Wedding Etiquette Forum

Children at the wedding PLEASE HELP US!

My fiancé and I are having a destination wedding on Vancouver Island, I say destination because we live in Edmonton AB, Canada. So most of my family and our friends will be from out of town.

When My Fiancé and I first got engaged we immediately decided we didn’t want children at the wedding. Then I find out later my Fiancé has told a couple of his friends that their children CAN come! The only children we are including in the wedding are my sister’s girls age 3 and twins age 2 who will be flowers girls and they are enough of a handful!

One is my fiancé’s friend from work and he wants to make our wedding a family vacation so he wants to bring his son who is about 4 and won’t come unless their son is invited. Another is my fiancé’s friend who lives in Montreal Quebec, who also will be coming from out of town and wants to bring their 18 month old. And has said they will only come if their son can come. Well my fiancé has told both they can bring their children because he really wants his friends to be there.

The problem is you can’t let some people’s children come and other’s not.  If we were to invite everyone’s children there would be 17 children and 10 of them under the age of 3!  I would really rather not have that many toddlers at our wedding.

My sister attended a wedding this summer, with children who were rolling around the aisle, yelling out loud they farted, complaining about their tie, all this DURING THE CEREMONY!  Also all the children were running around playing tag on the dance floor at the reception that no one could use the dance floor!  I would really rather avoid these scenarios all together.

How can I make my Future husband happy by having his guests able to come to the wedding, while also keeping our guest list exclusive to adults.????????

Re: Children at the wedding PLEASE HELP US!

  • I'm having a semi-DW.  As in, I live in the destination but my family and friends don't.  We are having the children come, and setting up a children's area with toys, a portable dvd player, coloring books, crayons, a few bean bags, and a children's level table.  We are setting it a bit away from the reception area and leaving a few of the older kids to change off throughout the reception for watching them.  I'm also contemplating an overseer, a hired adult professional to keep an overall eye on the teenagers in charge of the smaller ones.  
    Also, before we do the garter/ bouquet tosses, we are going to have a stuffed animal toss for those under 15.  I've seen way too many weddings where the mini-me's get hurt during the tosses.
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