No children at weddings

jdluvr06 · December 2013

I'm not trying to be snarky or anything but I do have a real question about this. Why do people choose not to invite kids to their weddings? This is a relatively new concept for me. It is only something I've heard about recently and I'm actually pretty fascinated about the thought process behind it. I've only ever been to one wedding with no children and the was DW in Las Vegas with a super small guest list (there were less than 30 people there). So I'm really curious about why people choose to have a no kids wedding?

NYCBruin · December 2013

Lots of reasons:

1. Some people just don't like kids.

2. Some people like kids but enjoy "adult" events. Personally, I hate when kids are at weddings, I'm always scared I'm going to trip over one of them on the dance floor, that one of them will run into me and I'll spill my drink over them/me and/or they'll overhear me say something inappropriate.

3. Budget. If you don't love kids, cutting them from the guest list is a way to cut down your budget and/or make room for more guests.

ETA this is not at all an exhaustive list, but just the first three thoughts that popped into my head.

PolarBearFitz · December 2013

In addition to @NYCBruins valid points:

Kids can take over a wedding reception if their parents are not diligent in watching them. I've seen parents who use a wedding as reason for other people to take care of their children while they sip champagne and kick back. I've seen children screaming and running through a wedding reception without a parent of theirs in sight. Obviously not everyone is like this but it does happen.

I love kids but personally I could see how several temper tantrums and irresponsible parents could really screw up a night.

HisGirlFriday13 · December 2013

I think there are a lot of reasons, and I agree with what @NYCBruin said, so I'll add to it:

1. Some B/Gs have their hearts set on specific venues that (a) aren't kid-friendly or (b) don't offer a kids meal or (c) don't allow children

2. Some B/G have friends/family who don't parent appropriately and the children are allowed to be holy terrors, and they don't want to have to deal with that on their wedding day

3. Some couples get married young enough that, in their social circle, it's the exception for people to have children rather than the norm, and they don't want to have to make child-friendly arrangements for only a few kids.

4. It's the norm in their social circle not to include children at weddings, and the idea that they would be invited to an adults-only event is baffling.

My list is also not exhaustive, but that's what came to mind for me.

banana468 · December 2013

Plenty of people are not kid people or they simply want the event to be an adult affair.

It's all a matter of personal choice just like some people prefer outdoor affairs and others want something inside.

We had children at our wedding but BIG and SIL had no children at their wedding. They also had a reception that began at 5 at an art gallery which was not a child friendly place.

kaos16 · December 2013

to add to NYCBruin's list, I also feel that there are some venues that aren't really child friendly (although this is not a frequent reason). I have heard of couples getting married at historical mansions for instance, that are filled with irreplaceable breakables and antiques.

I personally love children, and love hanging out with my younfg niece and nephews, but am of the mindset that not everyplace, nor every event is child friendly. I wouldn't take kids to a fancy restaurant, a rated R movie theater, a bar. . . . just to name a few. We didn't have any kids at our wedding because both my and my husband preferred it to be an adult affair.

STARMOON44 · December 2013

You know those adorable moments of flower girls wandering off and children tearing up the dance floor and toddlers sleeping in the corner? I just don't find them cute. If I were planning an elegant evening reception, I would not want children there. And since I have no little ones in my family, I especially would not be interested. It's also just not the custom in my crowd- no one invites kids, no one expects their kids to get an invite (except little little babies).

zitiqueen · December 2013

jdluvr06 said:

I'm not trying to be snarky or anything but I do have a real question about this. Why do people choose not to invite kids to their weddings? This is a relatively new concept for me. It is only something I've heard about recently and I'm actually pretty fascinated about the thought process behind it. I've only ever been to one wedding with no children and the was DW in Las Vegas with a super small guest list (there were less than 30 people there). So I'm really curious about why people choose to have a no kids wedding?

Have you ever been to a wedding ceremony where a baby/toddler starts crying and the parents insist on trying to shush the child and disrupting the ceremony instead of taking them outside until they calm down? Have you ever been to a wedding reception where the parents refuse to keep their bratty snowflakes under control?

There are lots of valid reasons to not invite kids to a wedding.

kaos16 · December 2013

Double Post!

JCbride2015 · December 2013

I'm with OP, never been to a wedding without kids (and I've been to a bunch). We only have a few kids on the invite list, basically it's Fi's godson and his siblings, so it's easier to just invite them and not fight with the parents about it. Because they would throw a fit if we excluded their children. Fi is Italian and the family brings their kids everywhere.

I don't know if this is good or bad, but the godson's mom's parenting style is basically to give her kids an iPad or gameboy or something and they just stare at a screen the whole time. Actually no, it's definitely bad, but they won't cry during the ceremony or anything. Hopefully we can get them away from their gadgets and onto the dance floor during the reception.

MrsDeRuyter87 · December 2013

For me it's not that I don't want kids at my reception, I love my nieces and nephew and would gladly have them attend our day, however, the venue we chose is a historical monument with a museum in it and is not kid friendly. On top of that we had to put down a million dollar insurance policy on the building due to it's relevance. It will be hard enough to make sure adults who have been drinking take it easy let alone a toddler I have no control over. So it's invite kids or run the risk of little hands breaking something and then losing my house lol.

jdluvr06 · December 2013

Ok. Those are fair reasons. Like I said this just isn't something I'm familiar with so I was curious. We're going to have kids at our wedding obviously since it is kind of the norm here but for us it is more than that. We want to celebrate with all our loved ones and the kids are on our list of loved ones.

doeydo · December 2013

Because I am not a kid/baby person. I will admit, they have their moments. but as a whole, just no. I don't want to hear crying (neither from a baby nor a toddler), temper tantrums, nose picking, whining, kids running around possibly breaking things and/or making messes, etc. If you are close to some kids and therefor want them at your wedding, okay, fine. But I will most definitely not have any at mine (even if one of my sisters has a baby between now and the wedding date).
ETA

hellohkb · December 2013

I was wondering the same thing, actually. Weddings seem more fun with children, but to each his own.

melbelleup · December 2013

jdluvr06 said:

I'm not trying to be snarky or anything but I do have a real question about this. Why do people choose not to invite kids to their weddings? This is a relatively new concept for me. It is only something I've heard about recently and I'm actually pretty fascinated about the thought process behind it. I've only ever been to one wedding with no children and the was DW in Las Vegas with a super small guest list (there were less than 30 people there). So I'm really curious about why people choose to have a no kids wedding?

well, I'll tell you why I'm not. I'm including my nephew, and my cousins' kids. That's it. It results in 5 kids. I'm not inviting the rest because I either don't know them or I don't speak to them. If I invited every guest's child it would be a huge mess and tons of people. My guest list is already 280 people. Could you imagine including all those people's children? No thank you.

pinkcow13 · December 2013

We are not having kids at ours, either. The only kids will be the flower girl and ring bearer. Ours will be a later reception, and it just will not be kid friendly. The venue is also not kid friendly, as there is an english garden that leads directly onto a lake. You literally take 3 steps down and meet the water. My FI has a huge family with tons of kids, and feeding all of them will get pricey. Lastly, although I love his little cousins, they can be little terrors, especially with us [maybe because we are part of the "younger" "cooler" generation], so they like to horse around with us a lot. One of his little cousins literally clings to his back, and throws herself on him all the time. We definitely do not want to deal with all that on our wedding day. To each his own, I say lol.

kgd7357 · December 2013

In my family you don't get invited to weddings until you are a teenager, and really only first or maybe second cousins get invited before turning 21. There are some rare exceptions. For example, my uncle has two teenagers and a 7 year old. They are flying cross country, so they will all attend.

In our family, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs are for kids. Sleeping toddler in the corner is totally cool while the kids are playing games on the dance floor.

sarahufl · December 2013

We are including kids- mostly because I have 3 nieces and FI has 6 nieces/nephews. Wouldn't dream of not having them there. My one niece is 3 months old and my sister found an awesome dress for her to wear. While she has about 6 months to grow into it, she modeled it for me at Christmas and she was so cute I cried

I've always had a great time with my cousins at weddings (come from a massive family), I think they really add to the family vibe, which, for me is what weddings should be.

That being said, I understand why people don't want them there and ALL kids won't be able to be included. Our guest list is already astronomical and there is just no way they can all be invited. Anyone local with easy access to a babysitter will not have kids included.

cupcait927 · December 2013

We're not including children at our reception with the exception of my nephew (and I'm leaving that decision solely up to my sister on whether she'd like to enjoy the evening sans-child or not). My best friend has said that she wouldn't bring her children even if they were invited becasue she'd like to enjoy herself without the kids. Only a few others on our guest list have children and they are all out of town and not likely to come, so I'm not concerned with just inviting the parents. I love children, and I've been to weddings where children were invited and it's been quite enjoyable. I just know that for FI and I, even if there were a lot more potential children to be invited, we'd rather have an adult-only evening.

AddieCake · December 2013

ckel24 said:

We're not including children at our reception with the exception of my nephew (and I'm leaving that decision solely up to my sister on whether she'd like to enjoy the evening sans-child or not). My best friend has said that she wouldn't bring her children even if they were invited becasue she'd like to enjoy herself without the kids. Only a few others on our guest list have children and they are all out of town and not likely to come, so I'm not concerned with just inviting the parents. I love children, and I've been to weddings where children were invited and it's been quite enjoyable. I just know that for FI and I, even if there were a lot more potential children to be invited, we'd rather have an adult-only evening.

Does this mean children are invited to the ceremony, just not the reception?

lovesclimbing · December 2013

I had kids at my wedding. Eighteen that I can count off the top of my head, but there may have been more. All of them were perfectly well behaved. No crying or screaming during the ceremony (and yes, there were some young ones. No tiny babies but there were two or three that were between the ages of 1 and 4.)

I'm not trying to start an argument, but I just don't understand not inviting kids because they will be brats or holy terrors. People who don't raise their kids right or don't keep an eye on them and let them be holy terrors are just not the kind of people I am friends with.

cupcait927 · December 2013

AddieL73 said:

ckel24 said:

We're not including children at our reception with the exception of my nephew (and I'm leaving that decision solely up to my sister on whether she'd like to enjoy the evening sans-child or not). My best friend has said that she wouldn't bring her children even if they were invited becasue she'd like to enjoy herself without the kids. Only a few others on our guest list have children and they are all out of town and not likely to come, so I'm not concerned with just inviting the parents. I love children, and I've been to weddings where children were invited and it's been quite enjoyable. I just know that for FI and I, even if there were a lot more potential children to be invited, we'd rather have an adult-only evening.

Does this mean children are invited to the ceremony, just not the reception?

No, no no! I apologize if it came off that way. My nephew will be invited to the ceremony and reception but I'm leaving the decision up to my sister if she actually wants to bring him. We won't be extending invitations to any other children, ceremony or reception.

AddieCake · December 2013

OK, good.

NYCBruin · December 2013

lovesclimbing said:

I had kids at my wedding. Eighteen that I can count off the top of my head, but there may have been more. All of them were perfectly well behaved. No crying or screaming during the ceremony (and yes, there were some young ones. No tiny babies but there were two or three that were between the ages of 1 and 4.) I'm not trying to start an argument, but I just don't understand not inviting kids because they will be brats or holy terrors. People who don't raise their kids right or don't keep an eye on them and let them be holy terrors are just not the kind of people I am friends with.

My friend's children are all perfectly well behaved, but that still doesn't mean I want them at our wedding.

And although my friends are wonderful parents, I can't say the same for my some of my relatives...

lovesclimbing · December 2013

NYCBruin said:

lovesclimbing said:

I had kids at my wedding. Eighteen that I can count off the top of my head, but there may have been more. All of them were perfectly well behaved. No crying or screaming during the ceremony (and yes, there were some young ones. No tiny babies but there were two or three that were between the ages of 1 and 4.) I'm not trying to start an argument, but I just don't understand not inviting kids because they will be brats or holy terrors. People who don't raise their kids right or don't keep an eye on them and let them be holy terrors are just not the kind of people I am friends with.

My friend's children are all perfectly well behaved, but that still doesn't mean I want them at our wedding.

And although my friends are wonderful parents, I can't say the same for my some of my relatives...

First paragraph, that's fine then. I just said I don't understand using the reasoning of them being holy terrors. If you don't want them just because you don't want them, that's your choice.

Second paragraph, I can kind of understand that. Relatives can be difficult if they need to be invited. At my wedding, most of the kids were relatives (cousins), but all of my relatives have well-behaved kids.

monkeysip · December 2013

I'd never heard of child-free weddings either before I got on the knot, honestly.

But that doesn't mean that I don't fully support a B&G's decision to invite all, some, or no children. That's completely up to them, and I can see why they might not invite them, especially if it's a huge budget saver.

Out of 57 guests, we only had 4 small children, plus 2 teens. They were cute, well-behaved, and definitely not an issue at all. But if we had more children on our guest list, I can definitely understand where it might become out of control and better to just nix kids.

The only thing is that B&G's must understand and not guilt any guests that decline because they can't bring their kids (and obviously guests shouldn't guilt the couple for not inviting them either)

NYCBruin · December 2013

lovesclimbing said:

NYCBruin said:

lovesclimbing said:

I had kids at my wedding. Eighteen that I can count off the top of my head, but there may have been more. All of them were perfectly well behaved. No crying or screaming during the ceremony (and yes, there were some young ones. No tiny babies but there were two or three that were between the ages of 1 and 4.) I'm not trying to start an argument, but I just don't understand not inviting kids because they will be brats or holy terrors. People who don't raise their kids right or don't keep an eye on them and let them be holy terrors are just not the kind of people I am friends with.

My friend's children are all perfectly well behaved, but that still doesn't mean I want them at our wedding.

And although my friends are wonderful parents, I can't say the same for my some of my relatives...

First paragraph, that's fine then. I just said I don't understand using the reasoning of them being holy terrors. If you don't want them just because you don't want them, that's your choice.

Second paragraph, I can kind of understand that. Relatives can be difficult if they need to be invited. At my wedding, most of the kids were relatives (cousins), but all of my relatives have well-behaved kids.

I get what you're saying. I was just pointing out that even if someone was blessed enough to have friends that are awesome friends and awesome parents, that doesn't mean that their relatives' kids are well-behaved. It sounds like you're lucky in that you don't know any demon children, but that is certainly not the case for many people. Temper tantrums, crying and screaming are almost guaranteed for some kids.

pumpkinsandturkeys · December 2013

Most of the weddings I've been to have been adults-only, save for a FG/RB (if that). Our wedding will be child-free, primarily because of our super small guest list: we're inviting 32 people, and if we added in kids, that would be another 10. Literally a quarter of the guests would be very small children/infants, and another half of the guests would be parents having to tend to them all night (because of how young they all are).

On top of that, we're having a 5:30 ceremony at a winery, followed by a tour, cocktail hour, and then dinner reception (with no dancing, due to the small size of the venue). This type of wedding at this location definitely lends itself to being adults-only.

Finally, a lot of our siblings indicated that they would leave the little ones home regardless of what we decided, simply to have a night to themselves. Knowing that in advance made it a lot easier to cut out kids altogether.

CMGragain · December 2013

OP, I don't get it either. I think weddings should be about the families, and most families include children. Parents should be responsible for their children's behavior, and if they go into overload and start to cry, the parent should quietly take them out to a place where they can get themselves under control.
I do object to very young children being used a cute props in a wedding ceremony. That isn't fair to the children.

lyndausvi · December 2013

In our case there simple was too many to invite. I'm one of 24 grandkids. My cousins have procreated some 50+ kids. That is just one side of my family.

My cut off was our own kids, siblings, 1st cousins or nieces/nephews who are underage. For me that meant only my 7 nieces and nephews as we have no kids and everyone else is of age. Had we had anyone in the other categories they would have been invited.

Both our social groups all seem to follow a similar cut off above when it comes to kids. So we are not "kid free", but we have firm cuts-offs to limit how many are attending. It's assumed your kids are NOT invited unless otherwise noted as opposed to assume they are invited.

SuperSweet2014 · December 2013

Because some people can't control their kids and we don't want our guests to have to worry about unruly kids running around....and we don't want to be put in the position of babysitter for the evening.

Because kids get bored too quickly and our budget doesn't allow us to cover additional "kid-friendly" activities.

Because including kids would completely blow our budget.

Because we like to dance and don't want kids on the dance floor with a bunch of adults.

Just because don't want kids there! We have made an exception for my daughter and our ring bearer who are 7 and 8....but we have made arrangements for them to leave after dinner as it will be past their bedtime!

No children at weddings

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