This is going to be contraversial....

It wouldn't cross my mind not to invite the kids. There will be my 10 year old flowergirl, 7 year old ring bearer, the photo squad of brothers aged 9,10, 11 and 13, my God-daughters 6 week old and then my neighbours 6 year old son who is waiting to be diagnosed as autistic. He has ADHD and can seem a handful to those who haven't met him before. I'll be explaining his history to the other parents and people sharing his table, so his mum won't be too bothered be any looks that she gets.

He thinks that our wedding is 'The Royal wedding of Karen and Aidan'. ❤️

When we started our planning and sent out our invites, we hadn't discovered Hitched so had no idea that "no kids" was considered an acceptable option for a wedding.

One of our bridesmaids has two children (9 and 7) which we are having as flowergirl and ring bearer, but apart from family and closest friends with children there aren't that many others so it's not a big problem.

Depending on how much money we've got left when we hit the 3 week mark and have paid everyone, we may hit the pound shop and get some colouring books and pens etc - but it all depends how things are going financially, and whether any unexpected problems occur.

There will be no kids at our wedding- thats how we wanted it and theres nothing wrong with stipulating that in your invites.

There will be seven under 12's at my wedding,all nieces and nephews and my son. I have been invited to plenty weddings without children and a couple of them that i could bring them. I always understood that people might not want or be able to afford children at their day,unless it was very close family ,that would annoy me.

I had an evening guest friend the other night come very close to asking if she could bring her five year old but i managed to change the subject and she never quite asked thankfully as i would have said no.. If someone really important during the day had been let down or asked them they could bring kids but no one has even mentioned it.

I have no issues with 'no kids' weddings. I do understand why couples sometimes prefer to have a 'no kids' rule and accept that is just the way things are, I am not the least offended by it but I also would not attend. And I would hope this would not offend anyone also.

From my experience some people do get offended when you decline an invite because of the 'no kids' rule, which in my opinion is double standards and rather annoying.

I think you are right Bespoke, if any of our guests declined because they couldnt bring their children, I would not have got annoyed or upset with them. Its our choice not ot have children at the wedding but its parents choice whether they decide they can come or not. Luckilly all of our guests came so it wasnt an issue but I do hope had any declined that I would have understood.

But do you mean you would decline regardless of the invite day or night or both? Just because the bride and groom have not invited children? Or would you decide depending on whether it was day or just evening?

If you were invited as a guest with your partner to a wedding either day or evening and the invite did not include your children you would automatically not attend? I am amazed at that,in my case if i had invited everyones children it would have halved the amount of adults that i actually really wanted,never mind the expense.

Skybright,

Daytime: yes I would and I have. To me weddings are about family, they are as much about the children as they are adults. But that is just my opinion. My children are 5 and 7 now but I have taken my kids to weddings since they were babies. Not once have my children done anything ghastly or upset anyone and they are always tucked up in bed by a reasonable hour, leaving the adults to enjoy their evening.

Evening: Slightly different because they would be asleep in bed anyway. But if I could not find a babysitter then no. Also there are million and one things that can happen when you have 2 small kids and you are attempting to go out and enjoy yourself! My kids are both quite young still and my youngest doesn't like being away from her mum for too long (little princess!) so as yet I haven't had an evening invite to accept or decline.

I think having no kids increases the risk of last minute cancellations- one of my friends had planned to leave the baby with grandparents, but despite trying, baby hadn't sussed that a bottle was a source of food - so they came to the ceremony (or rather the mum did) and drinks and dad sat outside in the car with the baby.

I think that having no children means that there's an extra level of things that could go wrong so people might not show up - the babysitter could let the parents down as well as the usual last minute problems.

Despite me being quite traumatised by being around kids, we're inviting all our friends and family's kids. There aren't masses of them and most are pretty young (like will be under 3 as of wedding day) but we're a fair old way from everyone, so marginal staying 1 night, more fun staying 2 or more (holiday area just before holiday season starts) which means kids need to be there. Will The pews in the church are quite short, so easy for people to escape if necessary (and we'll probably only be using 2 columns out of 5!) There's also a mini play/colouring area at the front of one of the aisles, which I will ask the vicar to mention at the start. Speeches - well I suspect that the victims will appreciate the distraction to their audience...

My daughter is 2 - and we are definitely only having family children, so a total of 8. these are my brothers children, so immediate family.

if we asked others to bring theirs we would have 19!! no way!!!

I think everyone i entitled to an opinion of course,i just can't understand why people would assume that everyone is in a financial or even space wise position for your children to attend. Very close family i can see,it is a family event and i want my nieces and nephews there. Other than that however much i like my friends i can't afford all their children to attend i i would not have though that any of them would have taken offense.

Almost all my friends have children and i myself have three aged from 16 to 3. I would always completely understand if my kids were not invited and be privileged that myself and my partner were asked to attend.

We are only inviting our nephews to the wedding. nobody has asked about there children being invited. my best friend will have a 2 week old baby and has decided that they will not bring the baby as they dont want our wedding disturbed and they want to enjoy the day without having a baby to deal with

x

We had a 'no kids other than immediate family' line on our invitations, politely worded and blaming space I think. A lot of our friends have got children and no-one has complained. Everyone seems to be looking forward to a child free day!

We have made the exception for 2 of Mr Kooks' friends as their babies will be 3 weeks and 3 months old and we're happy for them to come along if it means the mums can come too. I wouldn't want to leave my tiny baby and we really want them there.

You might find that they'll feel very different at the time!

?

We have this exact problem - OH's parents are both one of 10+ siblings so there was no way we could invite all the aunties/uncles/cousins but where we have invited the aunt and uncle and only put their names on the invite we have discovered this weekend that the children have assumed they are coming and invited themselves........fuming

I dont understand why you would take this personally? If it was just your child not invited fair enough but it is up to the bride and groom how they want thewir wedding and they arent saying we dislike children and dont want them their. For us alot of it was about money not space because we could have fitted children in but there woul have been 23 children and I was not prepared to spend out that much more money at £15 per child (thats what our venue charged) it wasnt even an option. I guess we were lucky all our friends came minus children they all have said that it was a fab day and they really enjoyed it, Im just pleased they all know us well enough not to take offence or take it personally and realise that with weddings which are so expensive we cut children rather than friends

My nephew was noisy during the ceremony and started stropping (he's only two) and my BIL was about to take him out and I told him not to and that we wanted him to stay. It was more important to me that my nephew and Pageboy and my BIL and Usher was there during the ceremony, even if it meant a bit of noise.

In fact, I was so happy that I didn't even care! Also, it helps that he is adorable....

We had four children at our wedding - my two children and my two nephews. We didn't have any more due to numbers and the fact that large groups of kids do my head in.

We didn't have any more due to numbers and the fact that large groups of kids do my head in.

hee hee that bit made me laugh, I know what you mean. I think because I'm a teacher that also had something to do with us not having children at the wedding. I love my job and the kids I've taught have been fab but I wanted it to be a day where it was about me and hubby (and not my job iykwim)

We have no young family children, only two teenagers.

I honestly think it's rude not to take children out, because it's spoiling the enjoyment for everyone else who's trying to follow the ceremony.

Even if the bride says not to?

I told his parents before the ceremony that if he started talking/stropping I wanted him to stay unless he was distressed. I told them during the ceremony to let him stay in the room.

IMO, it would have been ruder for them to have gone against our wishes and taken him out.....

If you only have teenagers attending why are you worried about noise during your ceremony?

I really don't understand this. I don't have kids, but when I do I will check to make sure any invitation I receive (whether that's for a wedding or casual get together) extends to them as well!

He/she might not be 2 weeks old as they might be early or late! ?

I wonder also if maybe a different perspective should be to consider whether the children actually want to be there? I can understand wy there have been some mothers on here who have said it wouldn't feel like a family occasion if the children weren't there, but seriously, do the kids give a t*ss?

Maybe if they know that some of their cousins are going to be there, but if their parents are just friends of the bride and groom or whatever, the kids might actually prefer to spend the weekend with the grandparents?!

As I said, the only children we're having are the two that are immediate family and the 3 month old who's breastfeeding (because it was more impiortant for me for my friend to be there than her daughter NOT being there), but her older brother is going to the grandparents. If we'd had to have invited the other children, we'd be looking at another 9 people, one of whom we've met or have any form of relationship with, which would effectively rule us out of inviting a table of our friends. Sorry if it sounds callous, but friends come before people we don't know!

Hmmn, I don't understand why this is controversial.

We don't have children but we decided to invite people's kids... we didn't think it through and I kind of regret it. We have 18 coming! We invited them because we wanted them there, we know all of them thought it would be a shame to split up the families... we did assume that not everyone would want bring their children! Turns out they all (bar 2 guests) are bringing their children.

We will be having a bouncy castle, activity packs and a sweet buffet to keep them entertained. The sweets cost a lot more than I thought!

In hindsight, I wish we had only invited neices and nephews (4 of these) as the thought of keeping 17 children entertained is a bit daunting. Most of the weddings I have been to have been child free and most people seemed surprised when we said, "children welcome" so it is definitely not expected!

If I had kids and they weren't invited to a wedding, I really don't think I would be offended. After having planned my own I totally understand money/space constraints.

To answer the OP, if the only child you are talking about is a 4 month old, then I think you should invite him/her. If I had recently had a baby and said baby wasn't invited, I would think it a little odd. As far as I know, mums don't leave children that tiny. I don't think I would!

That's not what I said though. If you say noisy kids can stay, then they should stay. But we felt differently. I guess "in the absence of any other information" I would expect parents to take out their children if they started making a noise.

There will be young children present, but there are no young family children.

Mooey80:

You seem so against having young children at weddings so I'm just curious as to why you have invited them to yours in the first place?

I'm not bothered how our friends choose to feed their babies, I just think I wouldn't want to leave a little baby for the day so would rather they bring them, breast fed or not

We have 20 children under the age of 15 coming to our wedding. And a further, 10 ish i suppose in the evening. Some people may find that too many but we never even considered not having children there. OH has 2 children, and his family are very close with lots of children. My nephew is going to be 4 months old. If he makes a noise he makes a noise. He's a baby its an occupational hazard!

I totally understand why some people dont have children at their weddings. my friend got married last year and didnt have kids there...my absolute best friend in the world is getting married next yr at a lovely boutique hotel and i very much doubt kids will be there...I'm not offended by it...but im not a mother yet. Maybe i would feel different if i was.

However, having or not having children at your wedding is your choice and neither option is wrong.