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I have a secret to share with you that only our parents know. We are planning an adults-only wedding.
The flower girl and ring bearer are going to be the only kids in attendance…and Mr. Bacon’s little brother, but he’s going to be 17 and in the wedding party, so he hardly counts. You see, we LOVE kids. Adore them. Can’t wait to have a gaggle of them when we’re in our 30s. In fact, I have to refrain from waving at toddlers in restaurants and baby-talking to our cats. So why not have them at the wedding?
The wedding is just not that kid friendly. There are going to be tons of candles, lots of breakable things, really loud music, and an open bar (and all of the adult debauchery that comes with that), and the kids will get BORED. I’m also going to sound like a terrible person here, but I really hate the possibility of crying kids ruining the ceremony. I know that it might happen with the FG and RB, but that’s only two kids. If all our friends and family brought their little ones, there’s an 85% chance of someone screaming during a reading or our vows.
What if we limited it to just family? Well, my cousins have six kids between them, and Mr. Bacon’s cousins have six kids on that side. So, that’s 12 additional kids running around, pulling on tablecloths, falling down the stairs, and maybe, just maybe, crying during the ceremony. At that point, we might as well invite our friends’ kids, too, so there’s four or five more kids adding to the melee.
I’m not going to lie: I love the idea of inviting all the little kids I know, giving each of them a special role in the wedding, and having a dedicated kids’ table with coloring books, toys, and dress-up props. Part of me yearns for a wedding album that has pictures of little ones cutting up the dance floor and photobooth snapshots of a four-year-old with pigtails and a mustache. However, the part of me that wants this day to be about just the mister and me wins. I know it’s a bit conceited to ask our friends and family to leave the little ones at home. We just hope that they’ll look at the wedding weekend as an opportunity to have a grown-ups’ weekend away from the kids.
The next big thing is how we should let people know. We aren’t going to post it on the invite, so maybe somewhere on the wedding website?
What’s your opinion on kids at weddings?
Nothing wrong with no kids! We aren’t having kids at our wedding either (a- we are getting married on a boat and b- there are like 20 kids of cousins, so just way too many!). Don’t feel bad about it, on the invites just state who is invited like Mr & Mrs. Blah Blah. If you state who is actually invited on the invite, then there shouldn’t be an issue of someone assuming their kids are invited. Of course there will be issues that arise. You get those people who just assume their kids are invited and will cause a fuss but what can ya do?!
Totally agree with you - there is nothing wrong with having an adult only reception! We love kids as well, but the thought of a ton of them running around our reception and screaming just doesn’t appeal to us. We are also having an open bar, and I really hate the though of a ton of drunk adults around a lot of little kids. The youngest person at ours is 17, almost 18. We put “adult reception” on the invite and I think for the most part people have gotten the hint. I’ve only had to specifically tell people no once or twice.
Are most of your guests local? Could you look into having an older cousin or friend of a friend babysit and then gather all the kids in one place for their own fun? It would make you look so awesome that you “considered the kids” and you would still get your wish.
I am so torn on this. My dirty little secret is that I only want *certain* kids there, the ones that I have a closer relationship to and actually like. See, I like kids in the same way I like adults - I don’t like them all indiscriminately. Maybe that’s weird, but I don’t think so…I can’t be the only one that has a hard time being all gushy about the type of kid that cries constantly and can’t bear to be parted from their mom’s hip, or who is poorly behaved and mean to other kids. To me, simply being a child doesn’t make you automatically likeable.
Unfortunately, the resounding opinion I’ve heard from others is “you can’t pick and choose which kids to invite.” So we’ll probably compromise by inviting all children of family members, and then cutting it off there. That’s still a heck of a lot of kids, though.
I very, very much disagree that people will necessarily know from the invitation whether or not kids are invited! If people aren’t up on wedding “etiquette,” or if they come from areas where kids are naturally assumed to be invited, I don’t think that just seeing “Mr. and Mrs. X” (and no kids names) on the invite will necessarily click for them. Just to be safe, I’d designate someone from each family (yours and his) to try to be in contact with the folks with kids and subtly make sure the message was understood 
All I have to say is be prepared to stand your ground and not get your feelings hurt by a rude quip. (Or was that just my family?) We had 1 baby who wasn’t invited, but was ok since that friend was also a friendor and the baby slept through the whole thing. And 2 teenagers who are my cousins kids - since the kids rock and they were travelling across the country and making a family vaca out of it - I did not oppose.
That being said, I know my mom took some grief from people who hadn’t brought their kids because they weren’t invited.
Hopefully spelling out the parents names and not the kids names on the invite should get the message across (at least enough so that they call you or your mom to ask). Don’t address it to Jones Family if you aren’t inviting the kids - they’ll get the message.
One of my FSIL has 10 kids. Oh yes, count them, 10 kids. Also, she can’t take care of them. My other two FSILs have 3 kids apiece. 16 grandkids on that side of the family. On my side, the youngest people are my only 3 cousins, who are 12, 11, and 8. I was told I wasn’t allowed to pick and choose what kids we want to be there from both sides of the family, and my in-laws said if I made it adults-only, nobody would come. I’m just crossing my fingers that the 10 kids don’t come. I can deal with the rest.
@Bubu82: Well, you kind of can, but be prepped to get some grumbling for it!
I found that a lot of parents that I thought were going to be upset were rather thankful because they wanted to have a date night out or an adults weekend away and this was the perfect excuse!!
Is there some kind of guideline that lets in the ring bearer/flower girl (like, they’re your siblings’ kids, but cousins’ and friends’ kids are excluded?) Seems like having only 2 kids out of a group where others are excluded could still lead to hurt feelings.
[...] This Little Piggy Stayed Home | Weddingbee weddingbee.com/2011/01/26/adults-only-wedding/ – view page – cached I have a secret to share with you that only our parents know. We are planning an adults-only wedding. The flower girl and ring bearer are going to be the only Tags [...]
I had kids at my wedding, but almost all of them were little (like 1.5 and under) except for my RB and FG. (The FG stopped dead in her tracks halfway down the aisle; then burst into tears and ran the rest of the way to her Mom in the front of the chapel. It was so cute on video though. Definitely going to embarrass her with that later in her life… I digress…) We weren’t expecting many babies… like 3. So I hired an on-site babysitter and told the parents of the babies that there would be one there. I strongly hinted at the fact that there was one there, from the *ceremony* through the reception and I was hoping they would get the hint…. Well, they didn’t. So I had a couple babies in a small (somewhat cramped) echo-y chapel. Who (of course) got antsy by the time it was time for us to say our vows. And I remember thinking for a split second while my husband is saying his vows.. “Why!? There’s a babysitter for a REASON!” Lol
Oh well! It was what it was. And honestly, it didn’t ruin anything and we still got married! So all is well that ends well.
As far as I’m concerned, a wedding is no place for children!!! I’m having children but only for family traveling for the wedding. It’s hard to say I want you at the wedding, travel the 1,000 miles but leave your kids behind. They are also only family, no friends or local kids. I’ve assigned someone to keep kids entertained with each child getting a bag with goodies for each.
I hear ya sister. Just stay strong even though you will encounter some animosity from family, who often feel that they’re kids have a right to be there.
We decided on not having kids as well for the reasons you gave and 2 others: 1) Our venue has one set price regardless of age and we find it a little much to pay $60 for children who will pick over the food and not really eat it. 2) Our families have a ton of kids adding the children to the list will add at least another 25-30 people.
A good idea I saw in a bridal magazine is when you print out your RSVP cards put a number on it… Something like __ of our party of 2 will attend so that way they know that it doesn’t include the children just the parents/adults. It also keeps your guest list from going sky high as well.
We’re having an adults-only wedding too! It’s a little easier for us, because of the whole guest list, there are 2 people with kids. We will have a herd of 17-20 year old boys, because our 4 (total, between the two of us) cousins are all the same age, but they will be the youngest ones there.
We are doing no kids and posted it on our wedding website. Our wedding isn’t until September and I have already heard grumbles and ‘ I can’t find a babysitter’ (really 8 months out?) We LOVE kids but are on a tight budget and limited space. When we started adding all our friends kids and cousins’ kids it was seriously 30+ kids! We just can’t do it.
If you decide on no kids that is fine, but I don’t think you should leave it up to the wedding website to get that message across. I had very few people even look at my wedding website. I think it needs to be clearly spelled out on the invite or you/someone in the family needs to have a personal conversation with each family with kids to explain the situation. And I would spread the word early. I have been involved in situations with other friends when the rule wasn’t told to them till later and that is when feelings are hurt, not because of the rule to begin with.
Good luck! We are getting married in a few weeks and constantly played with the idea of no little ones at the reception. Then it came time to start the invitation process and ultimately we opted for an adult only reception…we caught a lot of grief. For one, my father re-married and has two little ones, 3 and 3 months. Needless to say, I’m sure he was rather disappointed when he learned that they were not able to attend the reception. I should mention that my FG and I have two children, 4 and 1, that obviously will be attending the reception. My thoughts…I didn’t want to be a referree the day of our (long awaited) wedding! We are extremely close with my father and his wife and children, hence every weekend I find myself reprimanding our son and their 3 year old. If our kids are not laughing hysterical and playing wonderfully, they’re tattling, wrestling or fighting over toys! Just not my idea of an enjoyable day to say the least. Secondly, we have A LOT of cousins between the ages of 6 and 16 which = A LOT of $$. You don’t realize, but it can get expensive when it comes to inviting ALL of the kids. And you most definitely can not pick and choose. It’s all or nothing when it comes to inviting children to your wedding. At least, that’s my families thoughts…and boy did we hear their thoughts when they learned all their kids could not come.
My advice…be prepared to stand your ground and if you’re not addressing it on your invite, you may want to to let your FMIL and your Mother to get the word out. Even with our invite clearly stating, “Adult reception to follow” we got numerous people asking if they can bring so and so or if they have to get a dreaded babysitter…a few members of our immediate family even declined and addressed their issue with getting a babysitter as being the reason for not attending! Really?! I mean we sent the invites almost 5 months out for that reason! It’s one of the more difficult decisions in planning a wedding (I think), but it’s your wedding day and you deserve it to be exactly as you wish!
i don’t mind the kids - i just don’t want babies there. but what can you say when your friend writes in her baby on the RSVP card? sorry no, your baby isn’t welcome b/c i don’t think you’ll have enough manners to take him out of the ceremony when he starts crying during the most important 10 minutes of my life?
i’m glad for you and wish i could do the same.
I honestly never once considered having kids at our wedding, holds no appeal for me! So strange, seeing as how I’m an elementary school teacher and LOVE kids but I wasn’t sad at all about that decision!
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Mrs. Bacon, Chicago Age and Occupation: 26, Digital Advertising Manager Fiance's Age and Occupation: 25, IT Client Services Engagement Date: June 17, 2010 Wedding Date: September 2011 Venue: Ravenswood Billboard Factory About Me: I'm a Midwestern girl that can't seem to commit to staying in one place for too long and is constantly daydreaming about my next adventure. I am an aspiring foodie with a weak spot for the unusual and I love semi-reality food television. My other loves easily include laughing as a form of exercise, a book that I can't put down, summer baseball games, espresso with whipped cream, couch potato days and nights with the ridiculous Mr. Bacon, and our two kitties, Lincoln and Sawyer. We're planning a faux-destination wedding for 150 of our closest friends and family in the city we've both adopted as home that has a modern, yet whimsical twist and as many personal touches as we can manage.
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