Let’s talk kids

When was it that a wedding became about everyone else? Weddings are so expensive and unless you’re getting tons of help from family, sometimes you can’t afford having kids. If guests are coming from out of town and they have small children then it gets more complicated. But it’s not their day.. it’s yours and your fiancés..

We are not having kids at the wedding. My fiance has a large family, and it would have raised the guest count too high.
Even though I would have probably invited my second cousins to the wedding, it wouldn't be fair of me to have all my family invited and not his.... you have to draw the line somewhere.

We set a cap of anyone over the age of 18yrs will get an invite. In the rsvp section of our wedding website I have written this: "Children (under 18yrs) are welcome at the ceremony, however, the reception is an adults-only affair. We appreciate your understanding, please contact us so we can get an accurate count for the ceremony seating".

Based on covid restrictions we feel we are already going to be very limited with guest count so we are going to be having an adults only event!! It is complete up to you and your future husband as to who you want there!!

View quoted message That’s exactly how I feel! Well home come aunt so and so can bring her 3 but uncle can’t bring his 5. It’s super hard. More or less would like an adult thing as well, we’re trying to stick within a number and theres 30-40 kids on our list which is putting us over. I feel with the declines our numbers will fall into place under what we’re budgeting for but with kids it’ll never meet it lol but my hubby to be thinks that if we say no kids none of our friends will come lol because we’re traveling back to NL from AB for our wedding

We aren't having kids either. We love kids but want an adult affair for the wedding. We also need to stick to a budget and a certain guest count. We are only making one exception for my cousin who will be 17 at that point, cuz his sister will be 20 and invited. But you have to make the cut off somewhere. It for sure is ruffling feathers. But if you start inviting this kid, then you have to invite this other kid... and it spirals out of control from there. We are just gonna have to live out the controversy.

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We had young kids too and that too they enjoyed for the dancing or went to sleep with the grandparents if anything while the parents enjoyed themselves.

Alternative is wording Adult Function Only for them to understand your position.

View quoted message If it was only 5 I wouldn’t even second guess it. I’m talking 30-40 kids. Not teenagers, like 10 and mostly under.

Every wedding I have attended has been family friendly with kids included as its important for everyone being together. We had kids attend as 5 total from my side. We had flower kids as well part of the wedding party. Some couples or culture differ to base their decisions on having kids attending.

If your wish is have particular guests other than children attend, Adult Evening is a nice way of notifying your guests on the invitation.

We aren't having any kids in our bridal party. No flower girl or ring bearer. Just don't really have someone to fill those positions so we are eliminating them. There will be no young children at the ceremony or reception. There will be 1 16 year old at the wedding who is my step brother. We only have a couple guests with children so it was easy to make that decision to not have children.

View quoted message No I'll have a babysitter booked and so will my sister. Babysitter will come get the kids. Anyone one else who brings their kids can leave early or watch their own children if they don't get them picked up....

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I meant when they're leaving, since you said they would go home shortly after dinner. Are you expecting one parent to just leave the party?

When we had our full guest list, I thought about giving kids their own table but some were too young to be left alone and I didn't want to burden one person or couple with being responsible for a group of them lol.

View quoted message None of the kids will be under 6 oldest will be about 11 when we get married. I have been thinking of giving them their own table right beside my sister (who kids listen too lol) there really isn't going to be a lot of kids. I think they would be happier sitting together.

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How do you handle the logistics of that? One parent goes while the other stays? Or do you have a special section for kids where they're being babysat?

We have two small children so they will be invited however they will be leaving shortly after dinner. If our numbers can be normal 80-100 there will be a few other kids who will also leave shortly after dinner. If we were to be invited to someone else's wedding kids would be staying home. I personally don't think weddings are a place for kids unless its more like a family party.

It really depends on what you want for your wedding...

Because a lot of our guests have kids (most of them 5+) I have no desire to tell people they can't bring their kids... our friends (so people around our age) have already said they're not brining their kids because they want to be able to enjoy the wedding.,, however personally I leave that to the parents on what they feel comfortable with. That's my own opinion, however I can totally understand people choosing an "adult only" event.

It's definitely going to be tricky if you allow some kids but not others... be prepared to have conversations with people about why some kids can come and others cant. At the end of the day though, it is your wedding... so it should be whatever you feel comfortable with. If you really don't want kids, than as some others have noted have a blurb on your additional info card saying this is an adult only event (or if you are not allowing PLUS 1s, make sure you identify that by identifying how many seats you have saved for that individual/family)

We are only inviting the kids who will be in our wedding party, and immediate family. They are able to participate in all of the activities of the day, but if the parents have someone who can take them after dinner, it is encouraged, even if just for the kids under 10. As we will have 2 ring bearers, 1 flower girl, a jr. bridesmaid, and my FH son/my stepson will be a jr. groomsman, so those 5 plus the other 2 kids, isn't too bad.. and as someone else stated, it will be noted that a wedding is an adult event, so the kids may hear/see adult-related content at their own risk

I am having a really hard time with this one as well. Our original guest list is only 64 people which includes kids. However if we need to cut that list down to 50, no kids has been an option we have thrown around. The hard part for me is I am a professional Aunt and all the kids invited are a HUGE part of my life. My fiancé also has one kid under 18 and I would hate to exclude him and not his brother who is 20.

We have already postponed once so we will be getting married this year no matter the restrictions. I am sure we will figure it out in the end but it is definitely a tough one for me. I like reading the different opinions. It sure does give me a few more perspectives on the matter.

We don't want kids at our reception. They change the way that the entire party goes. You need different food, you need to make sure speaches and music are PG-13, you also have their parents not getting to enjoy a night away and probably leaving around bedtime or during a tantrum. You also run the risk of tiny humans interrupting special moments like speeches, first dances, photos, and also just generally running amok.


I want the people there to enjoy themselves and not to worry about what they say and do because there are impressionable little ears and eyes near by. We aren't even having kids in the wedding party so ours is a 100% kid free zone. I would put a memo on the invitations "please join us for an adults only celebration" and again on the RSVP cards. Anyone who asks just remind them that as much as you love their kids you want to celebrate with them and give them an opportunity to relax and enjoy a night away. It's also important that you don't bend for anyone, otherwise everyone will think they can get away with their kids too.

Hubby to be is afraid if we say no kids then our friends with kids won’t attend lol it’s a rock and a hard place. We’re hoping by 2022 restrictions will be different. But, if they’re still in place we have a lot to figure out. Thanks for the ideas 💜

My fiance and I are having kids at our wedding. I couldn't imagine not having my cousins and our friends kids at our wedding. They're all apart of our lives. We do need to count them in our guest count for our venue to know for gathering restrictions because of covid as well as how many seats for the ceremony and reception, dinner etc.

We didn’t want kids at our wedding to begin with and didn’t want to get stuck in the trap of “if we invite __ we have to invite __” and have to invite people out of obligation. Honestly, covid was the best excuse to invite whoever we wanted and as few as we wanted. We explicitly stated who was invited on the invites and put an FAQ section on our wedding website. We also went above and beyond by chatting with each individual invited (we only had 30 guests) to talk about our invite restrictions. Everyone we invited was really good about it, especially with the covid second wave threatening to happen. I’m sure your guests will understand, especially since you’ll be restricted by how many people you can invite.

We decided no kids after covid restrictions cut our guestlist. Honestly, even if restrictions let up before our wedding, I think we still won't invite kids. The thing with kids is it's very hard to be selective without someone getting offended, it can kind of be an "all or nothing" situation. Our family apparently loooves to procreate, cause including kids added an extra 50 guests to our list!!! To be frank, we aren't close with anyone's kids and we can't afford to include them just to spare some feelings. I think most will be excited to have a night out and a break!


We included a line on our invitation that says 'Unfortunately, we will be unable to accommodate children under 18. We look forward to celebrating with little ones at a later time!'

My fiancee and I were veryyyyyy iffy on having kids at our wedding. We ultimately decided to allow kids (and if they all attend, it'd only be about 12 total), but we put a note on our wedding website that basically says children are welcome but it is not necessarily a child-friendly environment (lots of alcohol and probably a few f-bombs dropped throughout the night), so ultimately it is the parents decision whether they bring their kids or not.


My Brother-In-Law was a firm NO CHILDREN at his wedding, and he only had issues with 1 person throwing a fit about it. The person even threatened to not come to the wedding if their kids couldn't come, and my BIL basically threw up his hands and went "then that's your choice". Most people were stoked to hire a babysitter and let loose for the night actually haha

It's going to depend on guest restrictions for us. If we're only allowed 50 or less, we don't have enough room to include kids. Otherwise, we'd love for (certain) kids to be there.

The only kids we wanted at our wedding were our niece and nephews. We didn’t send invites due to COVID but we planned to be very specific with who was invited in our invitations. Saying something like x seats have been reserved or specifically naming only the invited people should help. You can also include an FAQ on your website where you address no kids. If you think someone is going to misinterpret this I would just have a frank conversation with them and make it clear their kids can’t come.
If after all of that someone showed up at my wedding with people who weren’t invited I would ask them to leave unless there were no shows and they took their place. I know a lot of people wouldn’t be comfortable with that but I’m not afraid of confrontation and I think it’s incredibly rude to attend a wedding uninvited or assume kids/partners have been invited. The alternative would be letting the kids stay but make the parents leave since the parents would obviously be in the wrong and I would feel bad for the kids who’d probably be embarrassed. The kids could have the parent’s dinner and then you’re all sorted haha!