Too many kids?

acanon526

We are having a hard time deciding on our flower girls/ring bearers. I have a very large family with 3 female cousins and 2 male cousins all under the age of 5 that I would love to include in the wedding. I am equally close with all of them, and would not feel comfortable only choosing 2. In addition, I use to nanny for a family with a 2 year old son. I concider him to be family and would love to include him as well. That would make a total of 6 kids in the wedding! 

If it becomes too complicated I am open to the idea of not including any children in the wedding. But ideally I would like to include them all. 

Does anyone have any experience with inculding numerous kids in a wedding party? Was it stressful and did you end up regretting it? 

If you have any tips on how to make it work logisitcally would be great as well. I was thinking of making a bunting banner that says something like 'here comes the bride' and having all of the kids walk it down the isle. That way I dont have to worry about designating different roles to each kid. 

itzMS

Scrap this idea. Under 5 years old is too young to know (or probably remember) what's going on anyways.

If you want, take a special picture with the children.

I would even say you could offer to buy each of the kids a special "dressy" outfit if you wanted to. Other than that, invite them as guests and seat them with their parents or other trusted adult during the ceremony if the parents are in the wedding party.

[Deleted User]

Things to think about before asking the parents
-Who is going to pay for their special outfits & shoes
-How will you react or handle the situation if one of the kids throws a tantrum or is cranky because it's nap time or is sleeping & can't participate?
-For the girls will they be getting their hair professionally done or by mom & if professionally, who is footing the bill
-For the boys, you will need to get them all flowers, just like the men
-You'll need to get gifts for all of them
-You'll need to invite all the kids, plus their parents to the reheresal & rehersal dinner
-If you're having photos done somewhere else besides the ceremony location & reception location, how will the kids & parents get there? Will they need to drive themselves or on a limo w/everyone else?

I'm not saying don't do it, but it's just some logistics that you should think about, especially if you are working on a tight budget.

AddieCake

That seems like a lot of kids. One of my cousins had a little boy she felt pressured by her husband's family into having in the WP. Her own child was the ring bearer, so they just had this other little boy walk down the aisle doing nothing, like a random cute kid all dressed up.

Several of us rolled our eyes and wondered who this random kid was. I'm not saying that you won't be having all your chosen kids actually DOING something, but just something to think about from a guest wondering why there are extra kids in the WP. 

acanon526

Thanks everyone! You gave me lots of good points to take into concideration.

JoeAnne2013

Personally, unless they are your own children, I don't feel kids should be included in or even attend a wedding.

I absolutely love children but on my wedding day I want my guest to enjoy everything I'm providing for the celebration to the fullest. I'm paying tons of money for food, alcohol and entertainment, I want to be able to relax and enjoy the night and not have to worry about children running around and possibly getting hurt or throwing tantrums.

AllyciaMae921

We have a lot of kids in our family that we wanted in the wedding, but as everyone else said, we were worried that they wouldn't cooperate. We were planning on having 2 flower girls, a junior bridesmaid, a ring barer, a junior groomsmen, and a boy walking down the aisle holding a "here comes the bride" sign. We decided on just doing one flower girl 5yo and a ring barer 10yo. We are going to have other kids handing out the programs since our venue has 3 openings. If they decide they don't want to hand out the programs, we're just gonna have a couple adults take over.

tiny speck

With so many kids I would just leave all of them out of the ceremony/procession. They will be happy to be at the wedding; I don't think they'll feel left out for not being a part of it. Though I'm biased because I'm not having any flower girls or ring bearers (there won't even be any children at our wedding at all: neither of us have any neices/nephews and our friends don't have children either so really there wasn't anyone to ask in the first place).