When to mention the no children thing...

[Gwyn]

So I was reading other website discussions on having an adult only wedding. And one of the posts that got quite heated dealt with the timing which the couple made it known that children were not being invited to the wedding.

The poster was angry because her and her husband were not told ahead of time that their child (i believe the child was 9 or something) was not being invited to the wedding. It was not until they received their invitation did the realise this. Now, to me, that seems normal. Just like anyone else, you will never know for sure if you are invited to an event (or invited with a guest or your children) until the invitations go out. However there were several people that completely agreed with the poster that the bride and groom should have let people know before the invites.

I think that this particular post involved someone that was in the wedding party. And perhaps that is why they were upset that they could not bring their child.

Mainly because of severe room restrictions (I am not even inviting all of my aunts and uncles and none of my cousins whom I am very close with) we have decided we do not want children at the wedding. One FI''s good friend has a 2-3 year old who will not be invited...should FI have told him his child would not be invited when he asked him to be in the wedding? Before the man accepted? Or when he accepted, should FI have brought it up? I didnt even think about it until I read that post. We do not think that he will have an issue with it, but I worry now that FI should have said something earlier.


My question is...When are those of you that, for whatever reason, are chosing to exclude children (or inviting adults without "and guest" and such) letting this be known and how? Also, when you asked people to be in the wedding, did you let them know then? And I do not just mean word of mouth, I mean actually telling the individuals that their child/significant other or whatever, is not invited.

 

[Courtneylub]

I''m not having a wedding party, so I didn''t have to worry about that. We mentioned to some family long before the ceremony that we wouldn''t be inviting children, but that we''d like some of our closer neices and nephews to come. I guess that''s just not a good thing to do. It''s either all or none in some peoples opinions. It''s such a sticky situation...as you possibly read in my post this morning.

 

[Pandora II]

When I sent out the STDs, I put each magnet inside a Christmas card (wedding in July, STDs at xmas).

I wrote a personal explanation in each card for people with children explaining why we couldn't invite under 10's - except very small babies, the bridesmaids, children from overseas and immediate family (nephews and nieces) which was a total of 5 - and that I hoped they would understand and not be offended.

No one was in the least offended and it gave them 7 months to make other arrangements. 90% of our guests are OOT.

 

[newbie124]

Date: 6/16/2008 11:16:25 AM
Author: Pandora II
When I sent out the STDs, I put each magnet inside a Christmas card (wedding in July, STDs at xmas).

I wrote a personal explanation in each card for people with children explaining why we couldn''t invite under 10''s - except very small babies, the bridesmaids, children from overseas and immediate family (nephews and nieces) which was a total of 5 - and that I hoped they would understand and not be offended.

No one was in the least offended and it gave them 7 months to make other arrangements. 90% of our guests are OOT.

Hey Pandora, would you mind sharing (if you can remember) how you phrased your "no children" note? Of our guests, I think this will only apply to 2 or 3 couples (only one of which isn''t family), so I was originally going to just have it implied by how we phrase our invitations and then hope that they ask (or if they add their children to the RSVP count, we call and explain the situation). But now I wonder if we should be informing them sooner?

 

[Gwyn]

Since it was a small/close wedding and everyone pretty much knew the date, we skipped the whole save the date thing. Hmm...regretting it now LOL.

 

[partyjewels]

We tried bringing it up right in the beginning to let our family members know that we were thinking about not including children. However this was a MAJOR problem because well, we didn''t want ANY kids there, and I have three nephews and he has one niece. They could come to the ceremony sure, but we really didn''t want any kids at the reception at all. His sister and mother threatened not to come to the wedding, while my sister and mother tried a more reasonable approach. Yes, thats right, this makes me come across to many I''m sure as a mean evil person who didn''t want her nephews and future niece at the reception. But in the end, we are having children and I am extremely unhappy about it for various reasons that I''ll not get into because I''d be sitting here typing alllllllll night long.

So back to the topic... I think when you tell your guests about no kids, depends entirely on the guests you have! I knew it was going to be a major problem with his sister, and at least a bit of a problem with mine, so it''s probably good that we got it out of the way..... but at the same time, I wish I had not said anything because then perhaps they wouldn''t have been able to guilt me into it if I stuck to my guns longer... I don''t know. But I do know that I am not budging my foot on the issue of children at the rehearsal dinner!!

Good luck!!

 

[Gwyn]

Date: 6/16/2008 11:21:50 PM
Author: partyjewels
We tried bringing it up right in the beginning to let our family members know that we were thinking about not including children. However this was a MAJOR problem because well, we didn''t want ANY kids there, and I have three nephews and he has one niece. They could come to the ceremony sure, but we really didn''t want any kids at the reception at all. His sister and mother threatened not to come to the wedding, while my sister and mother tried a more reasonable approach. Yes, thats right, this makes me come across to many I''m sure as a mean evil person who didn''t want her nephews and future niece at the reception. But in the end, we are having children and I am extremely unhappy about it for various reasons that I''ll not get into because I''d be sitting here typing alllllllll night long.

So back to the topic... I think when you tell your guests about no kids, depends entirely on the guests you have! I knew it was going to be a major problem with his sister, and at least a bit of a problem with mine, so it''s probably good that we got it out of the way..... but at the same time, I wish I had not said anything because then perhaps they wouldn''t have been able to guilt me into it if I stuck to my guns longer... I don''t know. But I do know that I am not budging my foot on the issue of children at the rehearsal dinner!!

Good luck!!

Aw, I do not think you are evil at all! Then again, I too am opting not to include kids so we could just both be evil

Honestly though, when it comes to space availability, supervision, and cost of meals (at my venue a kids meal is $50) I don''t think it is unreasonable for an adult to chose not to include children.

We are already not inviting some of my aunts, uncles and cousins because of limited space. I don''t feel too bad about not inviting FIs two first cousins once removed and one of his friends child.

 

[Pandora II]

Dear X & X,

We do hope that you will understand and not be offended by our decision not to invite children under 10 except for immediate family and those coming from overseas. Sadly our venue is very strict on numbers and we have a potential 35 under-10's! We look forward to seeing you on the day if not before.

Much love

X & X

For those who had small babies or those who had small babies and older children we put:

Dear X & X,

Unfortunately we have had to make a decision not to invite children under 10 except for immediate family and those coming from overseas due to a strict limit on numbers and a potential 35 under-10s. However please do feel free to bring your baby. We look forward to seeing you on the day if not before.

Much love

X & X


We added in a few personal comments as well depending on who the person was, and for people who were likely to see other peoples cards we made sure they were all slightly different (a bit like thank you letters at xmas when I was a child so that Aunt X and Aunt Y didn't get carbon copy letters!).

The bits above were the general statements though.

Hope that helps!

 

[anchor31]

We probably should have done what Pandora did, because the problem you read about happened to us. Most of our cousins are adults (we are not inviting them because we have about 100), we have no nephews or nieces and our friends are still childless, so we did''nt think we''d have major issues. I should have known better... We wrote "adult only" on the reception card with the invitation, but didn''t get the chance to tell everyone about it beforehand. We got hissy fits from a few of FI''s aunts, the only ones whose kids are still minors. To our defense, we did put a note on our website, but I guess those people didn''t bother reading it!

 

[SarahLovesJS]

This is a really interesting thread, especially for me since I have the same question/issue. There aren''t a lot of kids, they are mainly children of FI''s second cousins and there are 0 kids on my side. Still, we are putting our limit at age 12 or so I believe (whatever age his one youngest first cousin is). But here''s the problem, I really hope people don''t think their adult kids are invited because they aren''t necessarily. FI hasn''t even met some of these people or the last time he saw them he was like 8. So that''s needless to say a bit awkward. Aunts and uncles I can understand, but adult (in their 30s and 40s) cousins he doesn''t know? That''s where I am drawing the line. And his second-cousins? They''re the ones with the babies and kids, so if we can avoid that that''d be great. Don''t get me wrong, I love their kids and they''re nice people, but we only have so much room and so much money. I probably sound really mean. But anyway, should I just spread the word through FMIL?

 

[Cleopatra]

We''re not having children at our wedding also. FI''s family has a massive amount of kids under 18 (I''m talking over 50 children - FI''s dad has 13 brothers and sisters while his mom has 7)...

Basically, we''ve been spreading the word through FI''s mother. Their whole family is very close, and she''s been mentioning the fact that there are no children invited for the past few months. So, it won''t be a shock when they get their invite next week that says "Adults only, please"...

A few people might be surprised, but we can''t call everyone to let them know of our space and money issue with 50+ extra children. It''s not that we don''t like kids, just at $50 a head, we simply cannot handle the extra # of heads.

We''re sending out our invites 7 weeks in advance - in my mind, that''s plenty time to find a babysitter

 

[SuLi]

Interesting post....

My FI''s cousins are getting married in October, and they recently sent out an e-mail with tons of information and in the same e-mail, they addressed the "no children allowed" rule for their wedding. They failed to mention it on their website for the wedding, and I guess some of the family (cousins who have young children) asked about it.

I don''t have kids, so I don''t know if it was executed poorly. I think that it was good to address it early on, before the official invites, so that people who have kids can decide whether they will want to attend. I''m really not sure what the proper etiquette is.

 

[zoebartlett]

We''re only inviting children of family members (most of whom are traveling quite a distance), and we told our friends ahead of time (before sending out our invitations). I just said that although we wished we could invite everyone''s children, we just wouldn''t be able to. I don''t remember giving a reason, but our friends mentioned that they understood the financial aspect of it. Everyone has been really understanding (that I know of anyway). Actually, all our friends also said that they looked forward to getting away without their kids (we''re having a mini DW, as our venue is at least 1.5 hours away or further from a lot of guests).

I had thought of putting "adult only reception" on the invitation or "X of ___ seats have been reserved..." but my mom vetoed it. She just said we''d just address the children issue if it came up with anyone. So far, no one''s (family friends) asked to bring their kids.