my cousins are kids and his cousins HAVE kids...?

jennymmorley

To keep our wedding affordable my FH and I chose guests based on "tiers" of the family. grandparents - parents - aunts and uncles - and cousins. being that his parents are divorced there are 6 parental lines in all, its starting to get big! my question is this: his cousins are all older, married and have children of their own. these are his step cousins, and he is close to the adults but doesnt know the kids so he was thinking just invite the adults. however all of my cousins are younger than me, so there will be children from my side of the family.

is it wrong to exclude the children of his cousins even when my own young cousins are still attending?

[Deleted User]

Nope. The sides don't have to be even as far as how far out with extended family you invite. On my side, we went up to second cousins. However, my H has so many first cousins, that he stopped there. It is your wedding and if you are trying to stay within a budget, invite those closest to you and also who you want.

TurtlesAllTheWayDown

I don't think that's wrong. If anyone asks why some kids can come and others can't, just explain your tier cut-off.

Calumet

There's a kid question I've never seen!

I think you are okay. Just be prepared to answer the questions.

HisCB

yeah we had a similar problem, some of my cousins have kids, that i am actually close to, and some of my stepcousins have kids that i have met maybe once, if that. i opted to invite all of my first cousins and all of their kids but only invite my step-aunts/uncles, and the only 2 step first cousins that are still kids. the rest are adults and dont live at home.

i think that guests understand the space and budget limitations more than we give them credit for.
everyone who i have heard questions from have totally understood. like i invited 1 of my moms cousins, out of like 18(not counting their spouses/kids) so that she can drive my great aunt. The other cousins understood that space just didnt allow for me to invite everyone else. 
I also invited 2 of my friends to come together without their husbands/kids because I really wanted them there but i dont know their husbands and kids and it was either invite the 2 of them, or non of them because they have 7 kids between the 2 of them. They understood completely and thought it was a great idea (and one said she loves an excuse to leave the kiddos at home with daddy once in a while anyway)
so just go with the tiers that work for you and your fi. and if anyone asks why their kids werent invited, explain how the tiers were the cut off. if they get upset, then maybe they shouldnt have been invited in the first place.

TTiger03

kudos on finding a new kid question!

I would invite them as you intend to.  I wouldn't tell anyone "no kids" and especially not "not your kids", but you can tell them that you are extending invites only to cousins as you are limited on space.  

As always, they have the option of not coming.

**exception:  I would invite any of his cousin's kids that are under 1 yr old or at least don't NOT invite them.  --- if that make sense.

aurora2685

This is very similar to what my FI and I are going through. We both have quite a few cousins. However most of my cousins are older and quite a few of them have 3+ kids (some of whom are teenagers), which ends up adding a lot of people and his cousins have about 3-4 kids, all toddlers to infants. While I think we're going to end up inviting the kids due to our venue (which is quite kid friendly), we definitely toyed with the idea of not inviting cousins kids, which I think would have been fine too. If it adds 20+ people its reasonable.