Inviting Family Kids but not Friends Kids

I've done something similar - only my young cousins are invited, so there are a few non-family kids who won't be. It's purely for capacity reasons, rather than wanting a child-free wedding, or even really being about the cost. I haven't sent out invites yet but am planning to give the people it will affect a heads up in advance.

I'm sure (fingers crossed!) if you speak to people personally and explain the situation most will be understanding. 'No kids or all kids' sounds easy, but things just aren't that black and white!

We are also having this dilemma..

We are only having our 2 nephews (who will be 5) and my brother (who will be 10).

None of our cousins children, or our friends children are invited. However we are undecided as to whether we should be inviting our bridesmaids/ushers children.

We thought to keep it simple just have the original 3 (2 nephews and my brother) so that we aren't seen to be favouring our friends' children over familys children, but as we are both very close friends with our bridesmaids and ushers (and one of their children is a godson), so we aren't sure what to do as don't want to upset anyone, yet we don't want to have tonnes of children.

We have some close friends that we wanted there so the way we made it easy for them to come and not have people moan that their children were invited were by having their girls in the wedding.

Apart from them we have my niece and nephews and my cousins little girl, she’s only invited as they are coming from Dubai so couldn’t not have her.

Apart from that no one else child is invited. People have asked to make sure but have made people aware that unless they are related or in the wedding then sadly due to capacity reasons we can’t have their children there.

Most parents are seeing it as a night out for them away from the kids which is good.

Im having this problem to both from capacity and common sense persectives

all most all the venues we are looking at hold approx. 45 people for the wedding breakfast so we dont have much room to invite people and of course my own child will be coming (thats a no brainer) plus my neice and nephew (who are teens)

we barely have enough room for family and the bridal/grooms party plus theie husband/wives as it stands but then my bridesmaid and groomsmen all have kids too but they will be travelling (getting married in northumberland, one bridesmaid from glasgow one from yorkshire) and practically I dont want our bridal party and groomsmen dashing off super early to get the kids home or to the hotel for bed times etc...

my son, niece and nephew will leave with my family at about 6pm so thats not an issue and the groomsmen live local so could have family pick their kids up possibly (although if we dont invite 1 then we wont invite any for fairness) but we planned a whole night time do and if we invite their kids I know they will all have to leave early for bed times and since its a small wedding and we know the older family member will be leaving early (which is half the guests already) it would make a huge difference if 10 of the 20 or so remaining people left early

selfish maybe but im sure everyone will enjoy themselves more if they are not chasing their children round and worrying about bed time, its only a weekend and they all have family that could watch them but figuring out how to phrase it so I dont sound like a B***h is hard ☹️

Thanks for your replies. it seems we are not the only ones with this dilemma!

Will wait to see over the next few weeks what responses we do get. Hopefully people will understand!

We invited those children who we have an active relationship with i.e. those we see, talk to, spend time with, write to etc. Some of these were family some were friends children. There were 15 in total.

We didn't invite children we rarely or never see, wouldn't recognise in the street etc. This was irrespective of whether they were the children of friends or family.

Everyone bar one cousin and his wife accepted this. They didn't come.

We did make an exception for one cousin who was due contact with his daughter that weekend - his ex makes contact difficult, and we would never ask anyone to prioritise our wedding over precious and rare contact with their child.

I'm not inviting anyone at all so don't have this dilemma at all but I can't understand why friends even want to bring their kids to someone's wedding. Do they never ever have a night put without their kids? I don't think it unreasonable that only close family children are at a wedding as apart from cost it's a number issue. Stick to your guns I say.

We had this exact same dilemma! If we invited all the children, family's kids came to over 30, and then with friends kiddo's, we were at nearly 50! I want a wedding, not a nursery school! There would have been almost as many kids as adults.

We also had problems with room capacity - we're limited to 120, and with all the kids we were over 140, and the cost was insane. In the end we are only having the three children that we have anything to do with, and they are part of the wedding (2 teen bridesmaids and 1 flower girl)

We have pre-warned family, and they'll have the option to bring their little's to the evening do, but they'll need to ask (because of numbers). Only one has said they will bring their little one to the night-time, but that is because they genuinely have nobody to have him (cousin, his wife has moved here so no family or friends she could leave him with overnight, and his parents are invited to the evening do)

To be honest, most of our family and friends are treating it as a night out and don't mind at all (legit excuse for an overnight babysit from Grandma!) The one's I think will protest and not come are the one's I don't particularly want there anyway

We've had exactly the same dilemma. Originally we intended to invite all our friends' and family children - a total of 30, but decided that would be a recipe for chaos! So we've decided to only invite family children (nephews, nieces and cousin's children) and our godchildren - a total of 16. We've talked to quite a few people about this and the consensus seems to be that there needs to be a clear story about why some children are invited but not others. Drawing a line between family and friends is easy to explain, and actually most of our friends would rather leave their kids at home and have a night off! I think once you start mixing it up and differentiating between close and non-close family and friends, it's harder to explain to people why theirs aren't invited. The only exception we'll be making is for one of my friends who's due to give birth in the next couple of weeks, so the baby will only be 6 months old at the time of the wedding and she might not feel able to leave him yet.

I think the important thing is to have your explanation ready before people ask, and stick to your guns!

We are the same. Family children but not friends kids - initially we made our dream guest list and it was 150 which for all sorts of reasons you have all suggested already we had to get down to 120. Given that we had ten non family children we decided ultimately we would rather have an extra ten friends than kids! Selfish maybe, but we figured we are giving people enough notice, and we've been to enough weddings where others have made the same choice that people seem to understand.

I think the best thing is to give people as much notice as possible so they can arrange childcare, and maybe even put something in invites or talk to people whose children can't come to say that regrettably you can only have family children, you hope they will understand.

The only children at my wedding are in my bridal party and they consist of my two nephews as page boys and the best man's son and daughter who are groomsman and bridesmaid. No others invited and if anyone has a problem I'm not going to let it bother me. Remember it is your day and as true friends they should understand your decisions and not give you grief over them! x

II don't really want children there other than my own 2. I have said people can bring kids but only if we actually see them and socialise etc. My cousins kids won't be invited same as work colleagues kids won't be.

To be honest, we are having an advisory on our evening invites anyway as the music will turn distinctly heavier at 10 pm and it wouldn't be suitable for younger ears.

like a few others have mentioned, most parents would be glad of a night out without their kids, I know I use weddings and other parties as an excuse to get the grandparent babysitting tokens out!

Hope it all works out :-)

We're just inviting nieces / nephews. No friends' children.

We spoke to a few of the friends beforehand and they all said they would prefer not to bring children anyway so they can enjoy the day and relax without having to follow their child around all the time. They've been given plenty of notice too, so finding a babysitter should be easy enough.

50 children is an awfully high number and I assume it will also be your job to possibly hire an entertainer/entertainment for the children so they are not bored, which is an extra expense to take into account.

I do not think just explaining to friends that it is only family children is wrong at all, I mean you want all family at a wedding, and I don't know how local you/your friends are from your venue, but if it's not far then they don't have to stay for the evening bit. The actual wedding is the important part, and if they don't want to come to that bit, but only the party afterwards, then it's a bit harsh.

We had our decision made for us, fortunately for us, the max amount of children will be 9, and I quite like seeing kids at a wedding, and he was having a conversation with his sister and she said, well we didn't have kids but you'll have to because you have nephews. Which did pee me off a little, but they may be the only children at this rate, as our 2 best friends are flying in, and leaving their wives and children at home, and another friend's partner would have recently given birth, so she may not come and stay home with their children too. The other 2, will probably be at grandma's.

At the end of the day, wedding's are expensive at the best of times, and if you don't have the room capacity, or want to pay the extra for little johnny who you have only met once, that is completely reasonable.

We're not having non-family children, except for my friend's baby who has literally just been born and our wedding is in 9 weeks. One of my OH's friends and his girlfriend have had a tantrum and aren't coming because we aren't inviting their kids, but I said to my OH that I wasn't bowing to their guilt tripping and peer pressure, as I've never met their kids and there are kids I've known their whole lives who haven't been invited. My Mum got a really snotty note from them declining, and returning all the stuff provided with the invitation.

You have to draw the line somewhere, and I think as long as you explain to people that its a general policy, and its unfortunately necessary due to numbers and cost, then most people understand. But you can't please everyone.

We did a guest list including everybody's children and it added nearly 40. Not what I want at all, selfish maybe but I don't want 40 children there, most of whom we don't even know anyway. So we have stopped it at our children, nephews and nieces, chlldren of my bms (most of whom are my nieces anyway, plus my godson and his brother and then my other bm has said she isn't bringing hers), I will also extend this to the children of the friends we have travelling from Scotland, because I want to see them!

No cousins are invited anyway but will be to the evening so they can also bring their children.