Roles for Children in Ceremony if Adults Only Reception?

SaraAndrew2010

For our wedding we are planning a Catholic mass followed by an adults only reception.  Given that we are not inviting children to the reception, would it be inappropriate to include some of them in the ceremony?

For instance, we were thinking about asking FI's younger cousins to be altar servers and his goddaughter to help bring up the bread and wine for communion.  Is it rude to ask them to be involved in the wedding ceremony if they won't be invited to the reception?

For background, we are fine with any of our guests bringing children to the ceremony, just not the reception.  Most of our guests with children are local and because of the gap between ceremony and reception they would have time to drop their kids back at home with a sitter or at an in-laws house.  I expect that a fair amount of our relatives will bring their kids to the ceremony if we spread by word of mouth that it is fine with us. 

jajph1974

If the children will be a part of your ceremony, they should also be a part of the reception. Otherwise, it would seem to others as if you consider them as "props"

wadingmoose

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_roles-children-ceremony-adults-only-reception?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:918fb9b3-ac20-46af-ab7d-53c09fc5bb3dPost:cb35c3be-8d53-40af-93c7-82710ad12547">Roles for Children in Ceremony if Adults Only Reception?</a>:
[QUOTE]For our wedding we are planning a Catholic mass followed by an adults only reception.  Given that we are not inviting children to the reception, would it be inappropriate to include some of them in the ceremony? For instance, we were thinking about asking FI's younger cousins to be altar servers and his goddaughter to help bring up the bread and wine for communion.  Is it rude to ask them to be involved in the wedding ceremony if they won't be invited to the reception? For background, we are fine with any of our guests bringing children to the ceremony, just not the reception.  Most of our guests with children are local and because of the gap between ceremony and reception they would have time to drop their kids back at home with a sitter or at an in-laws house.  I expect that a fair amount of our relatives will bring their kids to the ceremony if we spread by word of mouth that it is fine with us. 
Posted by SaraAndrew2010[/QUOTE]

I think it's rude to ask someone to participate in the wedding and not allow them at the reception. 

TurtlesAllTheWayDown

I think this is just like inviting an adult to the ceremony and not the reception - don't do it. Either have 2-3 kids in the ceremony AND allow them to come to the reception, or don't have them at all.

And don't tell people their kids can come to the ceremony only. If they bring them to the ceremony, I guarantee they will go home and not attend the reception, rather than dropping the kids off with a baby sitter. And some might take it to mean wedding rather than ceremony and bring them to the reception anyway.

EmmaBride2B

When I was old enough to be an altar server, I probably would have been disappointed that I didn't get invited to the party after. Even if they don't care though, I'll bet the parents will think it is rude.

danieliza1127

I think if you want to have an adults only reception, you need to do adults only for the whole thing.  Unless you have a long gap btw ceremony and reception, it would be really inconvienent for people to bring their kids to the ceremony and then take them home and come back for the reception.  i bet if you did that, you would have people just go home and skip the reception.

SaraAndrew2010

Thanks for the feedback.  I was leaning towards thinking it would be rude to have children involved in the ceremony if they won't be invited to the reception, but wanted to see if anyone had any experience with a similar situation.

I understand the point that many of you are making about not letting guests bring their kids to the ceremony since its an adult only reception.  It's actually pretty common in FI's family and my family for kids to come to the ceremony only.  Our relatives are a partying crowd, so I can't picture many of them skipping the reception to stay at home with their kids.  I'll have to see what my mom and FMIL think about this.

danieliza1127

A lot of people who have adult only wedding and receptions will have family kids in the ceremony and at the reception, and those are the ONLY kids allowed to come to the reception.  I also think that's fine to do.  Good idea on talking to your Mom and FMIL since they know your family and guests best.

tlv204

Yeah I think if they're in the ceremony they should be invited to the reception.

For the record though, we had several people kind of unexpectedly bring their kids to the ceremony, but respected the invites and didn't bring them to the reception. I'm not sure why.

hoshiku

We are planning to have kids in the ceremony but not at the reception and the only children invited to the wedding will be the ones in the ceremony.  Because the ceremony is late at night and the reception is even later we did not want to inconvienience the parents of children by forcing them to leave when their children are tired instead of when they would like to leave.  We will throw a children's party during the reception at a nearby family house where children will be able to watch movies or sleep under the supervision of a sitter.

jnic0319

I do hope you would invite the children that are in the ceremony.  We are having an adults only reception with the exception of our 6 cousins ages 15-17 and bridal parties children which is 4 kids under 2 years old.