My fiance and I decided not to invite any children under the age of 13 to our January 2013 wedding. Our reception is at a hotel in downtown Miami from 8pm-12am (with open bar), and I just don't think it's an approriate occasion for smaller children. I want everyone to relax and have a good time without having to keep an eye on what their kids are doing.
My fiance already told his mother, who relayed the message to all of his extended family. We haven't heard any issues or complaints. On my side, I have three female cousins who would be affected by this (each has two kids). I was planning on just addressing the invitations to them and their husbands and then adding a sentence on our wedding website respectfully requesting that this be a teen/adult-only wedding. '
My younger sister wants me to tell my cousins now and is predicting that they're going to be upset. She warned me that they may not even come to the wedding, nor their mother (my aunt). My sister's rationale is that our cousins invited us to their weddings when we were kids and that we should invite their children. Also, one of the cousins has told my sister that her young daugher is "so excited" for the wedding. However, I'm worried about making an exception for six kids and having fiance's family get upset.
I'm really stuck on this one. I feel like I'm going to upset someone either way, so I probably just need to prepare myself for this.
Did any of you run into this issue when you were planning your wedding? How did you handle it?