel that people who didn't invite kids at weddings seemed holier than thou, but I remembered that tone is difficult to pick up over an Internet post.

I'm inviting kids because I can't imagine kids not being included in a celebration with me. It's just what's best for me and FH.

artbyallie

jdluvr06 said:

artbyallie said:

We invited kids to our wedding, but I do find that some people here (like OP) who advocate for doing so come off as judgmental and somehow holier-than-thou.

It's okay if a couple chooses, FOR ANY REASON, not to invite children. Sure, OP, your pictures are cute. But I generally find (not-tantruming) children cute anyway. Not everyone does.

I have to disagree with you. I think that people read it in a tone the OP didn't intend. I used to think that the people who were anti-kid at wedding (sorry can't think of better warning) used to come off sounding judgmental of kids and kind of up tight but after a bit, I realized that was the tone in my head and not the tone of the commenter. I think it is hard to read tone on the internet sometimes.

I agree it can be hard to read tone, but when one says things like 'I feel like [kids] are being given a bum wrap,' it implies that their solution is the correct or better one when in fact neither option is inherently superior. Often etiquette states that certain things are just incorrect when one is hosting, but inviting kids or not is one of the few situations where that does not apply.

Vivandiere8

The purpose of the original post was for those who come on here really upset because they have to have kids there because fiance wants them and they already agreed, etc. My point wasn't to say "You should have them anyway" My point was, you might actually end up pleasantly surprised, and you shouldn't stress out too much over it. I've been on here quite a wile now and I've just seen so many super stressed brides posting about how awful they are imagining it will be. Nothing was intended as judgmental to those who don't want kids there.

Again, just trying present a different view since there are a lot of people who have only a negative picture in their minds about kids at weddings, but find themselves feeling obligated to invite the flower girl, the special niece or nephew, the kids of the groom, etc.