Kids at wedding/ engagement party....

We had 20 kids and 50 adults. I'd have had more kids. I like the atmosphere when kids are done up and are excited about the occasion etc. Kids bring out a silly side in adults too, often, I love all that.

They were all well-behaved and lovely!

However, we had space outside for them to run around, a bouncy castle, garden games, quizzes and a photo frame corner with props, so there was lots for them to do. I think them being occupied can make a huge difference.

That's a difficult one. Can you afford to have them all? I think it also depends how old the kids are. We're having 13 kids at ours but all under 6 years which makes for hard work. Older kids are more capable of looking after themselves and not causing too much trouble I'd guess?

No, we definately can't afford to have them there! OH had went to visit his parents and came back with a list of names, addresses and children's ages from his dads side.....40 names on that list, which he's expecting to be added onto our numbers. He reasons that he can work overtime to pay for them (he works offshore and gets good bonuses for working extra days, and has just got a promotion).... But tbh it's not just about the money, it's the principle of having all these extra people there who he's not had any direct contact with for years, and who I've met briefly once.

For full day.....invite all from his mums side of family, and just aunts n uncles from his dads.

Evening......invite his cousins from dads side....but leave young kids at home!

AIBU? xxx

Kids definately add fun to any occasion and its lovely seeing them having a good time and dancing, but I just don't want the place absolutely over run by kids I don't know and will probably never see again x

The kids ages range from 1 up to 16. If all the kids he's suggested are able to come, then there would be approx 8 under 5's....12 under 10's.....10 age over 10 xx

Not sure this is a hard one, for me I think it'd be an all or nothing thing for us. Our son will be there during the day and no one else has young kids, we don't have a big family anyway and we hardly know anyone with young kids so chances are it'll only be our son there. Maybe 1 or 2 at reception but I even doubt that.
If I were you i'd stick with it either being really close family like your children and nieces or nephews etc, and let everyone else know that. Or just invite them all.
I think when you pick and choose which ones are allowed to come people take offence and things start to get a bit messy. Its a lot of kids but if you're happy with that invite them, on the other hand if you can't afford them you'll have to be strict I think and say it's strictly close relatives and say you're sorry it's due to numbers.

Sounds like a total nightmare to me! We had a similar situation in that my OH has a large extended family and we are pretty much the last of our friends to have children so when we did our initial guest list we had approaching 40 children on it. Luckily OH wasn't too fussed and agreed with me that we enforce a 'immediate family kids only' policy. It's not that I don't like children but the cost element was huge, the numbers meant it ruled out a lot if our favoured venues and I didn't want our wedding to feel like a children's party. I think though that if OH had been insistent on all kids being invited I'd have politely pointed out the cons of that idea. I think there has to be a compromise somewhere that you could make. Anyway, good luck!

Thanks very much everybody.....I definately think I'll suggest immediate families children only, nieces and nephews x

good luck everybody xxx

Christ this sounds like my worst nightmare! Fair enough your nieces and nephews (and your daughter of course!) but that already gives you 12 kids as you say! No one outside of immediate family would be upset/annoyed at not being able to bring their kids - if they are then I'm sorry but they are rude! Weddings are all about compromise, as only a very lucky couple would have the exact same opinion on everything. If you're compromising on him having all his distant relatives who he has no relationship with, then you shouldn't have to compromise on the kids as well!

If I had my way I wouldn't have ANY children at the wedding! The last wedding I was at a child screamed the whole way through the vows and the mum just sat there!!!

Go for as few children as possible. I'm having 2 flower girls ages nearly 3 and 4. And then cousins etc are all over 10years old so I'm not worried about them coming as they're close family. All I have asked politely is if kids can go or be put to bed around 7.30pm so that its an adult environment for the partying/drinking evening part. I hate seeing 3 year olds partying until 11pm!!!

It sounds like his idea is a perfect wedding and yours differ here: for him a wedding is a joining of two families with all the members invited, whereas for you it's about a more formal event.

£55 a head is a lot to pay for children: perhaps your venue/caterer have a more budget offering for under 12s? Or perhaps what you both need to do is review whether the venue/per head cost is really the type of place you want if you are going ahead with a big family wedding?

It's £10 a head for children.......the £55 a head for adults includes the drinks package for the toast, drink on arrival etc!

We're both pretty much on the same page when it comes to the type of wedding...we want it to be the joining of 2 families, definately, but what concerned me was a whole load of children running around and being out of control, and him just inviting for the sake of inviting without stopping and thinking x

We had a wee chat and we've agreed that children of our siblings and bridesmaids/ ushers will be invited.......if we invite out with that then it really will snowball out of control and that scares me! Some of his nephews are quite boisterous as it is so will need watching out for!

Glad we've got it sorted...I'm just hoping nobody takes offence when the invites go out...xxx