Best way to invite friends to wedding without inviting their babies?

[diamonddarling]

My partner and myself, are struggling to find a non- offensive way to invite our friends however not permitting them to bring their bubs.

Any suggestions on the best way to phrase this in an invitation?

 

[cocolaw]

one of the sample invitations i recently received said "adult reception to follow"

not sure if that''s the best way or not!

 

[Lanie]

What age of baby? We said "Adult reception" on our invite, but we have a couple that is coming that will have a one month old at the wedding. That doesn''t bother me in the least...in fact I called her and told her to bring the baby, because I wouldn''t want someone babysitting my brand new baby!!! I would say up to a year old would be fine...parents will hopefully take their babies out if they start to cry or get loudly fussy.

 

[CaliCushion]

Are your friends with babies from in town, or out of town? Honestly, we didn''t have any friends in town who wanted to bring their children. Everyone wanted to have a night alone!

My husband has 21 first cousins, and dozens of them have kids under the age of 5. For this reason, we couldn''t accomodate children at the wedding. For our out of town friends/family with little ones, we didn''t put anything on the invitiation. On our website, we wrote something like "Children are welcome to our rehearsal dinner and postnuptual brunch. We will be providing childcare during our ceremony and reception, so please let us know if you plan to bring any children to our wedding weekend!"

Also, our envelopes were addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Jones, not Mr. and Mrs. Jones and family. No one was confused or needed clarification.

I must say, however, I would have certainly made an exception for a baby that was still nursing.

 

[Diamond Confused]

We are being explicit and putting adults only on our invitation.

 

[diamonddarling]

Lanie: The youngest baby will be 5 months by the time of our wedding, overwise they are all under 2 years. All our friends live locally and have extended families who live locally also.

 

[Lanie]

Then if the parents of the 5 month old live locally, I would let them worry about a sitter, and put Adult Only on your invite, and address the invite to Mr. and Mrs. Parentofbaby, not "and family". I did all of this PLUS I put on the RSVP card that we had 2 seats reserved in their honor, so that there would be no confusion. If you let one kid come to a wedding that isn''t part of the bridal party, then parents will wonder why their precious little one wasn''t invited as well.

 

[honey22]

I think you could just write adult reception to follow or something along those lines.

However, I wouldn''t automatically expect a mother to leave a child under 12 months with a sitter, especially if they are breastfeeding. I know there is nothing wrong having a babysitter, but some Mum''s just don''t feel comfortable leaving their really small children.

That said, it''s your right to have a reception without kids fullstop. I think the only one you could have a problem with is the 5 month old, although I believe it''s ok to leave them for a few hours, it''s very likely she is still feeding. Why don''t you give the Mum a call and chat to her about it? She might feel happy if she has the excuse of an adult only reception to allow herself to get a sitter for the night?

In the end, do what you want to do. As a woman without kids, this may seem very harsh to other mothers, but just because you have a small child, doesn''t mean you automatically have the right to bring them everywhere. There are some occasions where you have to compromise, leave the child or don''t attend. It''s your day, and if you feel strongly about it, stick to your guns. Good luck

 

[hawaiianorangetree]

We were going to invite everyones kids to the wedding but when we realised it DOUBLED the guest list, we decided financially that we couldn''t afford it. On our invites I am planning on putting just the names of the people invited, no ''and family'' and i will also make sure that i get in contact with these people just to clarify why kids aren''t invited. I''m pretty sure none of my friends will mind as it''s a good night out without the children. I will be having my sisters kids there though, only because i would never get away with not inviting them.

 

[Londongirl1]

Date: 7/12/2009 10:25:55 PM
Author: honey22
I think you could just write adult reception to follow or something along those lines.

However, I wouldn''t automatically expect a mother to leave a child under 12 months with a sitter, especially if they are breastfeeding. I know there is nothing wrong having a babysitter, but some Mum''s just don''t feel comfortable leaving their really small children.

That said, it''s your right to have a reception without kids fullstop. I think the only one you could have a problem with is the 5 month old, although I believe it''s ok to leave them for a few hours, it''s very likely she is still feeding. Why don''t you give the Mum a call and chat to her about it? She might feel happy if she has the excuse of an adult only reception to allow herself to get a sitter for the night?

In the end, do what you want to do. As a woman without kids, this may seem very harsh to other mothers, but just because you have a small child, doesn''t mean you automatically have the right to bring them everywhere. There are some occasions where you have to compromise, leave the child or don''t attend. It''s your day, and if you feel strongly about it, stick to your guns. Good luck

Ditto! Although it''s easier said than done

 

[neatfreak]

Personally I don''t love the "adult only" reception thing. But maybe that''s just me. I prefer the traditional method of simply writing "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" on the invite to be clear that it is not "and family".

And I think it''s fine not to want to invite kids-as long as you understand that some people might get upset about this and choose not to come instead. I''m a new mom and I totally understand why people don''t want kids at weddings-but at the same time if my kids aren''t invited and it isn''t a REALLY good friend or close to my house so I can use my regular sitter I probably am not going to come KWIM?

 

[noelwr]

on our invitations we wrote:

Adults Only. No children please.

So saying it twice should be clear, but if not, I created an RSVP card for every guest:

Ann & Bob Smith
Happily Accept
Regretfully Decline

or if it is a single friend whom we didn''t want to invite a guest, I just wrote:

Ann Smith
Happily Accepts
Regretfully Declines

This way we could clearly keep the number of guests to the amount we want.

 

[meresal]

Date: 7/12/2009 4:52:57 AM
Author:diamonddarling
My partner and myself, are struggling to find a non- offensive way to invite our friends however not permitting them to bring their bubs.

Any suggestions on the best way to phrase this in an invitation?

I would call your friends and fill them in before sending the invitation, and then just add "Adult Reception to Follow" on the invitation.

 

[Prana]

I wish for me that it was as simple as just writing Mr. and Mrs. on the card. My mother is planning an engagement party for us, and all invites were addressed to Mr. and Mrs. My FI sister-in-law RSVP''d for her, her husband and their 2 toddlers. My mother is too nice and accomodating to say no. We are trying to come up with an effective way to avoid this problem when the actual wedding rolls around. I really cannot believe how dense people can be.

 

[KimberlyH]

Date: 7/14/2009 5:08:28 PM
Author: girlface
I wish for me that it was as simple as just writing Mr. and Mrs. on the card. My mother is planning an engagement party for us, and all invites were addressed to Mr. and Mrs. My FI sister-in-law RSVP'd for her, her husband and their 2 toddlers. My mother is too nice and accomodating to say no. We are trying to come up with an effective way to avoid this problem when the actual wedding rolls around. I really cannot believe how dense people can be.

"We would love to have little Susie and Johnnie attend the engagement party and wedding but we've already told other guests that children are not invited and so we must be fair so as to not hurt anyone's feelings. We are so sorry and hope you will be able to find a sitter."

 

[jstarfireb]

I wrote "Adults only, please!" on our wedding website (but not the invitation). It was pretty easy for me, since none of my friends and very few of my family members have school-age or younger kids. The one cousin who has a toddler didn''t come, but the rest of her immediate family did. I''m thinking she was offended because I didn''t invite her kid...oh well! It boggles my mind that some parents think they can take their kids just anywhere.