Inviting friends children to wedding ceremony/reception

A question about : Inviting friends children to wedding ceremony/reception

We're getting married next year and have heard from a couple of people in the family that often children of non-family members don't get invited to the ceremony and reception and are invited to join in for the evening party.

Can anyone here comment on this, through their own experience, our guest list would have at least 20 friends children on it (a quater of the total number of invitees) so its a significant proportion.

Best answers:

• last 3 weddings I went to had a no children rule ( family or no family - except those of the happy couple)
  seems the way it going , although bound to upset some people ( might help cut down the invite list even more!)
  That said I think that having kids at a wedding makes it a much nicer experience
• I agree with Payless, went to my husbands cousins wedding this year where no children were allowed bar the bride and grooms nieces and nephews. It made it difficult for us as this wedding was on a Sunday, so where they would normally have gone to stay at Nannys they werent able to do so because of school the next day. We ended up going to the wedding and coming home early. I think children make it more enjoyable too
• I find it sooooo sad that children are excluded from weddings.
  Isn't a wedding the start of a family?
  You will often find children aren't included in the adult headcount for venues. My venue, which was very expensive only charged 20% of the adult price.
  I am so pleased we included the 18 children we invited, it enabled parents to be happier their kids were welcome. I set up a games room for the children, with colouring, and other games to do, this started from the minute we arrived at the reception.
  I made up goodie bags for all the kids for the dinner tables to encourage them to be quiet in the speeches, but the odd chit chat was a welcome inclusion! Babies were given a rattle, kids had a made up wordsearch designed on the theme of our day with their names included, and lots of little gifts from Hawkins Bazaar.
  The parents were give first refusal of bedrooms in the building of the reception (there were barn rooms in the fields (very nice) for the majority of guests) that way they could set up the monitors and allow young ones to sleep and them have a good time partying.
  I really wish people didn't exclude children, after all isn't this the start of them understanding how to behave in a social gathering and how to celebrate the good things in life.
  If the worry is there are too many people going to the wedding, exclude some. We didn't allow great aunts etc to come, neither my cousins which my mum said she wanted, but I never saw and wouldn't enhance my day, so I left them out. I included the couples, singles and families who meant a lot to me and my future.
• Weddings are a family and friends affair, and the majority of family and friends have children, I can understand not wanting children at the day time do, as they last thing you want is screaming babies, moaning kids when your saying your wedding vows, but I believe that you should also invite the children to the evening do.
  Myself and my hubby were invited to a very close friend of mine, but she said I couldnt bring my son, who was at the time age 3, ok not a great age, I said to her, what not to the day do, and she said I mean to any of it, so I didnt go, hence we havent spoken since!
• I also think it would be a shame not to have any children at a wedding. We're yet to get married, but I definately would want my friends/family to be able to bring the kiddies if they wanted. It can be tricky to get babysitters especially if the wedding is a bit of a distance away and could mean that people who originally would have gone, might stay at home instead.
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• You've got to do whatever suits you and your OH - it is one of the biggest days of your life after all. It also depends on how many and the ages of the kiddies. I didn't have any at mine as there were just too many (about 20 under 10 I think ! at the time) Now my own kids are 11 & 7 I know they could behave at a wedding but it wouldn't bother me if they weren't included. (Might bother them though !!)
• My 14 yr old did not want to go anyway !
• delicate subject, and as a mum to a 4year od and 2 years old I prefer to not take my children, I know its a beautiful thing having little bridesmaids and pageboys, and yes weddings are very often a family thing, but I honestly think there are far better places for little ones to be, than sitting through a 3 hour reception of formal dinner and speaches.
  My son was pageboy last november aged 3 and his godmother the bride pleaded with me he stay for the reception, (i had said he was going to go home after he did the walk up the aisle bit) he was actually as good as gold, but only because the bride spent a fortune on crayons and colouringbooks etc, and gave all the little one plastic cups and they spent a good hour scooping up gold confetti from the tables and floors.
  His other godmother then picked him up just before the cutting of the cake, and I relaxed and hit the brandy ..lol !!
  Parties are a differerent matter, i just think the quietness and importance of saying your vows shouldnt realy be spoiled by a noisy child, so many parents now adays dont get up and take the child from the room, but stay in the hope the child will quieten up.
  i think it should be up to the bride and groom, it is after all thier day, this is just my opinion after all.
• When we got married, it never occurred to me not to invite children. A friend had a young baby, but took him out during the ceremony when he got a bit fractious. No wedding reception is complete without a 6 yr old girl giving it her all on the dancefloor!
  Since we have had our children, we have been to a number of weddings, some of which they were invited to and some of which they weren't. Taking them got rid of the babysitting problem and they very much enjoyed it. However, at the weddings where they didn't come, we were able to relax more as we didn't have to look after anybody else.
  Maybe you could ask the parents of the children if they would rather bring them or not? I would rather have my friends there with their kids than not have them at all.
• It's definitely a matter of personal preference, but all the weddings I've been to (including my own) had children there and were all lovely. In my experience, kids are quite well-behaved in a church environment, and goody bags can help without having to cost much. It's also a nice opportunity for people to catch up with each other's families - your situation may be different, but some of my friends live far away and we wouldn't see each others children if it wasn't for things like weddings. Enjoy it, whatever you decide
• I really think that children should be invited to a wedding and in fact I don't go if my children aren't invited (one reason is sitters are a problem).
  However having said that it is so easy to offend people with wedding invitations. I think that if you don't want to upset people you end up inviting next door but two's, 3rd cousin's dog!
• Not saying he could not behave himself, and yes for many things - eating out / flights he's an adult anyway , just he would find it boring ( his words)- agree with the mixing point... but you know what kids are like ( he would not have known any similiar aged people at the wedding in question, most of my friends had kids later in life than me)
  Perhaps the difference is your's is a she and mine a he !
• When my son was 3 my husband was best man at a wedding 'in the north'
  I was heavily pregnant and not sat at the top table and it was one of the most difficult occassions for me as he was just not interested in all the formalities.
  Several years later my cousin was married and the reception at the Belfry Golf club. the kids were not invited and that was fine by me - I certainly didn't refuse the invite because of it. However last year my oh nephew got married. BIL and SIL (in their fifties) would not go as 29 yr old son not asked!!
  It really should be up to the happy couple who they invite, and for everyone to be thrilled they got an invitation. I cannot believe that you would lose a friend over your kids not being invited...whose day is it anyway!
• I'm getting married soon and there will be no children (our choice). We want to enjoy our reception without kids running around unsupervised and disturbing others trying to enjoy themselves. Our "problem" was eliminated by the premises, where we are having the reception, having a "no under 18's after 9.00pm rule."
• When we got married, all kids in primary school and younger were welcome to come. Teenagers who weren't close family were not invited. Purely a budget decision.
  We funded it ourselves, so were really harsh with the guest list as I had just finished a 4 year degree and OH had been working on a poorly paid job for a year. Some family disagreed with us about our decisions of who to invite and didn't come as a protest, but we only ever saw them once every 3 years anyway, so their problem if they didn't want to come, not ours. We figured we would rather have a friend there we knew and loved than auntie edna who you only every saw at the "special occasions". We also didn't invite a couple of fiance's as we had never met them before and didn't want them to come to our wedding at the expense of a close friend.
  OP- The wedding is yours...this is one of many hard choices you have to make when planning it. We kept focussing on the fact it was our day and we wanted it to be for us, not to keep family happy, but us happy. We were throughly selfish about it and glad we were.
• the last wedding invite we got, as for Mr & Mrs, so I enquired about the kids, and they said no kids hubby ened up babysitting, whilst attended the wedding.
• A baby was shouting the whole way through my wedding vows, fortunately it was my baby If it had been someone elses I'd have flipped!!!
  It's a tricky one but it depends whether you feel it's acceptable to insist that if they make any noise during the service, the parents will immediately remove them from the venue.....or whether your willing to put up with it.
  The other thing is, like many other posters have said, childcare. A lot of people will find it hard to find a sitter for a whole day and evening so you may find that people don't come.
  I wouldn't be offended if my children weren't welcome at a wedding but I probably wouldn't go as I wouldn't be able to find childcare.