Looking for some advice on this. I know this topic has been beat to death, but I am 29 days from my wedding and need some input based on our specific situation. My fiance and I decided to have an adult reception. We did this for several reasons...when we put our guest list together, we had 304 people invited and an additional 87 children on top of that. The location of our wedding is quite formal and not really conducive to having 87 children running around. Not to mention we don't want that and certainly can't afford to pay for them to come to dinner and eat three bites of their meal. We decided to make an exception for our nieces and nephews, although we encouraged our siblings to make other arrangements. (This is an out of town wedding by the way) After much planning, our siblings have all decided to get babysitters for the reception. With the exception of two Jr. bridesmaids and one Jr. Groomsman (all around 11-12 years old), there will be no one under the age of 20 at our reception.
Now to our problem...we received an RSVP in the mail the other day for TEN people! They filled out the card wrong (another story) so after some digging we found out it was my Fiance's aunt who responded. Only she and her husband were invited to the wedding, however she included her two adult children who live outside of the home and were not invited, their husbands, and five children. Making the total 11 now! My future MIL called her to tell her it was a kid-free reception and she said they won't bring them to dinner and just have the kids come later. She doesn't get it! No children! We have several family and friends who have gone to great lengths to come to the wedding and honor our wishes. We also have several who aren't coming because they can't bring their kids...a choice we completely understand. Now we have to call her and explain that they can't bring the kids at all. We have decided not to mention the fact that her children weren't invited either....choosing our battles here. How do we make it any more clear to her? Adult Reception was printed on the invitation. Just her and her husband's names were on the invitation. Adult Reception is also on our website. AND we have made it very clear in conversations with our guests that this is the decision we have made. Now we have children coming and NINE extra mouths to feed dinner to.
We LOVE children and probably the hardest part will be not having our nieces and nephews there, but we felt like we couldn't be making special exceptions, for fear of alienating everyone who has kids and didn't (couldn't) bring them. I'm at the point where I would rather risk having his aunt and cousins mad at us, then the entire guest list. Also, the reason his cousins weren't invited is because he isn't close and barely knows them. He didn't even know they were married....and he thought there were 3 kids between the two of them...not 5. Not even sure of their names. But they need to be there to be a part of our special day??? Am I completely off base here or is this just plain rude? She is trying to turn our wedding into a family reunion...and there is actually one of those 3 weeks after our wedding!
Sorry for the long post...part venting, part looking for advice. Any ideas are appreciated!