Home  |  Take Back Your Wedding Book  |  Premarital Counseling |  Wedding Checklist  |  Wedding Dilemmas  |  Wedding Etiquette  |  Budget  |  Ceremony  |  Reception  |  Guest List  |  Blog  |  Tips on Dealing with Fiance, Family, Relatives, Siblings, Wedding Party  |  Parents Corner |  Wedding Party  |  Registry  |  Honeymoon  |  After the Honeymoon  |  Wedding Stress Coaching   |  Free Advice  |  Join Us  |  Log In  |  FAQ  |  Shop Our Wedding Sponsors    

Inviting Children to the Wedding?

There are a lot of mistakes in wedding land around the question of whether to invite children to the wedding or not. It is definitely not an easy decision or, if the decision is easy, it's rarely an easy decision to SHARE with others!

Depending on when you're reading this article you will need different advice. I'll go through each point in time in wedding planning to address the unique challenges at each stage.

Early Wedding Planning: Decisions are not set in stone yet

The ideal time to figure out the kid issue is before any decisions have been met. Why?

Before making final ceremony and reception location decisions you have to do the research on your families to figure out what the cultural norms are. It behooves you to know in advance what reaction you're going to get and drama you are going to create if you say "NO KIDS" to a huge family where everyone goes to every wedding. There are creative ways around the kid issue. You could have your wedding locations in an area where kids can be off to the side. Hiring nannies and letting parents come and go is a great option. You could be creative on your wedding ceremony and reception times, allowing a big "break" between dinner and the dancing so parents can leave early with the kids, leaving you with a kid-free late evening. Cut the cake by 7:30pm and then parents can take off with the kids but didn't feel like they were missing the big wedding moments. If you have the entire thing in a hotel, offer up babysitting so parents can put the kids down and return to the party.

If there is absolutely no way you're going to have kids and it is worth creating world war three in your family or your in-laws, you may want to consider having the wedding where the most number of impacted parents could attend. Few parents these days have the money, relatives or interest in dropping their kids off for a weekend to travel on vacation, let alone travel for a wedding. If one side of the family will be hugely impacted by this no kids policy, consider having the wedding local to them. They can hire a babysitter for a few hours and still attend your wedding.

Major Wedding Decisions Are Set: Ceremony, Reception, Budget

There are clearly mistakes in wedding planning that haunt you months down the line including whether to start with the guest list or wedding budget. At this point I would ask you what discussions have taken place about having kids there. If kids were brought up and you were noncommital, you may have a problem on your hands. Generally if parents or relatives bring up the kid issue and you don't immediately say this is a kid-free event, they're going to assume, and plan, on inviting their children.

If your guest list is too big to invite children you may want to go back and revisit your guest list for who won't attend without their children. It may be a gamble, but for all the people who would be bringing children, you may have an equal or higher number who wouldn't attend without their kids. Ask your caterer about kids pricing if budget is a concern. If space is a concern look around your reception site. Is there a hotel nearby that you can rent a couple suites and have babysitters on hand for the kids? Design your wedding in a way that lets parents enjoy the wedding but leave at a logical time - perhaps ending the dinner portion early enough, with wedding cake, so they can take their kids and go home. You could also see if guests are willing to have slumber parties - gathering families or friends together and paying for their babysitters.

One problem you'll face is why you made important decisions before clarifying the kid issue. Having a "story line" is valuable for many aspects of wedding planning. My storyline on our guest list was "We want a smaller wedding with our core family and friends." This automtically excluded entire groups of people and made it easier to tell random people in a "nice way" they weren't invited.

In the "do we invite kids?" story line, here are some examples of how to explain the situation:

"Money is so tight, space is so tight, and we made the very difficult decision to have more loved ones at the event then have fewer loved ones replaced by children."

"We feel badly that so many people want to bring their children and are offering to help with babysitting costs." (Not apologizing for no kids, but expressing empathy with the situation and offering a solution that does NOT involve the kids showing up!)

"We had to weigh a lot of choices and in the end our late evening wedding is not a kid-friendly location or time of day. We hope parents will be able to make it but we're giving plenty of notice to help them find babysitters."

Wedding is very close and people are RSVP'ing with uninvited children!

As I explain in the mistakes about inviting children, using wedding etiquette to avoid tough conversations is not a proactive way to solve the dilema. I wanted a kid free event in part because very few guests had children and those who did almost all had family in town for "free" babysitting. My cousin was out of town and I asked if he wanted me to coordinate babysitting. Another family invited their three children and when I got the RSVP and was done gasping, we decided to leave it alone and let them come. They were older and would do no harm. The day of my wedding a dear friend brought her uninvited child because her babysitter backed out last minute. We had talked about the kid-free event openly and yet I was glad she came.

If you actually have very few kids who could potentially come, you haven't articulated to anyone this is a kid-free event, and you know this guest would be unable to come if they couldn't bring their kid, you may want to just suck it up and not say anything. If, however, you've let it be known this is a kid-free event, someone needs to contact the guest, whether it's the bride, groom, or a parent. Sometimes the issue isn't simply this guest and this child situation, but the rest of the guests and how they would feel seeing other children when they paid for a babysitter and coordinated their lives to be kid-free.

An immediate phone call (or visit in person if this is someone you see often) is in order to explain the ackward situation. We tend to think it works best for the person who is connected to the guest to be the intermediary. It's much easier for your mother-in-law to call her friend than it would be for you to call her friend who you don't even know. Of course this implies your mother-in-law is willing to make the call right away. Show her a sample dialogue below to see if she's willing to make the call today. If she isn't then tell her you'll go ahead and call her friend.

Sample dialogue: "this is really ackward but we got your RSVP and see you added your children. Unfortunately the really difficult choice was made, and plans were arranged based on a kid-free wedding. I definitely hope you will still be able to make it but I will understand if you can't. I will give you time to think about this and let me know in a few days. We don't need confirmation until X date." At this point you will have a pretty good sense of what the outcome may be. They may immediately feel stupid and say they're pretty sure their parents can babysit. Or they may act offended and ackward, which is why you may then chose to end the conversation quickly while they figure out their next plan. At this late stages you don't need or want to get pulled into the "why" conversations because it's too late anyway.

If you make your "deadline date" a few days before the REAL date to give to the caterer, then if this person doesn't respond on the deadline you could call and just say you hope they can still make it without their kids. Let them know today is the deadline for and if you don't hear by (2 days from today) you'll assume they won't be able to make it.

This gives YOU a way to plan and send the signal to the guest that after not responding to your conversation at the time or in the following days, you can only assume they aren't able to make it. The last thing you want to do is be hounding people you've already had an ackward conversation with.

Let us know your stories and dilemas!

Email this to a friend, fiance, or link this page to a message board

- Elizabeth Doherty Thomas, is a co-founder of The First Dance, along with Marriage and Family therapist father Dr. William J. Doherty.  The First Dance was a Modern Bride Trendsetter award winner in 2007 for taking on the complex family dynamics of wedding planning.  Read Take Back Your Wedding: Managing the People Stress of Wedding Planning for more advice on working through the people stresses of wedding planning as a couple, with your families, and how to strengthen your upcoming marriage through this enormous first task of married life.