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Wedding Etiquette Forum
A couple of questions from the MOB
Several of the families invited have kids but with the venue we have chosen is not really kid friendly. It would be fine for teens, but not for young kids (whose parents don't watch them and they are little house apes. Not nice I know, but totally accurate.) We are thinking of not using inner envelopes.
Do we just address the outer envelope to the adults? For the children in the wedding party, do we include them on the addressed envelope too? We are thinking of putting where the reception info is shown "Adult only reception. Due to venue restrictions, 13 years and older only" They aren't excluded from the wedding as it's in a separate venue. If we end up doing inner envelopes, do we have all the children's names or just those 13 and up? Yes I know it will split some families which is a no-no, but I don't know how else to handle it.
Re: A couple of questions from the MOB
**writing “Adult Only Reception” anywhere.
**Inviting children to the ceremony and not the reception.
**Breaking up families with children by including some (13+ years old) but not the others (12 years old and younger) from the same family. DO NOT SPLIT UP FAMILIES!!
You address the envelope to whomever is invited. If it is an adult couple, you address it to Mr. and Mrs. Adult Guests. If you choose not to use inner envelopes, then if Mr. and Mrs. Adult Guests have children being invited, then you add “Child # 1” by name, followed by each and every other child invited, on the outer envelope.
If Mr. and Mrs. Adult Guest have children not invited, and you do not think they understand the envelope/etiquette “code” of only including those listed, then make sure the family/friend blabbermouth knows that this is an adult only wedding to pass along the word if asked.
You “handle” your choices by owning them, but the choices have to be appropriate.
And yes, I hear you on the badly behaved kids. But you won't be responsible for their behavior, so put that worry right out of your head.
If you want to offer childcare that's fine but you can't require it and force any younger guests to use it. And if the parents aren't familiar with the childcare they may not use it. I probably would not use unknown care for my kids without the knowledge of how it was vetted.
Honestly I think your best bets are to invite in circles and make sure you're not breaking up families.
Also, many who can let their kids go crazy in their home don't let it fly outside and those who know that their kids make for a less interesting or fun night may just not fly with them or at all.
As much as the idea of hiring a daycare worker from a nearby well respected daycare center is great, the problem comes in that a lot of people won't allow their littles to be watched by a stranger to them even if that's who your family has a history with as a DCP. Time was society was much more agreeable to such things with B&G having a "kids only reception" at a nearby hotel with the DCP in charge, stopping with Happy Meals for all the kids and having a kiddie cake to cut, times have unfortunately changed, the above plus food sensitivities, etc.
My recommendation is going to be you need to word your invitations carefully and it's going to take more work and expense on the outset, however you're going to thank yourselves in the long run.
YES, do the Inner-envelope (seriously, the envelopes portion of invitations are the cheapest!) with the specific names invited. THEN, on the RSVP card, List the names specifically along with their meal choice.
For example:
John Q. Smith ____yes ____no
Meal choice (Please X One Option)
___Stuff on a shingle (Beef Option)
___ Grilled Veggies (Vegan Option)
___ Chicken Nuggets (Chicken Option)
Janine A. Smith ____yes ____no
Meal choice (Please X One Option)
___Stuff on a shingle (Beef Option)
___ Grilled Veggies (Vegan Option)
___ Chicken Nuggets (Chicken Option)
Taylor Smith ____yes ____no
Meal choice (Please X One Option)
___Stuff on a shingle (Beef Option)
___ Grilled Veggies (Vegan Option)
___ Chicken Nuggets (Chicken Option)
Can you do things like invite the kids of the siblings of the B & G only? Are the WP very close friends?
Where it gets tricky: If the kids in the WP are kids of cousins and other cousins' children aren't invited it can ruffle feathers. But if the WP are either VERY close friends themselves (including kids) or the children of siblings you have a clean cutoff.
I would not use a geographical cutoff as the means of who you don't invite. Then you can hurt families and again, feathers get ruffled.
What we did: When DH and I were married 12.5 years ago we invited the children of cousins but not the children of friends. At the time there were only a small handful of cousins with kids so that worked. My children now have over 50 second cousins so this would NOT work today! We didn't invite the children of friends. That helped reduce guest list size. We also didn't have kids in the wedding.
Bottom line now: start to draft that list, see if you can keep the dividing lines clean and then start to look at who can and can't make the list.