This is going to be contraversial....

We just thought it was one of those things you had to do (in the traditional scheme of things); having not been to many weddings ourselves, it wasn't until it was too late and the invitations had gone out that we realised that you could actually get away with not inviting children, having seen the discussions about it on Hitched.

We have around 18 children (using the term in its legal context of under 18's) coing our wedding, although the majority are in their teens rather than small children. I think there's one 6 month old, two about 2-3 years, and that's about it off the top of my head.

I expect the feeling about children is mostly based on whether you do, or don't, have any young children yourself or within your close family circle.

I have a child and had a child free wedding (with the exception of my own and the family kids) 6 under 10's and 3 over 12's.

Kochanski - why would you be offended if your children weren't invited? Unless your children have not been invited because they are horrid little brats (seriously, I am not suggesting yours are, I promise), the likelihood is that the B&G have decided it's an adults only wedding/numbers are tight for seating/venue is not suitable for children/the cost is too high. You taking offence suggests to me that you would assume the lack of invitation is because of the first reason, rather than multiple factors which are more likely to be the case. I could well be wrong but I'm just curious as to why you'd be offended.

As for removing children when they make noise/misbehave, for me, the problem with this is that people have vastly varying views as to what constitutes noise/disturbance/misbehaviour. Also, maybe a little simplistic but on this premise, no child would be removed until after they've made that noise/played up and so to some extent, the disturbance has been caused. Does that make sense to anyone else? That will be acceptable to some, and not to others.

As for us, we were approached by our close friends with children early on asking that unless we expressly wanted otherwise, they wanted to leave their children at home. This suited us particularly well for several reasons including geography (many guests were local with family local who could babysit), venue (our venue had a lot of uneven flooring, a large open pond, livestock, other dangers not suitable to allow children to run about in a way they'd enjoy), cost (£45per head for each child!) and atmosphere (it was a big get together where many of our friends wanted to let their hair down and relive pre children days - their words, not ours). We ran the risk of one couple not coming (and we'd have coped with that).

To be honest I would be offended if people just assumed their children would be coming, and that we would want them there, and that we would be willing to pay £100's to have them there and not have other friends due to the cost.

It was not a decision which we made because ofhow our friends children behave (they all have behaved excellently when ever we've seen them and I love going and spending the day with mates and their children) but we did not want children at all to be part of our day it was an adult only day and if people were offended to be honest bad lick our friends know us well enough not to be. I even had cusins travelling over 300 miles and they did not bring their 9 year old or 1 year old.

Also why would the b&g ask you first? I dont understnad that.

I just said to all my guests, the only kids we were having there were part of the ceremony. It didn't seem to upset anyone, if everyone would have bought their kids, it would have been like a damn creche, plus it would have cost so much extra.

Ah well I can understand you being a unhappy with that, I dont feel that you can include some of your friends children and not include others. I can only imagine what I would have thought if I was you and had struggled to find a babysitter and then walked into find other children there. Thats not quite fair on you and your hubby.

I didnt ask the parents but I did speak to them all before invites went out to let the, know that we were having an adult only wedding. I guess I was lucky no one was worried at all and maybe by giving them that extra time they were able to plan ahead?

The only issue we had was one of my hubbys mates (who dont have children) said they couldnt make it to the 1pm ceremony becuase of travelling. (Now from where they live the church was 1 hr away but they were staying at t hotel with us and had managed to get an early check in at 11.30am, so would be in the area!) she said to hubby we will join you for the food and drinks but not the service. I put my foot down on that and said nope if you cant make it all come to the service which in my mind is the most important part of the day!. A bit of background they are very tight whenever you go out they always accept drinks of others and I have never seen them pay for drinks and they even try to get out of paying for food if we go to dinner (needless to say we dont go out with them anymore) she then saiud to hubby that they dont really like weddings so did not want to see the service just join us after for the food. Hubby got very angry with them and said if all you want is a free dinner dont bother coming. In the end they came to everything but we havent spoken since the wedding

We were lucky in that not many of our family and close friends have had children yet, and those that have had only had them in the last few years. So we had 4 children at our wedding; 2 2 year olds, 1 18 month old and 1 baby. Two of them are family - our nephew, and my cousin's daughter - and the other two are one of my oldest friend's, so we never really gave any thought to whether or not we would invite them, we just counted them in from the beginning.

If we had known more children than that, we would have had to give it more consideration, and maybe would have stuck to family only. I wasn't bothered about noise during the ceremony (my friend's little girl spent the first 10 minutes yelling "is that Aunty Mel? is that Anuty Mel?" until her dad took her out and it didn't bother me!) but when it comes to numbers and having the space for people then I agree that I would choose having more grown up friends there than having to make room for lots of kids.

We were also lucky because our kiddy guests were all so small and didn't need any extra entertainment - the combination of a big lawn, an exciting staircase, a dancefloor and a woman who looks vaguely familiar but a lot more glamorous than usual was more than enough to keep them going. Slightly older ones do need more to stop them getting bored and, really, if they're going to be bored and don't want to be there, then why put them through it?

I cant believe your sil did that!!!!!! OMG really I dont know how these people can do it. I feel bad if on a night out I dont get as many drinks as my mates do! It was easy to put my foot down as we were getting very fed up with this couple and it was a duty invite so any messing and they were off the list

Ah, ok. Thanks for responding. I was just interested in your reasoning behind it.

I have always found it a bit odd where there's a 'some kids can come some can't' situation. I understand the immediate family thing but when it comes to friends I just think it opens up a huge can of worms as to how much you like a friend and their children. Tough to know where to draw the line without someone being offended.

That was why we specified in our extra info part that only immediate family children and those with babies under 6 months. That was our line!

None of our friends were offended.

I think you had every right to be offended in that case, if you start picking and choosing between which friends children can and cant come then people will be offended and will take it personally (in that case there is no other way to take it). I htink as people have said you have to be clear and say its just family children etc.

I hope when I become a mum that I will be able to be an at home mum (so may come to you for advice when we have kids)

Maybe its because you have three? If I'd have had your three kids at my wedding it would have cost me an extra £120!

Anyway, I didnt invite any of my friend's kids to my wedding during the day.

That is outrageous! Tbh, you are better off without 'friends' like that!

We are having children at our wedding but I completely understand if people choose not to. We are having a rule of family children only though.

We have about 19 children under the age of 15 attending. Our venue is a bit weird in the fact that they can seat 140 for the wedding breakfast but only 120 for the ceremony. So, we are having 120 adults in the ceremony and I am hiring childminders to oversee an activity room for the kids for an hour. The kids will then join us for the wedding breakfast.

If I could fit the kids in the ceremony then I would but unfortunately this isn't the way it's worked out. My 10 year old god son is an Usher and I am giving him the choice as to whether he wants to stay in the ceremony or go with the kids (after he's done his 'ushering' duties - i.e. look cute and say hi to everyone when they arrive!).

I know Red, we were disgusted with them so rude! I would never do that to someone

It wasn't too hard a decision for us as we only had a potential 5 children coming anyway, and one family has declined due to another wedding on the same weekend, so we'll only be having 3 in the end. Two are slightly older (7 and 5) and the other one is my 3 yr old nephew - my sister would have been very unhappy if I'd have said no kids! I have asked that he be seated near the back though, and if he starts to have a shriek during the ceremony that he's removed. I don't think it'll be a problem, my sister is bringing him headphones and a PSP to watch Thomas the Tank Engine on, so hopefully he'll stay quiet!

Kochanski, a question, if I may...

What exactly are you thinking the bride and groom should be asking you?

WSS. I'm confused by your posts.

Ok, cheesy poems in any context are a no-no

So, you go for a drink with your mate and she says "Invitations will be out soon but, just to let you know, we're not having children at the wedding". Is that different or better than receiving the invitation, which states "We are very sorry but we are unable to include children" (or whatever wording). The first approach is surely more personal and I appreciate that you may be able to have a chat about it. But it's still non-negotiable, your friend isn't asking if it would be alright with you to have a child-free wedding. Essentially, all that's happened is that you've had a pre-invitation warning. And you're also saying that said friend should offer this warning to every parent she plans to invite?

I think Kochanski is right. I spoke to all or four firends and family before the wedding who had children. To tell them that children were not invited. I felt this was the polite thing to do and they are all close friends/family so I felt it was the least I could do. Also for my family they were travelling along way and the extra time helped with organising things.

This is a sensitive subject for me, I had the most awful experience and I don’t know if it was partly my fault, we got married 10 days ago now, and I always said at the beginning of the planning that it would be a child free zone with the exception of my nieces and my best friends daughter all of which were flower girls, cut along story short one of my bridesmaids (a second cousin) has 3 boys. She threw a strop when she found out that my best friends daughter was a flower girl she said I should have chosen her eldest child if anyone! I found this comment offensive considering I had moved away from my hometown 5 years ago and she had still hasn’t never once phoned me off her own back asked me how I am doing and she didn’t do a single thing in helping me with my wedding plans in fact the same bridesmaid was the only one out of 4 bridesmaids who disagreed with everything from the dress to the shoes to the fact that she had to share her best women title with my sister, everything literally she moaned about.... sooooo I explained that if I had invited her eldest what about her other 2 sons and also what about her 2 sisters children both sisters were invited to the wedding also, where do you draw the line.... come to the day of my wedding, my husbands cousin has a 7year old who has type 1 diabetes and has to have regular injections 3 a day to be precise, he is also celiac, and lactose intolerant, bearing in mind the wedding was 200 miles away from where they live there was no question he wouldn’t be invited.... I didn’t tell my cousin this I guess with everything that was going on I just forgot - but on the day of the wedding we had come out of the church and after we had greeted everybody and said thank you and all that malarkey my husband and I were about to get into the car to go to the reception bearing in mind that would have been the first moment we got to spend with each other in private, I caught a glimpse of my cousin looking really angry, I walked over and asked if she was ok, her response was “No Im F*****g sh**te” I asked what was the matter and she pointed to said child and spouted who the hell is her?? When I explained to her who he was she then said “I feel like going home and getting my 3 kids and brining them” and then she muttered under her breath my kids aren’t F****g good enough! I was so upset I couldn’t actually believe that she would say such things and at that pinnacle point on my wedding day, my husband could see something was going on and he knew the previous problems I had encountered with her so he walked across to her and asked her what the problem was and she just ignored him, he walked away and I went up to her and said I cant believe your behavior on my wedding day, cut along story short, I didn’t let it ruin the car journey even though it was in the back of my mind and when we arrived at the reception she came straight up to me and apologisesd but I still feel very bitter towards her and we haven’t had much contact since. I know I should have been more clear with her but at the same time there were so many other family members there that I am close to who had children and none of them raised an eyebrow. I really regret having her so involved in the day but what can I do now, I should have had the balls to say to her months ago, actually I really don’t want you as a bridesmaid because she gave me so much ammunition on several occasions but I was just to soft.

Having some children and not others can cause a few grumbles but I think you had a perfectly understandable situation...

This person clearly has issues and deserves no more of your time.

Oh my goodness Claire Lou her behaviour was totally digusting. If it was me I would not care that she apologised to speak to like that at any time is bad enough but on your wedding day I would cut her out of my life. I really am disgusted by her behaviour. Im so sorry that happened to you but glad you didnt let it ruin your day.