Kids at receptions

[AmberWaves]

I think what''s really horrible is that I want SOME kids, but not all.

Like the kids I see every month, or every other week, totally want to invite them. But the ones that I rarely see, I don''t want to "waste" the money I could have used for a friend or family member I''d like to be there more. Is this horrible?

 

[lovelylulu]

I would like to have kids at our wedding, but my family literally has an army of little ones. over 30 children under the age of 11 on my dad''s side alone. and these kids are pretty unruly -- so because we can''t invite some and not others we are having no kids under 15. i feel badly about it, but i know if we didn''t do it this way our wedding would turn into a circus. a loud, chaotic circus.

 

[AmberWaves]

LuLu, are you having some in the wedding party? If so, how are you working that out?

 

[AndyRosse]

Amber, I''m late to the topic, but I am only inviting one child (she''s six) because most importantly she is the flowergil

lol and secondly, she is my goddaughter. Besides that, my family does not have any real young children that we are close to, so there is no problem there. As for my fiance''s family, there are kids ranging from a couple of years old to their twenties and thirties. And basically none are invited only because we are paying for this wedding ourselves and simply cannot afford to invite them all (plus we are already inviting way too many people!). And like others have said, we really can''t pick and choose which kids are invited and which are not without causing WWIII.

Also, we are describing our wedding as a "small, personal affair" which hopefully gets the point across.

Now, I am a bit worried that some of these families might just infer that their children are invited and just bring them along (even though the outer and inner envelopes will specifically only invite the parents. Some people did that at my fiance''s sister''s wedding!

Thankfully, I need my guests to choose their meals ahead of time on their response card, so if I see a couple choosing six meals, I am simply letting my fiance and his mother know, and they can do the dirty work since it''s their family. Let''s hope it doesn''t come to that though

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[lovelylulu]

amber: because we feel like we can''t ask some kids to come and leave out the rest, we aren''t having any flower girls/ring bearers. that''s the worst part of it...if my brothers had kids they would surely be invited and would make up the wedding party, but they don''t have any...

 

[AmberWaves]

LuLu,this what has been stressing me out the most!! Kids, no kids. Blah blah blah..

 

[lovelylulu]

for us, the sheer numbers of kids that we have in the family actually made the decision easier. we didn''t want our wedding to be like an out of control playground -- my cousins'' children are to put it politely very energetic

we have adopted a sort of appletini''s philosophy: it''s an adult evening wedding and we are giving the parents a night off so that they can eat, drink and be merry without having to supervise...i know that it''s tough, but you''ll figure out what works for your wedding. how many kids are you looking at?

 

[AmberWaves]

Well, we''re looking at at least 13 kids, and for a wedding of 100 people (maybe less, since we''re paying for it ourselves) that''s kind of a lot. And if you think about it, most of those kids are under 10... Man. I don''t know. We''er going to have two be flower girls and ring bearers. My BF has 4 nieces and nephews, and we only want to use one of them! It''s insane. I think we need to make a full guest list, and see if we have room for them. I hate saying no to people, though.

 

[lovelylulu]

i understand. it''s a tough position to be in -- saying no. knowing that some people aren''t going to be happy. but, hey, such is life. true, that is kind of a blase attitude, but this is your wedding and your not going to be able to please everyone. make your invitation list and see what happens. babysitters aren''t too hard to come by

but i do think it has to be an all or nothing approach...

 

[tanyak]

Date: 2/13/2006 4:54:27 PM
Author: msflutter
no kids at our wedding. we are getting married in vegas, and want a fairly formal adult party. It is at the Four Seasons and at the cost per head we would be out another 10k if all the neices, nephews and cousins came. One of my FI's cousin is not coming because she cant bring her 5 kids! That is fine with us, we are having a destination wedding we werent expecting everyone to come anyway. Sounds kinda mean, but we really dont want any kids, even if they are 16!

In saying that we were at my cousins wedding and the entire vows a child was screaming 'no mom! no!' I'm sure that is a great audio clip in the wedding video. Although some large weddings will have lots of kids, and if that is what the bride and groom wants, but it isnt what I want! Can you tell I'm pretty firm on that?

Grrrrr. When people ask how come kids aren't invited, THIS is the reason. It's not even the kid's fault. It's the parent who doesn't excuse him or herself to attend to a whining child...or lets kids run all over the dance floor...or lets kids take a zillion crappy photos with disposal cameras.

I had intended to have a kids-free wedding, but my FH has recently reconnected with his step-siblings and asked them to be in the wedding. Now, they are coming from across the country, and there's no way I'm going to ask them to leave their kids at home. I've since found out two are 10 and one is 6, so I don't anticipate any problems. One of BMs has three children under 5, and was a bit miffed a few months ago when I told her about the no-kids policy. She'll probably get a little bitchy when she sees the FH's step-nieces and nephew, but oh well. I get to pick all the guests, and that includes the kids.

 

[VuittonGal]

We''re only having a few kids of close family members (no babies though). We''re selecting kiddie food for them cause it''s a hella lot cheaper to feed them kiddie food. I guess they''ll sit at the same table as their parents. They''re not getting different favors. We''ll be giving candy of some sort so they can just eat it and bounce off the walls.

 

[Mara]

no no and no on kids at the reception...i don't like being around babies or young kids at restaurants when they are crying, so i didnt want them at my wedding either!!

unfortunately, since it was destination, one of our good friends did bring their 2 kids and the grandma to take care of them so she was supposed to keep them away from the reception, that was the whole point of her coming, well hello there is grandma eating and drinking with the kids at the reception!! i was like OH GOD NO, but what could i say??? get out? hardly! i didn't know her and they traveled out there with their kids, so we kind of had to deal. after she ate though she took them to bed, so it worked out thank goodness.

older kids i guess would be fine if they behave, but the last thing that i wanted was a crying child at our party. omg and yes that story up above about the crying child would have been my worst nightmare. haha.