Wedding Blog
Lately, there has been quite a discussion about children at weddings. Here’s my two cents: Whether to have an adult only gathering or one filled with children, I think is a very personal decision for each couple. Me, I am riding the fence. Although, I’ve been to more than one wedding where a screaming baby disrupted the ceremony, I’m bummed because we are not having a flower girl, ring bearer, or any children attending our wedding, at all. 
It wasn’t planned this way.
We actually had a kids’ menu and babysitter waiting in the wings, but all invitees with children declined. What I am really kind of bummed about is that there will be no flower girl and ring bearer at our wedding. None of our married friends have children and our relatives have infants. We did ask a couple, that are close friends with my mother, who have age appropriate kids. Then, they found out they were pregnant and that the baby was due around our wedding date. Rightfully so, they declined. We were left without any options.
I was in so many weddings as a kid—mainly a flower girl, although, I did get to be a junior bridesmaid once. Above is a photo of my dad and me as a junior bridesmaid dancing at my second cousin’s wedding circa 1990. Oh, early 90’s fashion, you gotta love it!
But the point is that we at least wanted a flower girl and ring bearer at our wedding. Without any kiddos, I’m a little bummed that I didn’t get to go shopping for a cute flower girl outfit or design a really fashionable ring pillow. That being said, I am kind of glad there aren’t any kiddos coming—no possible ceremony disruptions. See, total fence rider!
Bees, as this is a sensitive topic for most, I ask that you please keep your comments civil and non-judgmental.
Why did you decide to have an adult only wedding or one filled with children? Or are you riding the fence about inviting children?
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We did a combo. Nieces and nephews as flower girls ring bearers. They stayed for the cocktail party but went home before the (8 PM ) reception. I didn’t like the idea of kids running around when people were drinking and it was late and the kids would be tired. My nieces and nephews, as a group, are very rowdy. I second guessed this decision, but anytime I was around them at night and observed their behavior when tired, I was happy I made the decision I did 
We’re kinda in the middle. . . we have a ringbearer (fiance’s godchild - he’ll be 2 1/2 and he’s my favorite little guy in the world) and a flowergirl (technically our flowerbaby since she’ll only be a year old for the wedding, but I’m holding out in hopes my godchild will be walking at the time - otherwise we’ll have a backup plan on how to get her down the aisle). They’ll be the only kids at the wedding but that’s only because they’re the only kids we really know. Everyone else in the family who has kids either won’t be able to make it or their kids aren’t really kids anymore.
We don’t have a flower girl or ring bearer b/c there were not age-appropriate kids that we wanted for this either. That said, my nephew will be there, four young cousins, one newborn neice, and one cousin from out of states 1 year old. I still discouraged (and acutally had to demand in some cases) not bringning children. i think it’s okay to have a few, but we could have potentially had 58 more and that’s just proposterous!
We love kids and think it’s important for them to witness love and commitment. And for us, a joyful day isn’t complete without the laughter of children. One of my favorite pics from our wedding is of a group of kids rolling down the grassy hill. Awesome! I wanted to join them!
We didn’t have kids IN the wedding (which my 12-year-old cousin is still complaining about), but we invited all the kids.
So, we had about 25 people under the age of 21, and we could have it no other way. Kids are a big aspect of my family.
However, my fiance did not include kids in his invites, only because that would have meant that he went way over the 80 max we had allotted for his side (80), my side (80), and friends (80).
Most of the kids in our families are older tweens or teens, and they will be invited. The only real youngin’ we’ll have is our friend’s baby, who will be about a year at that point, so a bit too wee to be included in the ceremony.
We LOVE children, but we’ve decided to only allow the children that will be in the ceremony to attend the reception. Since both of these children are pretty much the ONLY children in our families outside of two infants that makes it pretty easy and they are really accostomed to being around adults.
However, I could have gone either way. For us, we have a lot of friends that REALLY like to party so I think having children there probably isn’t the best of ideas. In fact, that just made me think that I should really warn my grandparents ahead of time! ha! 
We aren’t having a ring bearer or flower girl but if we did I’d want one like this: http://offbeatbride.com/2008/08/adult-male-flower-girl
We are having a child friendly wedding (with a separate kids room and a lot of nannies!). To answer your question - why did I decide to invite kids - For us, our wedding is about family, and family usually means kids. Plus, we are some of the last of our friends to get hitched, so a lot of them have kids. And finally, it is a 100% destination wedding - we decided that if our guests were going to be taking vaca time from work and spending $$ on plane tickets, rental cars, and hotels - if they want it to be a family vacation, that that is fine with us. We are just so honored they are making the trip. Similar to Miss Cookie, we have had a lot of friends decide to leave their kids at home, which is also totally fine with us.
We’re including kids because it’s a destination event at the beach. We are also renewing our vows and have one (maybe two by then!) daughter and all our friends have kids, so nobody could make it if we didn’t invite the kiddos.
I love the Flower Man idea! LOL. We are not having kids at our wedding at the end of the month and as a result had a few guests who couldn’t (wouldn’t?) come. At the 11th hour though I have had to let one 4 year old attend through dinner. Do what you like! I took some heat for it, but I wouldn’t take it back.
It’s better than the wedding I went to in April. They put in BOLD on their invite “Adults only please” and then there were more than a dozen kids and infants at the wedding!!! It was ridiculous. I’ve never seen so many tikes at a wedding!!
I didn’t have kids at the wedding not because of any other reason than numbers. There were really only a couple options for venues and due to my mother’s large family, we couldn’t really have many kids (although some managed to bring their kids anyway) bc we were at capacity number wise. It was sad and stressful as many made me feel guilty about it. as a child I loved going to weddings and being in them. If the situation had been different I would have said come one come all. Kids are so much fun on the dance floor. However, like you said, this is a personal decision and I think people should respect whatever the bride and groom and their families decide.
We didn’t ride the fence at all. So many of our friends and family have small children, and we LOVE our nieces and nephews. We would have missed them. Yes, it was disappointing that everyone left earlier than they would have pre-kids. But, I’m sure they would have left even earlier if their kids were home with a babysitter. While we would have preferred the throw-down, late-night party that our friends had years ago, not inviting children doesn’t magically throw everyone back to their college years.
It’s not for everyone when the 3-yr old daughter of the best man hugs his leg through the ceremony, or when the school-aged kids throw balloons at us during our recession down the aisle (not even in our wedding colors! ). But we didn’t mind. In fact, everyone was on their best behavior. I think it was really helpful that we had an adjacent room with kids activities, which turned out to be a very helpful “cry room” during the ceremony.
However, we did not have flower girls or ring bearers. I’ve been to too many weddings where those roles resulted in nothing but fuss and tears.
We’re including the kiddies. As others have mentioned, people will be doing a bit of traveling to come to the wedding, so having a no kids policy would have been quite the burden for our guests. A lot of people are turning our wedding into their family summer vacation, which I think is wonderful — it means they’re coming! Plus, most of my fiance’s cousins are still kids and we would have felt terrible excluding them.
Lastly, I went to a ton of weddings when I was a kid and I remember having so much fun at them. I got to dance and stay up late. Wow!
Wow, we have the exact same situation, including upcoming pregnancy of mother of the possible flower girl! I was going to post on this very soon too. I’m bummed out, but maybe something will present itself closer to the wedding… I hope.
We had 2 flowergirls (my nieces) and that was it for people under 12 years of age. We arranged it that way mostly due to space limitations although I also was concerned about crying babies during the ceremony and little fingerprints in the cake’s icing, etc.
We had a venue that could seat 160 people comfortable so we invited 200 people but drew the line at first cousins and that almost automatically accomplished the no kids rule and took care of the space concerns. In terms of friends with little ones we just asked our parents and wedding party to politely spread the word!
We’re not having kids. Our reception is an 8pm cocktail party and dance. It’s not an appropriate event for them. Also, both of us have very little tolerance for poorly behaved kids, and when they’re present en masse, there’s bound to be some misbehaving.
There are a couple kids in my family that it would be fun to have there, but all in all, I think it’s the right decision for us.
we had initially not invited any kiddos, except our only niece, who will be just shy of 3. rather than stress out about getting her to walk down the aisle, we’re calling her the unofficial flower girl. she’ll attend and be cute - that’s her job.
now that we’re receiving RSVPs, the questions are coming in from a small group of people we know with kids. at this point, we have the space, despite a very small guest list, but are letting the parents in question know that there will not be many children there and are letting them make the decision on their own whether or not to bring theirs.
thankfully, the kiddos in question are all relatively well behaved and have adventurous enough palates to eat the food we have, so we’re lucky. overall, it is a very personal decision and no one solution is right for everyone.
We aren’t close to any ring bearer / flower girl age kids, so we knew we wouldn’t be having any in the wedding. For us, this was no big thing - a couple less things to plan for. But when it came down to guest lists, we are similar to MissBanana. So for us, that means no kids. Now if someone shows up with their kids, ok - but we aren’t inviting them.
I agree that it is a very personal decision and what I don’t get is why everyone feels the need to not only toss in their 2 cents but then to REALLY argue their point or tell me we are wrong in our choice! I think my most hated thing is when people assume (out loud) that we aren’t having kids at the wedding because I am afraid they will ruin my moment. ummm..no. And frankly that just makes me mad.
I’ll keep my answer simple. I just REALLY like kids. Especially little ones (which are the ones coming to the wedding). When they are around I can’t keep my eyes off them- they are just too adorable!
We’re having kids…FI has 5 nephews and 1 niece. There would be no way around it! I think we’re going with 2 ring bearers (2 of his nephews). We’re contemplating a flower girl who will be 1. We’ll see though!
I have SO many friends with children age 0-11 that we decided to embrace the situation in order to have the parents who are dear friends in attendance.
Our location practically begs for kids anyway. We are having a cheap weekend wedding at a farm/lake house/inn. The idea is that the kids and parents can have fun during the marshmallow roast the night before and use the kayaks and such during Sat. day. Then we will have baby sitters for the ceremony and reception which is all happening basically in the same place.
If everything was in traditional spots like a church or fancy restaurant, i problbly would not invite kids.
I also think its pretty cool to invite kids for experience sake. Some of the best memories i have are at thing like weddings and reunions running around with the other kids and dancing on peoples toes.
Riding the fence, here, in a big way. My FI and I adore children, and photos of little ones in their best clothes never fail to make me smile. But we don’t have that many small ones in our circle. When we put together the guest list, we realized there were only 5 kids under 10 — and 2 of them are a nightmare (without going into too much detail, they are siblings and they have a long history of lashing out and breaking things when they don’t get their way. Their own grandparents now refuse to have them over).
If not for these two, we would almost certainly invite the little ones, but I really don’t want to lose our very hefty security deposit if Terror 1 and Terror 2 get mad and start smashing vases. Besides, as my FI’s parents have pointed out, late night + historic mansion doesn’t exactly scream “fun for a 3 year old.” But on the other hand, I really would love to have the 3 sweet, well-behaved children there if they want to come. Aargh …
FI and I were having the same conversation last night. I have a little terror for a cousin (who I would NEVER invite to a family event in my home, let alone a wedding) but there are tons of sweet children in both our families as well. The problem is that many parents don’t pay attention to their own children and others end up having to do so for them.
So, we’re only having a ring bearer (a very well-behaved 8 yr old) and he will be leaving the reception about an hour after dinner.
We had a few (older, youngest was 6) children at the wedding but not in the wedding. We sort of fired our flower girl and ring bearer after a very bad Christmas experience last year (they were going to be DH’s half-sister and half-brother).
All priests and other experienced wedding people involved thanked us for not having a FG and RB. Honestly, we didn’t miss them at all.
When FI and I first talked about this, he said absolutely no kids, it wouldn’t be appropriate at an evening event and they’d cause trouble. Then I reminded him how many of our friends/ family have kids (most of them), and that we’d recently been at a wedding with kids who behaved well and left early. He didn’t even remember the kids being there! Plus we have six nieces and nephews between us who will be our flower girls / ring bearers, so there was already going to be some kids around, why not a few more? Since our wedding is semi-destination and out of town for everyone, similar to several people above, if we told our friends they couldn’t bring their children, many might choose not to come. We’d rather have them there. A few have told us they’re getting sitters and enjoying a weekend off, but not everyone can do that. Ours is a pretty informal weekend, although the reception will be a big fun party (we hope!), so I’m not too worried about the kids messing up a grand event.
My wedding will be full of little children- nieces, nephews, cousins, friends- and I will have two flower girls & one ring bearer plus a ten year old groomsman. I can’t imagine not having them there on such an important day.
To accommodate this, we are having a fun, laid back day time wedding that will be age appropriate (also to cater to my very Baptist retired pastor grandfathers… sigh) BUT to meet the needs of me & the boy, we’re having a pretty rocking after party later on in the day. I’m hoping it works out.
with my cousins all in child-poppin’ mode my wedding will be full of children–including my wedding party with two junior bridesmaids, three flower girls and a ring bearer, but i love them so much i just couldn’t leave them out!
We are having a child free wedding. Mostly because it is an evening wedding and the last thing I want is to corrupt someone else’s kid by being exposed to my drinking, swearing and tattooed clan.
Plus I have been to a wedding when a flower girl TOTALLY stole the bride’s thunder. No lie, all ceremony everyone was talking about the FG and not even paying attention to the ceremony.
This was a tough one for me too. I went to a lot of weddings when I was a kid, and really enjoyed running around all dressed up with my cousins (granted, the weddings were ususlly at a VFW or similar non-fancy venue). I would love to give kids the chance to have the same experience, but to add the children of cousins and friends would have added an extra 58 guests to our 286 person guest list. When looking at who to cut, the kids were the easiest chunk to drop.
That said we are having Mr. Y’s nephew and niece along with my MOH’s (best friend of 25 years) kids as our ringbearers and flower girls.
My FI and I decided no children - the only exception would be FI’s niece who is 11 and my FIL’s only grandchild. They live in the mid-west and we are 99% sure they are not coming. Although our afternoon reception would be appropriate for children we actually don’t have many children w/in the family to consider. Although I don’t mind children I took a different perspective on it. Those we are inviting who have children all tend to have children age 5 or under and each of those people have a strong supporting family member in their life who help them take care of the children. In all cases we don’t know those people personally who help out our guests with childcare so they aren’t on our list of people to invite. With a 17month engagement we are definitely giving everyone plenty of advance notice with STDs and invites of our adult only wedding. I look at it like a chance for the parents/single parent to relax and enjoy adult time. In fact my best friend from grad school who has a 2 month old and a five year old is our only OOT guest and she has already expressed that she can’t wait for the wedding and it’ll probably the first real weekend getaway for her and her husband and they may even head to a nearby tourist resort after the wedding and make a long weekend out of it. We really want our guests to relax, be able to put more than two bites of food into their mouth and in most cases with children 5 and under parents don’t have that luxury.
We’re inviting our nieces, nephews and cousins. My cousins range from 9 years old to 27, his are all 25 or older (and some have kids). We are not inviting second cousins, so many of his cousins (and one of mine) will need to find childcare. We aren’t inviting children of friends. The reason for the second-cousin/friends’ kids shun is that they would ballon our reception by about 50. Eek. We’d prefer to
a. keep our guest list around 150
b. see our friends enjoying their evening and not leaving our evening reception early because their child is “fussy,” “throwing a fit,” or “naughty.”
Luckily, his cousin is doing a “no second cousins” event just 6 months before ours (and we’ve already been warned about a few relatives who will complain)
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Mrs. Cookie, Denver
Age and Occupation: 25, Nonprofit Fundraiser/Theatre Designer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Financial Analyst
Engagement Date: September 2007
Wedding Date: September 2008
Blogging Since: May 8, 2008
Venue: Ten Mile Station
About Me: With a degree in Theatre I never realized that planning a wedding was a lot like Theatre Management, until I started planning my own. I am a coffee addict, especially Starbucks' Grande Mochas, yummy! I love to cook (especially chocolate chip cookies for my honey), travel to exotic places, and be creative. As a couple, Mr. Cookie and I are extremely practical, down to earth, and children at heart. We live in a cozy abode with our adorable Pomeranian, and love to play board games and watch movies into the evening.
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