Kids at the reception

Our wedding is about an hour out of town from my fiance's family and my family is literally spread all over the place so regardless of where it is it will be out of town for them. We decided no kids for this reason. That way people wouldn't feel like they have to leave early to put their kids to bed and makes it a lot easier. So far everyone is perfectly fine with it.

We had kids from my side of family.

We only had our 4 nephews and infant niece at our wedding. We didn't want to have kids running around and getting in the way and limiting our number of guests and how/if they could party. No one seemed to mind us saying no kids allowed and used it as a weekend getaway for themselves.

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We got married and had our reception at Viewpointe Estate Winery in Harrow. It was amazing!

View quoted message Your reception sounds like it was amazing! Which winery? And very cool idea with the kids corner! I've only heard of a kids table but this seems like a better idea!

We only had family at our wedding, so it made sense to include the kids. There were only two and they were our ring bearer and flower girl. Luckily there were plenty of cousins willing to help out with their littler cousins, so they were well entertained throughout the night. Then the grandparents took care of them afterwards, so their parents could relax and enjoy for a bit.

We are having kids; most of them will be under 10. The biggest factor for us was that most of my guests are from out of town, and some do not have any other connections here in Alberta so I didn't want them to leave their child with a stranger. We had looked into hiring a couple babysitters, but our venue doesn't really have a nice space for that.

I like children so didn't want to exclude them from my wedding. (And, I work in the addictions field, some intoxicated adults are worse than children when it comes to the cons)

We are having kids at the wedding mainly because must of our extended family have kids (mainly 5 and over) and would be hard for them to come given the costs plus babysitting. If it were me i would not have kids if possible, but alas not our case. My friend did suggest to seat all the parents close to the door so if anything they can exit and deal with things discreatly lol

We are only having FHs niece and nephews; 3 are over 5 and 2 are babies.

Personally, I don’t see any pros. We just both knew that it would be improper to
not invite his siblings’ kids.

Cons: loud, messy, kids don’t take directions well and are unpredictable

We had no kids. We got married at a winery, so it just didn't make sense since it's not a very kid friendly location. We wanted our wedding to be a night where our friends and family who are parents could let loose and have some fun. Our out of town guests mostly had their kids stay with their non-related in-laws and had a nice getaway.
I've seen some weddings though where they actually create a 'kid corner' with pillows, some toys and coloring stuff where the kids can go and hang out during the reception.

We are doing immediate family only that can bring kids (so like aunts and uncles kids) but most of them are 7 and up. Oh and one baby!! (Our nephew!! 😊 Which will be here any day now!!).
Pros:
Spending time with the whole family
Including the kids
Don't need babysitting
Cons:
Babies/young kids crying
Kids running around
Kids and people with alcohol don't always mix- adults swearing, slurring, tripping over kids (of course it depends on the crowd, but I'd rather be safe than sorry!)

For us we decided to only have kids 10 and up (basically my 4 nieces and nephews lol). We asked our friends and family who had babies and young children to not bring them as we didn't want screaming babies and kids running around during the ceremony. We have been to many weddings where they had young kids and some would be crying during the vows and one kid was running up and down the aisle during the ceremony. It was just nice for us to have a nice relaxed setting with no noise haha.

We are having kids at the wedding, my family is huge and we want the kids there. What you can do to keep them busy is create a colour book for them (I saw this on Pinterest) and tie crayons around it. It keeps them busy when the parents are trying to eat or talk with family and friends.