Hi Knotties,
For our wedding, we have only invited the kids of our wedding party members. The wedding party members who have kids are our siblings / a few close cousins. We do have other cousins who we are not as close with (and who are not in the wedding party) who have kids/babies who are not invited. (Yes, this will probably cause a bit of drama, but the kids of our wedding party members happen to be the kids that we actually feel closest to and who we see the most often, so I feel comfortable standing behind this decision).
My question is with regards to bridal shower. First, just to make it clear, no I am not throwing my own shower. I am not involved in the planning in any way other than that my MOH asked me to provide a guest list. My question is - all of my female cousins are invited to the shower (they are mostly local). Is it appropriate for their kids/babies to be invited to the shower, even though these kids/babies are not invited to the wedding?
I know the rule is "only people invited to the wedding can be invited to the shower," and I 100% agree with this, but wasn't sure if babies/kids are ever an exception? In our family, kids/babies are always included in showers, and the venue in question would have no problem accommodating them. I don't particularly care one way or another if they come to the shower, I just didn't know if some moms might actually feel more accommodated if they were allowed to bring their baby/kid? Only inviting the kids that are invited to the wedding may be perceived by my family as a bit arbitrary here (and I can guarantee that it will cause some hurt feelings - even more so than with the wedding, since all the showers in our circle tend to include all kids, regardless of whether the kids are invited to the wedding, since they are pretty open/casual affairs).
I'm leaning towards having my MOH only invite the kids that are actually invited to the wedding, but if someone reaches out asking if they can bring their baby/kid, having that be OK (at the discretion of the MOH/hosts) - but not sure if that would open even more of a can of worms.
Thoughts?