Whether to invite children to a wedding (or not) is one wedding planning topic that is sure to be controversial. Try mentioning it on any wedding forum and see the response!
When we got married almost 5 years ago, very few of our friends had children. Although our own little boy attended who was a year old, we decided that we’d prefer it if there weren’t any more children attending. That’s because we’d recently attended a wedding where we could barely hear the speeches because of naughty children running riot (why on earth didn’t their parents take them outside??)
To be fair since then I’ve been to lots of weddings where children have been great, funny and well-behaved…and I’ll do another post shortly on how to keep them entertained. In the meantime, if you’d like to know how to NOT invite children to your wedding, here’s some tips:
- Make sure your invitations are explicit, just inviting parents i.e. Mr & Mrs Smyth. If older children are welcome but not younger ones (good luck with that!) then mention them specifically ‘Mr & Mrs Smyth and Daniel Smyth’
- The simplest way to be specific about no kids is to say ‘Adults only reception’
- Capacity is a really good reason why kids aren’t invited. My SIL is getting married in August and of the 68 guests allowed, 18 are going to be children of friends…which unfortunately means that some other friends can’t attend. If this impacts you, you can place wording in your invitation such as this ‘Due to limited capacity, we regretfully must decline the attendance of “under 16’s”.. And be specific about ages too. If you just say ‘children’ that depends on your definition, so specify ages to avoid confusion.
- There will be some parents who are just looking for an excuse to hire a babysitter and have a child free evening (we usually fall into this category!) If you think that your friends fit the bill here but you’d rather they brought children with them than not attend, why not try phrasing it in this way: ‘Although children are a blessing, we would like everyone to be able to relax and enjoy our reception without the company of children.‘
- And if you are Ok with having children there during the day, but would prefer to be child-free in the evening why not try this ‘Whilst children are welcomed, limited entertainment will be provided for them until 7.30pm only’
It’s a tricky one that definitely causes upset but at the end of the day and it’s your wedding, so stick to your guns and be polite and it should work out OK. And if you do have children coming, why not ask them to complete your photos for your instant photo guest book to keep them occupied?
