No children wedding

cte1111

Can I just add some thoughts on the subject. I understand that the OP has already made up her mind and is just looking for a way to explain it in her invite, so this may not be relevant.

I've recently been unable to attend a family wedding, as I would not have anyone to look after our children. It's made me really sad, seeing all the pictures of relatives having a lovely time, all dressed up, and we weren't able to go. We've had a number of bereavements over the last few years, I was looking forward to being able to see people in happier circumstances.

It seems like weddings have become all about perfection and the bride ensuring she has her 'dream' day, and less about being an event for family and friends to share their happiness with them. I felt that having children at our wedding made it even more of a special day, they enjoyed eating the nice food, dancing to the music and being doted on by their elders.

aniahill

Your circumstances are very sad with regards to you bereavement. I understand it must've been hard for you. I hope you are able to see your family in more happy times soon.

Personally having just organised and paid for a wedding, it's very very hard to cater to every potential guest and in the end we had to go for what was right for us. It was nothing to do with our day of perfection; we have no interest in having children ourselves; in our experience the vast majority of children don't enjoy weddings and whine or they enjoy them and entirely disrupt them. I know your children may be different, however parents also rarely relax fully with children to care for. Luckily in our circumstance we have very few children to consider amongst our friends and family.

I've worked at hundreds of weddings in my youth and some traits are common in most of them!

cte1111 wrote: »

Can I just add some thoughts on the subject. I understand that the OP has already made up her mind and is just looking for a way to explain it in her invite, so this may not be relevant.

I've recently been unable to attend a family wedding, as I would not have anyone to look after our children. It's made me really sad, seeing all the pictures of relatives having a lovely time, all dressed up, and we weren't able to go. We've had a number of bereavements over the last few years, I was looking forward to being able to see people in happier circumstances.

It seems like weddings have become all about perfection and the bride ensuring she has her 'dream' day, and less about being an event for family and friends to share their happiness with them. I felt that having children at our wedding made it even more of a special day, they enjoyed eating the nice food, dancing to the music and being doted on by their elders.

tinkerbellkirst

Hi OP,

Sorry to hear of your bereavement

Our no children rule isn't about our day of perfection either, i have no interest really in everything being perfect and actually want the opposite, i want it to be 'real' and on a budget, and just fun really.

We have 2 children ourself and never envisaged having a day without children in it, it really is just a case of space, if all 40 kids come, and the weather is not good on the day everyone will physically not fit in the room, having 40 kids trapped in the room would be a nightmare. So as to not exclude some and not others we have put in the rule, I will however be willing to have people contact me who are struggling to get a sitter to discuss, id rather have them there, kids and all than not at all, but need to make it clear to guests we cannot accommodate everyone's children, its just not possible.

I know most of my guests will be able to get a sitter no problem, as their relatives wont be coming and they will have a long time to plan it and put things in place.

Regards
Kirsty

FBaby

Nothing to do with perfection I or case either. My husband doesn't have children and gets very stressed by the noise that young children make ans I have to admit that mine being older and naturally quite calm I too note find children quite annoying. In addition if we'd said ok to children we would have ended up with almost more kids than adults! All in all it made no sense to pay more to suit our guests, have to choose not to invite some because of numbers and then ending up irritated by their noise and bustle. cte1111 couldn't your husband have looked after your children whilst you went I'd it meant so much to you, or traded a few hours each whilst the other looked aye the children?

dollywops

Belle24 wrote: »

We received an invite recently with the following wording -

As much as we love to see your children laugh and play
It is our request that you please leave them at home for this day
We do hope you understand and respect our wishes
And join us to celebrate our day becoming Mr and Mrs

Invite was sent quite far in advance which has given us plenty of time to arrange childcare, made slightly harder due to it being a Friday wedding but we really want to attend so have been able and have been happy to make arrangements.

I really like that. It is the bride and groom's day and I truthfully feel they are entitled to have what they want.

DS is getting married later this year. He wants his 2 young cousins to be page boy and flower girl, and their little sisters will be coming to as they are all coming from out of town.

We have a potential issue with another close family member. He will be invited with his partner, but not his son. Will have to speak to him in advance of the invitation going out to advise this - probably won't come to the wedding - his choice.

cte1111

I agree that it is difficult to ensure you cater for every guest's wishes when organising any event. However having children with whom you usually spend your free time and would struggle to offload for a long period (as weddings are also now all day and evening events) isn't exactly a one off oddity. I do think it's a shame that child-free wedding seem to have become the norm.

FBaby

But again, I think many parents in this situation look after the children in turn during the event. One of the local radio presentator was talking about his experience of the above when he looked after his baby whilst his wife was at the wedding, then got ready to go himself except the baby got sick on him just as he had changed in his nice clothes!!

I personally don't think it is either sad or great, it is about suiting the couple's wishes and that should be respected. I personally think our wedding was so much more pleasant without many kiddies running around, babies screaming because they are tired but parents try to keep them going because they want to stay longer and my ultimate pet hate, those parents who bring their kids but don't look after them, and others have to do so to avoid trouble. That seems quite common too and is totally disrepectful in my book.

justanopinion

Bear in mind that there are some of us who are unable to have children. I am just about able to come to terms with this. However, I do not want to have children at my wedding.


I avoid gatherings with lots of children as it upsets me a bit too much.


I would rather have a life with my OH than leave him and try to have children. But to have them on the day we commit to each other? - sorry, I don't want that. I respect that you have children. But I do not want that very visible reminder. If people choose not to come their decision. But I am not going to pay for an entertainer etc. There's a fine line between bitterness and inclusion for some of us!

Evil_Olive

cte1111 wrote: »

I do think it's a shame that child-free wedding seem to have become the norm.

Blame the government and the growth of the Wedding Industry

These days I think it's more about available space and funds than people just not wanting children at their wedding for all the various (sometimes very valid) reasons above. I know that's the only reason that we have limited the number of children invited to our wedding.

These days both the law, and venues are much stricter about numbers and generally don't let you supply your own food and drink. Wedding receptions/parties are more formally organised and people are having to have small weddings because they just can't afford larger venues.

In the 70s/80s I went to loads of family weddings where everyone's kids were there - registry offices/churches just allowed as many people as could squash into the room without charging extra, sometimes with many people standing or even spilling to the outside as you sometimes get at a funeral. Receptions were generally held in village halls and social clubs who didn't bother much how full the hall got and the couple brought their own barrels of beer and buffet food. Beer had a much smaller percentage of tax on it. The extra cost per person to the couple was very small.

Now that there's usually a 'per head' charge and strict H&S laws about numbers couples often face the prospect of having to drop adult friends/family from the guest list if they want to accommodate someone's children who they may never have actually seen.

This was the case for us as we have big families - between us we have nearly 40 cousins, all of whom have between 3 and 5 kids each - that's a minimum of around 120 children just from cousins :eek: Our venue has a strict H&S numbers limit of, guess what, 120 - so if we'd invited the children, we wouldn't be able to go to our own wedding

We've limited ours to the children of immediate siblings only - that's still 11 children - but at least they are ones we both have some kind of personal relationship with.

FBaby

I blame the British weather too We chose an indoor venue because of that totally untrusting thing called british weather, and that certainly limited space availability.

If the chances of a shower in the middle of August was more 2% than 20% (and that's optimistic!), then maybe we would have gone for an outdoor venue and the prospect of little kids running around shouting would have been less daunting!