Weddingbee Blog

After deliberating for the better part of a day, the jury of the Ponies has reached a verdict in the landmark Kids v. No Kids case.

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The jury members file into the jury box, refusing to make eye contact with anyone as they take their all too familiar seats. The room is tense with anticipation while the ever disinterested judge yearns for this case to finally be over.

The Court: The jury has returned to open court in the case of 11 W 101, Kids v. No Kids. Have you reached a unanimous verdict, jurors?

Miss Pony: Yes we have, Judge.

The Court: All right. I accept your verdict. I will now read from Jury Form A.

“We the jury find in favor of allowing children to attend our wedding.”

Thank you for your service, jury members, but before we release you are there any additional questions for the jury?

Ms. Realle: Yes, Judge. Would the jury please give us their reasons for allowing children at their wedding?

Juror #1 (AKA Miss Pony): We would be happy to do that.

For us, the reasons against including children at a wedding were never going to change the fact that children—in all their shapes, forms, and propensities to ruin things—will be attending our wedding.

Our reasons for including children are pretty simple. Our wedding day would not be complete without children. Mr. Pony has three nieces and nephews that we couldn’t imagine our wedding without. The vast majority of my first cousins are children under the age of 15 who I have always expected to be present. Plus, many of our cousins and friends have gaggles of kids running around. If we excluded children, we would effectively be excluding several friends and family members who would be either offended at the notion of leaving their children at home or would be unable to find the appropriate accommodations for their children so they could attend the wedding.

In the end, our decision was clear. If we included some children, we would want to include all children, so that is what we are going to do.

Even though I am happy we have made the decision to invite kids to our wedding, I am still worried that one (or many) of these rascals will misbehave and wreak havoc on our wedding day. Ideally, we will have someone or something to entertain and vigilantly watch kids at least during our ceremony, but we are still researching and considering our options.

If we had enough money, we would likely equip each child with a gaming system of sorts, as we saw in Exhibit 14 during the trial:

Exhibit #14

{Photo by Michele Waite via Southern Weddings}

Although our guest list contains upwards of 30 children, we have regrettably made the decision not to include children in our wedding party. While there are an abundance of boys in our families who could fulfill the role of ring bearer at our wedding, there are very few, if any, girls in the right age range to serve as flower girls. We have thus determined that our bridal party will be better suited without children.

Plus, we would likely have to chase after this firecracker if we ever wanted to see our wedding bands again:

Mr. Pony’s Nephew (personal picture and one of my personal favorites)

Our decision was not without many discussions and careful consideration, and we understand that it does not work for every couple out there. We appreciate both sides’ time spent in presenting the issues and facts for us to review in this case.

*This is where my hypothetical trial stops being like a real trial to make sense as a blog post—pretend this is a special jury that gives out written opinions or something. That totally happens, right?*

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So what do you think? Did we make the right decision, or are we going to seriously regret this about two months from now?