What do you say about children?

LEJC

First of all,I guess it depends on the ages of the children...I actually think its quite endearing to have a few small children at a wedding...its the teenagers I usually have a problem with!

I dont think you need to arrange any entertainment for any of them...it certainly wouldnt be expected....children under 10 or so do tend to levetate together and make their own entertainment,well mine did when he was that age...and younger toddlers will probably really enjoy the day or tend to sleep thorough bits of it....

I think youre being really generous inviting the children of work friends... and as such if you wanted to try and sway them away from bringing the children you could always address the invite to the parents and slip in a note saying something along the lines of...
"we would be pleased to see you all at the wedding but if you feel you would enjoy it more without x and y then we understand"....
perhaps that way it might make the parents a little more tuned into the thought that it might be nicer to be at the wedding as a couple rather than a family...

Personally as a guest if it were a family members wedding I would kind of expect my invite to include child...but if it were a friends wedding then I dont think there would be an expectation to invite the little people...

Dekazer

Personally, I think that weddings are one of the few remaining inter-generational social events left these days, so I loved having loads of kids at our wedding, although we have none of our own.

HOWEVER, I completely understand why some people don't want too many about I would advocate talking to the few guests you have with kids. Rather than being blunt, be honest. Perhaps try "I'm a bit worried that our wedding won't be very child friendly, so I wanted to give you plenty of notice so you can arrange a sitter, if you wish. Of course you're welcome to bring them if need be, but there won't be many others, and it may all be a bit too adult".

Those important guests will know that their kids are welcome, but they are free to choose to get a babysitter if possible. Some people genuinely can't or won't attend weddings without their kids, in which case they'll know they can attend, and bring their kids, but may well bring their own entertainment and kid-friendly snacks.

In our experience, a fair few parents were glad of the chance to leave the kids at home. Those who brought theirs also had fun. (Our band brought inflatable guitars for the kids and they went down a storm with children and adults alike. I would never have suggested it - I would have found it cheesy - but I would have been wrong!)

I'm sure you won't offend anyone if you're honest and kind. Have a great wedding

SaLoGo

14 of my 60 day guests are between 18 months & 16 years! My opinion is that kids make a party! Nothing better than having a boogie to all the cheesy tunes with the kids.

daisiegg

SaLoGo wrote: »

14 of my 60 day guests are between 18 months & 16 years! My opinion is that kids make a party! Nothing better than having a boogie to all the cheesy tunes with the kids.

If there were loads of (or any) kids in my family, I'd definitely feel the same and just invite them all.

It's because it's a few kids of work friends, who don't know each other (the kids, not the work friends - they obviously do!) and a couple of them are quite clingy and shy (again the kids, not the parents!) that I'm not sure how well they'd enjoy it or if they'd just lessen their parents' enjoyment. By its very nature the wedding will be an adult-orientated day simply because there will be 100 adults and a maximum of 6 children, if any. So it's less likely to be 'having a boogie to the cheesy tunes with the kids' than my good work friends being unable to get up and have a boogie because their shy (but lovely, of course) children are clinging physically to their legs. I think if the children were family members and knew lots of people it would be easier because there would be more of a 'collective responsibility' feel and the parents wouldn't need to be looking after them the entire time. Equally, if there were loads of children they could, as someone said, gravitate together and amuse themselves. But there won't be loads of children; even if everyone who has children brings them there will be about 6 or 8 at the most, who don't know each other.

Funnily enough my mum, who loves children and can't wait for me to produce grandchildren, is dead set against the idea of having kids at a wedding. She says they can dominate and everyone is just going "aww look at that cute child running around" and conversation/interaction becomes about the children. I don't know if this is the case or not really, never having been to a proper wedding myself.

wanchai_2

Don't get me wrong, I love kids at a wedding. They really are so cute and funny!!!

If our friends and relatives didn't have SO MANY, we'd defo have them all! But we totted it up and we would have had an extra 40 guests (eeeek :eek: ) and the venue counts anyone over the age of two in their head count. So we physically couldn't fit them all in. That's why we decided to have none, apart from OH's 2 nephews and the 2 aforementioned babies.

ellay864

We had loads of kids at my first wedding, this time round we decided we didn't want them. Our own kids were all minimum of 16yrs old and we wanted a relaxed adult day. We'd been to a civil ceremony where the kids were crying/whinging/nattering away through the ceremony and we didn't want that for ours. The only child there was my 6 month old nephew. I had a friend with a 2 and 4 yr old who I did speak to in person and she was fine with it and nobody else had young kids so it wasn't a big problem for us.
Personally these days with people having limits on numbers etc I can totally understand them wanting a child-free wedding and while some people think it's bad form not to invite all the nieces, nephews, cousins etc I think it should be up to the bride and groom to make that choice if they want. But if guests should respect their choice that way, then the couple should respect the wishes of any guests who choose not to attend without their kids. It annoys me when I've seen brides say that they've given a year's notice, surely they've had time to find childcare...well sorry but going to a wedding may mean childcare for a whole day, maybe night as well. While the wedding may be the most important thing in the bride's world, the child is the most important thing to that parent. My view is exclude kids if you want, entirely down to you, but respect any parent guest who then chooses to decline the invitation

laura_hoggle

When my friend got married a couple of years ago, she specified certain names on the invites - yet her husband's cousin still RSVP'd with their 3 children, and he didn't have the guts to tell them they weren't actually invited. She was not happy!! Luckily, 4 people they had invited couldn't attend, so they took their numbers. I still think this is pretty cheeky though!

We are only planning on inviting immediate friend/family children to the whole day, and will probably say something on the invite like 'as our venues are not very child friendly, we have chosen only to invite the children of very close family'. These are similar numbers to yours, I think 4 children and 100 adults. The 4 children will all be 3 and under. We are inviting more people to the evening, and will invite peoples children to that, although this still won't be a huge amount and will probably be limited to cousins.

The best man said straight away that they would not be bringing their young son, as they would be able to have more fun without him. Our wedding is in Oxford and they will be coming from Manchester (along with the rest of OH's family and a lot of his friends) and we were planning on inviting him, but they have already said they'd rather not.

When My OH started writing his guest list, probably a third of it was peoples children - children who he had never met. His reasoning was 'well I went to their wedding, so I feel like I should invite them all'. My response was 'there was one of you then, there's 5 of them now, and you've never met the children!!'

One thing to note with children - if they need to be catered for, make sure the venue know in advance they are children if they aren't likely to eat the same food - my dad is a chef and at a recent wedding they noticed that there were about 5 under 10s and they had not been informed about. The events manager said 'well, can't you just bung something in the oven' which wasn't really an option as they didn't have anything child friendly. Also, the child menu is normally half the price of a normal main menu.

Stephb1986_2

I'm not a big fan of kids we don't have any kids but alot of family do, h2b's sister has 3, a couple of cousins have 1 or 2 etc but because it's far from where we live (a hour) I don't think we have a choice but to ask them really. We're thinking of hiring a bouncy castle or something for them i've seen one online for £45 to hire so not too expensive there will also be a photobooth etc to keep them occupied. One or two of them will be teenagers by the time we get married and majority of them are well behaved.

Steph xx

SaLoGo

daisiegg wrote: »

If there were loads of (or any) kids in my family, I'd definitely feel the same and just invite them all.

It's because it's a few kids of work friends, who don't know each other (the kids, not the work friends - they obviously do!) and a couple of them are quite clingy and shy (again the kids, not the parents!) that I'm not sure how well they'd enjoy it or if they'd just lessen their parents' enjoyment. By its very nature the wedding will be an adult-orientated day simply because there will be 100 adults and a maximum of 6 children, if any. So it's less likely to be 'having a boogie to the cheesy tunes with the kids' than my good work friends being unable to get up and have a boogie because their shy (but lovely, of course) children are clinging physically to their legs. I think if the children were family members and knew lots of people it would be easier because there would be more of a 'collective responsibility' feel and the parents wouldn't need to be looking after them the entire time. Equally, if there were loads of children they could, as someone said, gravitate together and amuse themselves. But there won't be loads of children; even if everyone who has children brings them there will be about 6 or 8 at the most, who don't know each other.

Funnily enough my mum, who loves children and can't wait for me to produce grandchildren, is dead set against the idea of having kids at a wedding. She says they can dominate and everyone is just going "aww look at that cute child running around" and conversation/interaction becomes about the children. I don't know if this is the case or not really, never having been to a proper wedding myself.

When you put it like that I do get it. There'd be world war 3 if I said no kids... my son would disown me for starters lol

MrsShawToBe

We are more than happy to have kids at the ceremony or the night reception. We have told the guests it is 100% up to them if they want to bring them, or have a night off