No children at wedding

seven-day-weekend

onlyroz wrote: »

A wedding is different to all of the above. It's a long protracted event specifically designed to join two families together and to publicly demonstrate your love for your partner and their family. To compare it to a cinema trip is quite frankly ludicrous.

I agree that it is an event designed to show your love for your partner. Why you also have to love their family and assorted children I have no idea.

sheramber

onlyroz wrote: »

Perhaps you want to? In my experience the best bit of a wedding is the part after all the formalities have finished - where you can mingle with all the guests (not just the half-dozen put on the same table as you) and catch up with people that you might not have seen in years (and yes, meet their kids too).

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If they want to they will arrange childcare for that but if the only reason for not going was because of leaving her child all day then I offered a solution if did want to go.

BarryBlue

onlyroz wrote: »

A wedding is different to all of the above. It's a long protracted event specifically designed to join two families together and to publicly demonstrate your love for your partner and their family. To compare it to a cinema trip is quite frankly ludicrous.

I don't see it as joining families together, just two people. I never felt or regarded myself as part of my first wife's family, since they were a pretty awful lot anyway. My current wife and I have very little close family and rarely see any of them, so our families are not joined in any way beyond us two. Only my daughter and my wife's parents were at our wedding from our respective families.

warehouse wrote: »

I got married 21 years ago and the one thing I still remember clearly is the little brat running around the reception tables because she was "bored".

If I could rewind the clock I'd have a complete ban on kids at my wedding, OP good on you.

I have to agree that kids can be complete pests at weddings, especially those that are easily bored and with low attention spans. Once the crying, whingeing and squabbling starts, the day is over. Peter Kay does a good take on it, complete with that sliding across the floor bit.

onlyroz wrote: »

As for "evening only" guests - I've always found that to be a bit odd. Like there are two grades of friends. But then again I've never really seen the attraction of a wedding with hundreds and hundreds of guests either, and the expectation that you must invite distant cousins, or aunties that you haven't seen in 20 years.

I agree there. If I'm not enough of a friend to be invited to the main event, I don't want to go to a dodgy disco with overpriced drinks and a few sausage rolls for the 'B' list. Why would you?

onlyroz

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

I agree that it is an event designed to show your love for your partner. Why you also have to love their family and assorted children I have no idea.

BarryBlue wrote:

I don't see it as joining families together, just two people.

Perhaps you don't, but for most people if you don't get on with your partner's family then you're in for a pretty miserable time.

HB58

We paid for our own wedding and couldn't afford to invite everyone we would have wished to. The guest list was restricted to close family (hubby is one of 7 siblings, I'm an only) and a few, very close friends. We simply explained that we had a very restricted guest list for the reception but would be delighted to see everyone in the evening. No-one seemed to be bothered by that - possibly because they didn't know other people who had been invited to the reception.

I don't see it as 'A' list and 'B' list friends, simply being practical about what the bride and groom can afford.

Jagraf

onlyroz wrote: »

I really don't think it's healthy to view your partner in isolation from their family. Yes, it is them that you are marrying and not their family, but most people require a wider support network than just their spouse and want to share their special experiences with other people.

Sure, you could disappear off to Gretna or Vegas to get married with just a handful of witnesses - but before you do so perhaps you should consider how you would feel if your own child did the same. Would you not feel hurt that they considered you so utterly unimportant as they took the big step of forming a new family of their own?

I had loads of family at my wedding through choice. I was looking at the bigger picture. What other guests might think as important or indeed who they would have is of no relevance as it's the bride and grooms decision. Furthermore, just because people don't attend your wedding doesn't mean they aren't close. It's entirely personal, it is not an extended family's decision - and if it is, that's really not healthy gir the bride and groom.

Jagraf

onlyroz wrote: »

Perhaps you don't, but for most people if you don't get on with your partner's family then you're in for a pretty miserable time.

You can get on with anyone, they don't have to be at your wedding.

BarryBlue

onlyroz wrote: »

Perhaps you don't, but for most people if you don't get on with your partner's family then you're in for a pretty miserable time.

That may be true if we had large or close families. I have a daughter who lives 100 miles away and my wife has an aged mother. Neither of us has siblings. Beyond that, families play no real part in our lives. She has a couple of cousins whom she sees occasionally, I have cousins I never see. None live locally to us.

I can't see how this would give us a miserable time, I have to say. We manage to lead perfectly fulfilled lives without having to socialise with relatives whom we haven't chosen and may not have much in common with. The thought of having to keep in constant touch with various cousins etc fills me with dread.

sulphate

sheramber wrote: »

There is no need to leave a child for a whole day. You are not required to stay until the bitter end.

The last wedding I attended the baby was left after lunchtime and mum left the reception at 6 o'clock to go home.

Some people only arrived at the reception after the meal so only an evening babysitter would be needed.

If it was important for you to share the couple's day you would find a way. If it is not important then don't go but be honest about why.

It doesn't matter how important the couple are to me - if I have no one to look after my child that day then I can't attend a child free wedding. It's that simple. Also, if it was so important for me to be at the wedding then the couple would have invited my child, as most reasonable couples accept that having a child free wedding will lead to some parents declining. Just as most reasonable couples getting married on a Wednesday will accept that some people will decline due to work issues.

Plenty of weddings I've been to haven't been local and therefore have involved an overnight stay. Even if the wedding didn't start until lunchtime most people might want to stay the night before if they are coming a long distance.

If you are the mother of a breastfed baby then you really have no choice but to decline an invite to a child free wedding. Plenty of breastfed babies don't take bottles and plenty of mothers don't want to stress about getting them to take one for the sake of a few hours.

Peter333

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

But that's a silly argument, isn't it. Would you expect the whole family to be invited to a cinema trip, a cocktail party, a hen/stag do or a childrens' birthday party? It's just people being precious.

AylesburyDuck wrote: »

How is it silly, whats more shocking is that you dont see a difference.:eek:

onlyroz wrote: »

A wedding is different to all of the above. It's a long protracted event specifically designed to join two families together and to publicly demonstrate your love for your partner and their family. To compare it to a cinema trip is quite frankly ludicrous.

I agree totally with Duck and roz. How anyone can compare a trip to the cinema and a children's birthday party to a WEDDING is just unfathomable. And people wanting things their children at a wedding is nothing to do with people being 'precious!' Their children are part of their family, and they are not 'precious' just because they want them there too. (How I HATE that word! (Precious!) It's starting to grind my gears, along with 'first world problems' and 'deal with it!' and other similar adjectives that folk use to ridicule people! :mad:)