I need your help about no children invited to the wedding

When you put a stipulation on like no kids, you have to accept that there will be some people that won't then be able to/want to come.

Your options as I see it are:

1) Back down. This holds the danger of having to have the same conversation over again as, if you back down for the brother, it's likely others will then want to bring their kids too.

2) Stand firm. Hope the brother changes his mind and comes without the kids. Accept and reconcile yourself to the possibility that he may not.

Which do you want most: the child-free wedding, or the attendance of your FBIL?

If you don't want children there, you don't want children there and that's that really! It might be that they can't arrange childcare or that they object on principal but if you and your OH have decided then perhaps you could explain why (the amount of children that would be there, cost etc) and then let them decide.

Do they live far away from where you are getting married? This might be another factor; I wouldn't leave my children for a weekend to go to a wedding (especially a family one as my parents would be there so nobody to have them!) and it's not because I wouldn't agree with the no children rule, it would simply be a logistics thing.

However, since you say you are not children people and not close to your OH's nieces and nephews, I wonder if his brother and wife are a little hurt by the lack of interest in the their children generally (rightly or wrongly, people feel rejected very easily when it comes to their kids) and this has rubbed salt in the wounds? It perhaps feels to them that the children are being excluded because you don't like them and if you want to get him there, I would suggest sensitive handling, as paternal/maternal protective instincts are always strong and sometimes irrational.

I am not saying you should change your policy, but perhaps the tone of it could be softened and explained a little?

Whilst I don't necessarily agree with your view, it's your prerogative and it's a difficult situation but you have to stick by your guns or give in to everyone. Your OH needs to tell his brother that you're really sorry but it is a blanket no children policy and if that means they won't come to the wedding then you'll be very sad and they will be missed but leave it at that. Don't let his brother blackmail you and put you in this position, it's not fair. I don't understand why people do it.

If on the other hand you are prepared to budge then you will need to be consistent. We are only inviting immediate family children to our after wedding party and have said on the invitations Sorry but no room at the inn for children. That way we are being consistent and fair and I know the people will understand and hope they see at as a night off tbh.

It's always a tricky one! I'm the first to say id happily attend a wedding without my kids (going a friends wedding in the summer without them!).

However a family wedding would be more difficult. For example my brother recently got married and if it was child free we couldn't have attended as we simply couldn't get childcare for that long. My mum is our main source and she's obviously be there! We have no one on OHs side who can have the and even if they were in childcare that isn't open after 3 or at weekends (Plus my youngest is too young for it!).

Could this be the issue?

It's really difficult. I can see why you don't want kids there and why he wants to bring them - which is purely for his reasons of not wanting to book a babysitter! It must be tricky to get someone to look after 4!

To be honest, I'd probably stand my ground. Only you can decide. I really don't like this kind of blackmail. I had it in relation to my own wedding when one of my husband's sisters said she would not attend if a certain family friend was invited. I said something like "What a shame, we'll miss you!" as I wasn't prepared to un-invite other guests. In the end she turned up and no more was said about it.

Unfortunately, instituting a no kids rule means there will be people who cannot or will not attend. This is something you needed to consider before you stated it and between you, decide what was more important. Now you have to decide again, whether you stand your ground, upset your OH and his brother or allow them to bring their children and therefore allow all children.

it has to be an all or nothing decision I'm afraid so you and your OH need to sit down and discuss it.

We are the same. there will be three children in total attending the daytime, one is my nephew(bridesmaid son), the best mans daughter, and a friends daughter (this friend is travelling from tasmania to attend - so its only fair!).

we are declining to have any other children to the daytime and evening. if people get their knickers in a twist then tough. i know i may receive some backlash when people see 3 other kids. our venue is small and numbers are tight. we wont shave the guestlist down so kids can attend - it means removing people we really want there to make room. we are reasonably lucky in that most guests have adult children or none at all.

the problem isnt really backing down for you (im assuming that 4 kids wouldnt really be that much of an issue), the problem could be the reaction of others whose kids you have said no to. if you say yes to some, then other people could be miffed. its a really tricky situation for you. i do think its unfair for people to say they wont attend without the kids though.

You could allow children for close family members (i.e. nephews and nieces)? other than that you'll have to lump it i'm afraid.

In all honesty if you make the choice not to invite any children you have to accept that people may not be able to attend. Your Oh's brother may not be able to come due to child care commitments. It's not easy to find someone to look after 4 children especially when all other relatives are at the same event!

Also bear in mind that they may simply be offended. Your decision is your choice, but he is your OH's brother so these children are closely related to your OH and it may have been a bit of a shock to your Oh's brother that you are excluding them from a family event.

I think this is really something you should have spoken to them about before sending the invitations. A friendly telephone call explaining your reasons and seeing whether you can sort sort out the childcare may salvage the situation.

This is always a tricky one and completely down to personal preference.

We're only having our neices and nephews at the wedding, no other children are invited. We've mentioned this to our close friends and they have all been fine but my cousins have kids and I'm not sure how they will take it.....but I am standing my ground. When we send out the invites there will be an insert in there (mainly detailing local hotels, taxi numbers etc) but we're going to put something in there explaining that only children in our immediate family are invited and we hope people understand etc.

Let us know how you get on! x

We put on our invites that only children in the bridal party would be able to attend the wedding due to reasons of space and cost (well, we wrote it a little better than that, but that was the gist!) Then OH's cousin/usher telephoned to say that it would be fine for his older child P to go to her mum's house but that younger child W would have to come but "don't worry, we'll make sure that A leaves the ceremony if W starts to cry or anything..." I was fuming when my OH then said "oh, ok, yeah cool". They then booked their accommodation!

So now we felt we had to contact all those with children to say "just to let you know, if you are struggling with the no child rule, let us know and we will see what we can do"

Thankfully, everybody else made arrangements without problems and were happy to have an evening not looking after their kids

What you decide is totally up to you, but I think finding out the reasons why your FBIL feels he won't come without the children is important. It may be logistics in which case that's just the way it is and not much you can do, except for change the rule for everybody.

We are having only our nieces and nephews, which amounts to 13 as it is.

I don't not want any other kids neither does my oh. It's completely reasonable to ask.

As fir guests declining unfort this will happen but as me and my oh have said it should not stop,anyone coming to your wedding. If they care enough for you or your partner they will be at your wedding. If they do t come because of thus then do you really want that person there.

I've learned the hard way that I tried to hang on to people I care about but who don't care/love me back the same and I'm much happy now.

whatwver happens I hope you and your oh enjoy your day, be happy and share it with those who joined you xx

I don't want children at mine either, but OH does. He has a very large family and there are about 20 children on the "probably likely to come" list that we drew up. The compromise is that we are hiring a mini creche just for the ceremony; I could not bear the thought of our vows being ruined by screaming kids (sorry if that offends anyone, it's just my personal opinion!). They will be provided with a children's meal at the wedding breakfast but we are going to imply on the invites somewhere that they won't be expected to stay all night either. If that puts some people off then so be it.

I do think FBIL is being a bit unreasonable in your case to be honest, how old are his children?

This is unfortunately one of the occasions where the "It's your day, so it's your way' view falls apart a bit. Because ultimately that's not true, there are occasions where you can't have everything on your terms if you want to celebrate with everyone you want to celebrate with.

It's not about if people love you enough then they'll make the effort. Childcare may be an issue, don't forget it is costing your guests a lot of money to attend the wedding, the cost of child care is likely to significantly add to that especially with 4 children. It is actually a BIG ask to ask a babysitter to look after 4 children for the WHOLE day & evening and i can imagine many parents would feel uncomfortable with this either especially with very young kids.

You've decided not to invite children, that is of course your prerogative. However, your guests have their own prerogative too and I don't think it's unreasonable for a guest to say they can't attend because you've not invited their children ( the emotional blackmail however is not ok).

As Others have said you may need to compromise and decide what is more important to you - having your FBIL there or not having children. If you decide its the no children rule then, stick to your guns and don't let anyone bully you into changing your mind.

I've been tempted to suggest this to OH but there are kids in our family we wouldn't not have there.

My issue is, when I asked my cousin if her little girl would be a flower girl (she'll be almost 3 then) she said "of course, but you might have 2" because she was just about to announce to the family she was having another one. And yes, it's another little girl. So now I don't know if I'm supposed to have both of them! Our guests keep having kids and it's really pushing our numbers! It sounds selfish but it's getting stressful since we can have no more than 70 at the ceremony but there are around 20 kids now!

I'd say stick to your guns, but explain the situation in person or over the phone.

Calella, is it number of people or number of seats?

Our ceremony location is number of seats so we're going to have to ask all younger kids (potentially under 5 or older!) to sit on laps as we only have 55 seats and about 15 - 20 kids coming!! lol

It's only for the ceremony so won't be too long and hope that the parents all understand as it's that or they don't get invited

Well I asked at the venue about small children and he said a high chair counts as a seat! I'll need to double check it, but I'm sure it means they're included in our numbers. It's going to be a tight squeeze!

I can understand this issue from both yours and the brother's view - however, if it was my brother, I would expect him to attend, at least the ceremony, no matter what - if that meant leaving his wife at home with the kids for the day then he should be willing to do that, in my opinion.

We are only inviting children of family members to the wedding, so 2 small babies and 6 kids age 7-14. This was mostly to avoid the problem of cousins not being able to come because their mum (my aunt) would have been attending the wedding and not being able to babysit.

Most of our friends have at least 2 kids by now and there was no way we wanted our wedding turning into a nursery - there would have been about 30 children and 70 adult guest. I expect some people to be miffed that there are children there when they had to get babysitters, but so far everyone has been fine with it, even friends who have small babies - they're looking forward to leaving them with the grandparents for the night!

Sambarine, I couldn't agree more.

im not from the uk but as my family have says they wouldn't miss it as they love me.

As for a wedding costing lots of money for guests. It cost as much as you make it. I've been

to ones that cost us a fortune and ones that I was sensible with. If you give enough notice then organising a babysitter plus saving up is possible.

Sambarine, I couldn't agree more.

im not from the uk but as my family have says they wouldn't miss it as they love me.

As for a wedding costing lots of money for guests. It cost as much as you make it. I've been

to ones that cost us a fortune and ones that I was sensible with. If you give enough notice then organising a babysitter plus saving up is possible.

Error

Our wedding in september will be my 2nd marriage. When i first got married i was 24 and we didnt have children, but some family on the grooms side did, one friend on my side did. We only had 30 people for the whole day, and two of them were us! We made it very clear that we could not invite children due to small numbers. My friend was excited about leaving her daughter and having a day off! But the grooms brother and SIL said that if they couldn't bring their 3 children they couldn't come. I simply said that if they couldn't make it then we were very sorry, we would love them to come, but we couldn't invite the children. I didn't mean it as any sort of ultimatum and we only discussed it once. They came to the wedding, the kids didnt, we had a lovely day. This time is a bit different....i have a 13 year old son from that 1st marriage who will be giving me away at our wedding this year. All our friends have children at about the same age and they are all invited. We will have about 15-20 children there ranging from 7 up to 16 years old. I'm not sure how i would feel if they all had much younger children (i think i may have finally found an advantage of being a 41 year old bride!!).

But thats my situation.... what i wanted to say about the OP's situation is that, unfortunately, you can't always have everything you want, and while your wedding day is the most important thing in your life, that is not the case for everyone else, and if someone, even immediate family, chooses to put their children before you then i think you have to accept that. I am not in any way criticising your no children rule...after all i did the same in my younger care free child free days! And you have every right to feel put out. But you also need to be accepting of the consequences and of peoples reasons. If, all those years ago, the grooms brother and SIL had not come to the wedding, then yes it would have bothered me, but I would have understood that they felt their children were more important than me. I agree that you should have the day you want (i did 1st time round and we will this time) but i also think you have to realise that some people may not fit into that vision as you would want. I really hope you find a way to resolve this in a way that makes you all happy

We can only have 30 max to our meal so although my 2young nephews are coming, OH isn't inviting his nieces/nephews. This raised eyebrows naturally-and I also got the questions about bridesmaids etc when I'm not having any! The reason his side aren't invited as we split the guest list 50/50 and once parents/siblings/aunts/uncles were invited he had no room. My side is smaller so I can have my nephews.

in honesty-I didn't want kids there other than my nephews (hence I realise I am being selfish) so it's worked out well. We see mine much more often than his, and some of his have partners/children themselves and I wasn't prepared to buy them all an expensive wedding breakfast.

what I would say though is eloping may seem the easy option-and perhaps it is-but don't do it just because of brother in law. If everyone else is fine with no kids and can come then don't ruin it for all of them that would probably love to attend and see you get married!

OP - I think you just need to say that it's a shame they can't come and leave it at that.

sad for your OH, but now it's time to get on with the planning and ensuring that you both have a really fantastic day! don't let it get you down.

I'm confused about the eloping idea. If your OH cared so much about his brother being there it's a bit confusing that he's now willing to elope? are you sure he wants that or is he just reacting to the upset? Whilst this might sound like a fantastic plan to you I'd be careful to give him time to think about it. Also you'd be losing deposits and money which is wroth bearing in mind.

LuxuriousBlueDiamonds - i don't think attendance at a wedding is a sign of love. Some brides on here have family and friends who can't attend their weddings for very good reason (e.g. cost/pregnancy etc). It has nothing to do with their affection for each other. Bear in mind that your day is the most important day for YOU and to most people it's just not that big a deal. Sometimes guests have much bigger events in their own life that need to be dealt with. Assumptions about how much someone loves you based on them doing what you want is a real pitfall... just saying... Glad all your guests are attending though!

We have put no children on our invitations, but we planned that if people who were importance to us couldn't come because of childcare issues, we would let them bring them. This will risk some people being offended on the day possibly. So far everyone has said 'great! - a child free weekend! Can't wait!' including my BM and OHs best man, and a cousin of his who he is close to. We don't have any nieces or nephews so I guess we don't have such close family with children.

It depends whether you really hate the idea of having any children there - if this is the case stick to your guns. If you are like us, in that we didn't want LOADS of children all running around (but could tolerate a few) maybe think about showing some leniency to keep the family together.

Personally I have a close family. And pregnancy

unless it's close to due date or take ill and cost are not excuses. Granted ive told my family well in advance before even booking but

i travelled as a student from diff country.

If someone doesn't go it doesn't necessarily mean they don't love you but it's certainly to me says they don't care enough.

all circumstances are different and obv not much personal detail is on posts but I wouldn't be happy with my family not turning up.

Ive had a brother not go to sisters weddings so I understand not every one goes but in this case he lives close and as mentioned he could go for ceremony then leave.

I have to agree with Chucklevision.

Eskimo329 It is your choice to not invite children, and for anyone who has children to decide whether or not to attend. Please do not Elope just because one person can't or wont attend. As Chucklevision has said childcare may be an issue. There has been situations where I or my husband have not been able to go to things due to childcare issues. Ok two of the children don't live with them full time but the younger ones do. Once you have children I am sorry they are your first priority and come above anyone else. As long I can sort childcare, I would never have a problem not bringing my child to a wedding. However if I turned down an invite I would hope the person wouldn't be offended. I managed to attend a friends wedding with a six week old baby who had been born prematurely and shouldn't have even been there.

It is utter rubbish for people to suggest that if they love you they will come to the wedding. I turned down an invite to a wedding as I already had committed to visiting a friend that weekend. Once I have arranged something that will take priority.

His brother sounds like a selfish knob. If they don't want to leave their kids with a stranger then just the brother should go! I would be so annoyed if my sibling said that to me (although we did have kids attend so not applicable to our wedding).

i think your brother needs to go for a drink with his brother and discuss it. I think try and not get involved yourself (at this stage) and encourage your OH to meet up with his brother.

Oh my god I said already that in these post there is limited info available. I shared my opinion and I stand by it.

I corrected myself regarding the "love you" statement..!!!

Yeah agree with this actually! I didn't think about that as an option. It is totally out of order to not come to make a point if that is what he is doing.

To be honest I would not get into a discussion with him. He's trying to blackmail you and by discussing it further, your almost begging him to come, you're shifting power to him.. There is no way I would beg anyone to come to my wedding. I'd be upset if they chose not to come but would just accept it. I really would say, you understand it's difficult for them and you will be really sorry if they can't make it.

4 children is a lot to find care for, and I can understand he would only want to attend with his wife or not at all. I think you just have to accept that's the way it is.

We have actually had a similar happening with my OH's brother; he said if you invite X then we won't come. So oh said well that's a real shame as we'd have loved to see you there but X is coming. His brother has chosen not to come and that's how it is. We're not upset by it because it's his choice.

i don't hold with the line if they love you they will come. Sometimes it is too difficult. It doesn't mean they don't love you.

I also wouldn't get into discussions with him. You've made your choice and he can't blackmail you into changing it. If he can make arrangements once he knows that he may change his mind or find a way of attending the ceremony. Ultimately though once you have made the decision of no children, there is always a chance that this will happen.

We have made the same decision mainly due to numbers and cost, but also I don't want children running around screaming during the ceremony. Couldn't think of anything worse, but that's my view and I know others will have their own opinion. We are however allowing children at the evening do. Everyone has been made aware from the outset 12 months ago, so far no one has questioned it but I am sure when the invites go out someone will. If that's the case, then so be it. There are loads on our reserve daytime list that I am sure will jump at the chance and its something we have to accept by setting that rule.

I'm going to try take this from another perspective, i know it is our days etc but we do have to have consideration for other peoples feelings still. Maybe his brother feels upset that you guys aren't inviting the children, at the ages they are they should be able to sit nicely for the ceremony and maybe they feel like you don't count them as family if they aren't invited. I would feel hurt if my brother told me that my (future) children couldn't come to his big day when other family is invited. You mention not liking children and maybe he feels and knows you don't like his kids. That is hard for any parent to hear, especially from close family. If someone has said they dont like kids, and then said my kids weren't invited, I would probably tell them I wouldn't be coming because I would take it personal as if they don't like my child based only on their age, not their bright bubbly personality. It is your day and do what makes you happy (it is you guys spending the money after all ) but maybe try be more sympathetic to the BIL, kids are a touchy subject when it comes to wedding invites!

It's your day and it's your decision, you have 2 choices, one will probably mean all the family will fight to have their kids there and it will cost you money and turn you day into something you do not want.

Or

You stand your ground and save money on 14 extra guests but his brother may not go .. although I don't see any parent letting their kid get away with not attending their other childs wedding so honestly he will probably end up going but that's just imo. If you do stand your ground just emphasize it is to save money, sweeten him up and tell him if he comes his presence would be like a present

It will work out