Not inviting children, how to go about it?

[candeur]

I'm really worried about offending people! It's not that we don't want children there, it's just a lot of our guests have kids and if we were to invite them it would add at least 20 more people to the guest list and we can't afford it, and the room wouldn't be big enough either and in my mind I can't invite some kids and not others.
The only kids there will be my two, and my bridesmaids daughter (this worrys me slightly as to what others will think but I wouldn't have a bridesmaid if I didn't invite her!)

I'm not sure how to let guests know, MIL said just to address invites to the parents only with no mention of the kids but I'm worried that this might just prompt phone calls, or I was thinking about putting a little handwritten note in with the invite explaining the situation...
What do you guys think?

 

[quin]

Unfortunately no matter what you do, there is going to be those that whinge or who try to get you to accept their children coming. I would only address the invite to the person/people you are inviting and perhaps you could include little tags or something (like place cards) and ask that guests return the place card of those able to attend. If you feel you need to explain that children are uninvited you could put at the bottom of the invititation "as much as we would love for your little ones to attend, we ask that you bring them to the ceremony only and have them picked up prior to reception due to capacity limitations of the venue" or something like that?

 

[DonnaBallona]

I am having children to the day but not to the evening. to be honest, I would do exactly the same as you and not invite any-but I love all of my friends children like they were my own and would feel awkward inviting some and not others-very similar to you! we are having 25 under 5 to the day

anyhoo, if I were you, I would put just the parents names on the invitation, and then include a little note and put something like

'I can't apologise enough that X and X aren't invited to our big day; I'd have loved to have them there but unfortunately finances wont allow us to invite everybody! I hope that you guys will join us in our celebration and enjoy the opportunity to relax and let your hair down.'

xx

 

[ellebob]

All you can do is explain it in a way you'd be happy with if your daughter wasn't invited to someone's wedding. I'd put something like 'due to venue restriction, we are unfortunately unable to invite children outside of the wedding party', so they're not upset when they see the other little girl there. But depending on age of children etc you have to be prepared for some people not to come.

 

[DonnaBallona]

^ I actually like the way Ellebob put it

 

[Lauren25]

I think the only way is to be truthful and tell them why!
I like what both Donna and Elle put, I deffo couldn't word it any better

 

[aly888]

We went to a wedding last year that was "no children allowed" They just included it in the invites. But they didn't word it as "children aren't invited" but instead something along the lines of "we would like our day to be an adult only day. Please respect our wishes". That should stop 'most' people from trying it on (because you've already incinuated that they'd be disrespectful), but there will always be someone who will ask for "just their kids" I also agree with the 'wedding party' but that ellebob said

 

[BabyCleo]

Im inviting children - didnt really want too but was kinda pushed into it, but with only a 30 person wedding i dont really mind. What i did to show kids were allowed, on the invites i put Mr and Mrs X and Family. This is the customary way to do it according to google lol, but remember - if you have kids in your wedding party you dont have to invite others! its like a loop in the system! if you just put To Mr and Mrs X, its supposed to be taken as adults only. Or you could put at the bottom of the invite, that its an adult only affair. Dont feel bad for not wanting kids there, its your day!

 

[candeur]

Thank you
I think I'm definitely going to put it in a handwritten note to make it a bit more personal, how about
"I'm really sorry that we've been unable to invite the kids. unfortunately because we're limited on numbers due to the venue size and our budget we've been unable to invite children outside of the bridal party. We really hope you can still make it, Kelly & Rhys"

Does that sound ok?

 

[katyalynn]

We made it clear on our invitations that it is adults only. If people on the day why my own children and my niece and nephew (who are pageboy and bridesmaid alongside my two) then they are going to get a bit of a crazed look.

I don't want to be disrespectful towards anyone but having kids at a wedding isnt for us. We love them, but we don't want our party to be like a kiddies disco.

 

[missy1]

We didn't invite any kids to our wedding just the flower girls and page boy (who are our nieces and nephew) My MIL knew we didn't want to have kids at our wedding but still asked me if my husbands cousin could bring her 2 small children otherwise she couldn't attend, I said no because lots of other people have kids and I couldn't allow some but not others. So on the actual wedding day we couldn't believe it when my husbands other cousin just turned up with his kids even though the invite was only to him and his wife. This put us in a very awkward position because the original cousin who had asked if her kids could come would have been told because her parents (my husbands aunt & uncle) were there. Also lots of other people with kids were probably wondering why they were allowed to bring their kids and not them.
I have always believed that it is your day and you should be able to have whoever you want to invite there. If people don't like that then they don't need to come. I remember getting some real stick from one of my husbands friends because we hadn't invited their other friends 3 month old baby daughter. I just couldn't handle the stress of worrying if a baby was going to cry all through our vows or speeches. Sometimes I've felt guilty about not asking people with kids and wondered if they thought I was cruel but at the same time you'd think people would be happy to have a day/night away from the kids and enjoy a wedding :-/

 

[bumblebeexo]

Just write the parents names! I can remember my parents getting wedding invites addressed to just them when I was young and it never caused offence. Me and OH got invited to a wedding a couple of months ago and LO wasn't invited, but we weren't annoyed or anything.

 

[LittleLady04]

Like PP said, I can remember plenty of weddings that my parents were invited too and we weren't, I wouldn't worry about causing offence.

When we get invited to our friends weddings we never take the kids even if they are invited, it's nice to go out and have a night off from worrying about what the LO's are doing.

I wouldn't dream of asking if I could bring my girls along to a wedding if their names weren't included on the invite.

 

[thayet]

I got married this past June and we also had a kid-free wedding. Several of my guests were still breastfeeding new-ish babies (including my MOH which made it sort of difficult!) but here's how we did it:

- give everyone PLENTY of notice that this is a kid-free wedding
- we found that word of mouth worked best - finding a non-insulting wording for the invites was impossible and generally people will either ask you or a member of your wedding party
- we had our reception at a hotel, which allowed for a babysitter to be upstairs with the little ones, and the parents were free to leave at any time to breastfeed or whatnot. We even offered to pay for a room for this purpose, but most people were staying the night anyway

In the end, nobody was offended - I think all the parents were happy to have a kid-free night! With 18 months of lead time, there are no excuses for bringing your kid(s) to an adults-only event.

Hope this helped, and congrats!

 

[LDC]

We didn't have children to our wedding either, purely because I didn't want screaming during my vows or children running everywhere in the reception.

I only addressed invites to parents and to be honest a lot of people didn't want to bring their children anyway. It was my family who were funny about it but I just told them my thoughts and feelings on the situation. In a selfish way it was our day and people should respect that - also we gave out the invites six months before he day so there was plenty of time for people to consider their options.

We've been invited to two weddings since LO was born and neither have invited her; I'm not offended and understand why she's not invited. We're looking forward to it as some time to ourselves (they're a few months down the line yet) xx