Another kids at the wedding question.

kkchisholm · July 2009

I know this one has been asked before, many times before I'm sure, but I have a question about inviting children. Maybe a concern? MY FI and I are considering no children.. just have a few thoughts. Well first off, are you inviting children? Did you parents or his parents have anything negative to say about this? My FI and I are paying for 75% percent of the wedding but I am sure someones (his) family will greatly dissaprove of us choosing not to have children there. We have quite a few (probably 15) kids under the age of 10.If you aren't inviting children, what age did you consider "the cut off" ..as awful as that sounds...

lpstl · July 2009

We invited children, but there were only about 5 under the age of 10 and all are extremely well behaved. I'm sure if we had attempted to exclude H's nephews and niece someone would have said something about it.

katiewhompus · July 2009

We had about 5 kids under age 5 and 1 under age 10. All were beautifully behaved BUT we also had a very large outdoor grassy lawn for them to play in.None under 18 would be an easy cut-off, but you have to deal with people who possibly can't show up due to lack of baby-sitter.

tortis · July 2009

We will be inviting kids. There will be a lot of them, too. This is the norm in my family. I was invited to all of my older cousin's weddings when I was younger, except for one. The one that we were not invited to was because my aunt (MOB) wanted to have a "classy and formal" wedding. It was not my cousin's choice. Then, the day of, a few guests called MOB to tell her they couldn't make it. MOB (my mom's SIL) called mom and asked if we wanted to come in their place. My mom, who was offended for us, politely declined. I am very close with this cousin now, but do still remember that her mother (who was paying) didn't think that we were important enough to be there. If not inviting kids is the norm in your family, then the situation may be different. If it is not, however, you may be hurting people's feelings. Just depends on what is the norm for your families.

vicki0827 · July 2009

We had a no children policy. Our cutoff age was 18 with the exception of my sister (17) and our daughter (2). One of our guests was going to cut out early because she needed to pick up her 1 year old, but we told her to bring her. We dodn't even notice her there, and surprisingly we didn't have to hear any complaints about it (though she didn't arrive until after the cake cutting was done later in the night).

Brie2010 · July 2009

We are inviting children. We have about 12 kids under the age of 12-13. I never even considered NOT having kids, and I generally am not a "kid person." When I was a child I went to all my older cousins' weddings and I have a lot of great memories from them. To me, it's kind of a form of payback--I'm inviting their kids because they invited me to their weddings when I was a kid, if that makes any sense.Our families would freak out if kids weren't invited, though. It's pretty standard for both the areas we're from. I've never been to an adults-only wedding, actually.

*Rebecca & Chris* · July 2009

We didn't invite kids. We really wanted 18 and over, but it worked out much easier to just say that we were inviting 1st cousins only, not 2nd counsins. That ended up being 1 - 15 year old and the rest were over 21, besides FI's niece and nephew. No complaints at all. Most were happy to get away from their kids for a night! I would have loved to have kids there, but with all of the 2nd cousins, that would have added on about 30-40 people and that would have put us over.....

vgmartinez · July 2009

We will be having children and lots of them. I have 13 nieces and nephews just on my side of the family who are all between the ages of 2-16. My oldest niece is in the wedding party and the moms of some of the other kids are also in it. I have a lot of cousins with children. I'm not really around them 24/7 so hopefully they are well-mannered. It's normal in my family for kids to be at weddings.

kkchisholm · July 2009

Thanks everyone for your responses. I realized that I'm not really sure how this would go with our families.. all my older cousins have children..just not weddings! One of my cousins is getting married in October (first wedding in the family for several years), so I guess I will see how she plays things out. hands down.. I am sure the kids will come.

*Rebecca & Chris* · July 2009

Haha, I did the same thing. My cousin got married last Oct. and didn't invite kids. Everyone was happy and nobody complained, so I figured it was ok and I wouldn't hear anything negative either!

tlv204 · July 2009

We invited all first cousins, regardless of age, and that was our cutoff. Neither of us have first cousins below the age of 11, so there were no small children. Ours was mostly a money issue. If we had invited children of first cousins, it would have added 20 people to the guest list, and about 15 of those were very ill-behaved toddlers.

Beadlz · July 2009

Maybe not an age cut off, but instead only invite those that you are close to. We will have many kids at our wedding, and that is including the fact that we didn't invite several. I have also been in childcare for a long time so it would be odd for me to not have kids there, there are so many that I am close to.

LarissaAnn · July 2009

We had no kids. His mom said it'd be a problem, but he and I agreed and that was that. She really didn't have room to argue once we said no. The cutoff in theory was 18, in practice I think it was 21, the age of his brother/best man.

aszalajka · July 2009

I've confirmed it doesn't matter people dont pay attention to how the invite is address anyways. We only did close family but all the children where over the age of 16 (minus the children involved directly with the wedding) and i had three people ask me if they could bring kids and i said no, and then i had people just RSVP including their kids. I know some people on here have said putting "adult reception" on the invite is rude but honestly, wedding arent cheap and even the kids meals that are offered through our banquet hall is $25.00. so if you really dont want kids i would say put "adult reception" on the invite. i dont think its rude, I've seen alot of people do that.

Lyss5782 · July 2009

We are having first cousins only (the youngest will be going into high school) but no cousin's kids. If we did that we would have 11 kids under age 6...and a bunch of our friends have babies as well. I go back and forth with feeling guilty about this daily...my dad's side of the family is not the type to ever hold an event that kids would need to be excluded from...but my mom and FI dont want kids so I'm sticking to my gut.

Lucy Milligan · July 2009

We're saying no kids, period. In my family, the tradition is that anyone over age 4 can come to major family events. However, the current generation of little kids is both 1) not very well behaved and 2) awkwardly split on either side of age 4, so we just decided that no kids at all would be an easier line to draw.I'm definitely all for including kids at weddings, but honestly kids under age 4 are not really going to remember anyway. I went to my mom's cousin's wedding when I was 3, and I have no memory other than laughing at my fellow 3-year-old cousin who tried to get up and take Communion.Because there are so few kids involved compared to the invite list of 260, we're going to handle it family by family - my mom will call the kids' parents to help them arrange babysitting, whether it's with other relatives or on site. It's a lot more discreet** and caring than just printing "adult reception" on the invitation and hoping for the best.Honestly, I'm much more worried about people bringing random +1's than kids. The kids are family, after all!**This is kind of one of my pet peeves, so bear with me. "Discreet" means to keep things quiet i.e. to have discretion. "Discrete" means separately defined, as in numbers or sections. Just FYI.

Another kids at the wedding question.

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