I just don’t want a million of them coming to our wedding. But yesterday, Mr. Radish’s mother called and informed us that one of his cousins (and he has over 40 first cousins) asked her if he could bring his three kids to the reception. She told him yes… before she even checked with us! Most of Mr. Radish’s cousins are older than him and they are already married with kids, so if they all started bringing kids we’d be in real trouble.
We’ve also had two other guests that went ahead and wrote in the names of their kids on the reply card, even though I was very careful not to include the names of children on the inner envelopes. I thought that would be enough to give people the hint. Apparently not.
Now we are trying to decide what to do about this. We could call these people and tell them that their children are not invited, but is it worth possibly hurting anyone’s feelings or offending them over it? I looked over our guest list and it’s only about 10 kids that might end up tagging along. It only costs us $7 per kid, but we are kind of worried about space issues more than anything else. Also, our reception venue is an old historic mansion that has a lot of antiques in it. I don’t want any wild bands of kids running around and breaking anything.
Another little thing I worked on this weekend was an invitation for our younger guests (13 yrs. and younger). For us, there wasn’t a concern about do we or do we not invite children? It was more, Oh we just have to have so and so! For those special youngsters that are invited to the wedding, I wanted to send them a special invitation.
One particular special person is my former neighbor’s son Sean that I used to baby sit. In fact, I knew him since before he was born! I held him as a baby. Once he asked me if I had any children since I was an “adult”. No, I don’t, I said. He asked, “Why?” I hesitated. What can I say to do the least damage and his parents can elaborate on later? I replied, “Only people like your mom and dad have children.” He was a little confused, but later his parents told me that they showed him their wedding video every anniversary. They tell him, “See, this is when we got married and THEN we had you!”
Well, fast forward to my bridal shower. Sean gave me a gift! A crystal heart-shaped jewelry box that plays Romeo & Juliet. In the card, he wrote “Good luck with your marriage and the kids. Love Sean” Awwww. He still associates children with marriage, so he thinks we must be having a baby! Anyway, I thought an invitation of his own would be something he could comprehend better.


There are two schools of thought when it comes to children at weddings:
1) Kids are great
and
2) Not so much
While I tend to lean toward the former, Mr. Corn and his family definitely lean more towards the latter.
My biggest concern when considering our children options for the wedding was that I wanted as many of our friends and family as possible to be able to attend our wedding. And since it is a semi-destination wedding, it only seemed fair that we allow people to also bring their kids. Also, many of my friends have children, and weddings seem to be the only time when we can all get together and see how much everyone has grown since the last wedding we saw them all at.
Mr. Corn was concerned that parents tend to not have a good time at weddings if they have to worry about Junior knocking over the cake, or, (a more likely scenario) getting back to the hotel before the kids zonk out on the dance floor.
If I were a kid, I’d be pretty peeved if my free wedding gift were a silver picture frame or bag of gourmet coffee. In fact, I’d probably throw it on the floor and pout. (I still do that, actually). Kid favors are one of those things that I never thought about until I came across these super cute Emotibles Earbud Charms from Fred Flare:

I decided to make a coloring book for the 6 or 7 kids we will have at the wedding. I found this cute clip art but the only problem was, the bride and groom were a little too pale and too dark to be us. I know that may seem silly to some people, but growing up it always irked me that children’s toys never were of a little mixed girl like me. So I got out my handy dandy photoshop and lightened the groom up and darkened the bride.
Lots of my coworkers have babies since I work at a relatively young company, so I have always enjoyed the occasional baby pictures and stories. But now the new girl in my department has a baby, so every time I walk by her desk I see her smiling baby face wallpaper, and every time we have an awkward silence it’s…”so what did your baby do that was cute last night?”
I may sound like I’m complaining of too much Baby in my life… but not for the reason you might think. The truth is, I loooove the baby pictures and stories, and go out of my way to ask the QA guy who I rarely lay eyes on to pleeease show me those new videos of his toddler! So the only reason this new infiltration of Baby is bad for me is because we were solidly in the “wait several years” camp (and Mr. Bluebell still is! Ha!) so this is just making my brain go “baaaabiiiiiiiies!!!!!” all the time and not actually think real thoughts. Yeeeah. So we’re still planning to wait a good couple years, but maaan baby-vibes, leave me alone!!
Garden Ridge always has great deals on decorative items so I decided to stop by this past weekend to take a look. They had piles and piles of Easter items on sale. I found these cute Easter baskets on sale for half off - $1.50 each basket. They had so many different colors, sizes, and designs. Unforunately, I couldn’t find one that had a creme/sage/chocolate color, but I found ones that were just as cute! The colors/fabric on the baskets are playful and age appropriate for the little munchkins.
We have a total of 40 kids under the age of 13 attending our wedding. I know they will be a main part of the wedding - running around the tables, playing along with the photographer, and pointing and laughing at us kissing. So, their tables had to be decked out as much as the adults. But of course within a kid budget.
Here is the breakdown of the items.
Garden Ridge - baskets, moss = approx total $2.12 each basket
Walmart - crayon sets, crayon books = approx total $4.00 each basket
Misc Toys and Bubble Gum = approx total $ 1.00 each
total = $7.00 - $8.00 per basket
This is the deck outside of our venue (actually, this is the deck as viewed through a window. It felt like minus 30 last week with the wind and I really didn’t want to step outside. Not even for your benefit, dear readers).

This is where Mr. Broccoli and I will (hopefully) lead all of our little kiddie guests sometime during the reception and help them dismantle a pinata.
I’m thinking a Fiona pinata for the girls, and a Shrek pinata for the boys. Unfortunately, I’m having a hard time finding the ones I’ve envisioned, so I may have to find something more boring. Like a wedding cake pinata. But who wants to whack a wedding cake pinata? I think they’ll have more fun attacking a bride and groom pinata!
There are going to a LOT of kiddies at our wedding. Consider this: Mr. Broccoli’s father has NINE brothers and sisters and all but a couple have 4+ kids. And let’s not forget the second cousins and their kids. No way! You say… Ha. I wish.
But really, it’s not that bad. Kids lend an air of fun to weddings, especially if you’re not set on having an ultra-fancy affair.
So I thought, why not give the kiddies something fun to do? We’ll probably have a pinata, and perhaps set aside some tables for kids only, complete with candy and board games, coloring books, etc. (granted, we’ll need to make sure we have room to do this).
After-holiday sales are the best, especially when you’re trying to save some money for this seemingly never-ending pit of wedding expenses.
After Valentines Day, I hit up the local Walmart and Target in search of cute and cheap “Love” themed items - ideal for a LOVE-themed wedding (haha - all weddings are love themed! so lucky us!)
Here are some of my finds (at 75% off!):

Love maze games
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