Children at Weddings

yourdeadwright · 23-06-2021 2:24pm #1

So what are our thoughts ?

Nephews & nieces invited
No kid invited
Just your own kids invited
Just your own kids at the ceremony & off home after,

Just interested to see what people think

We are going own kids & nephews & nieces at ceremony & for pictures and all off home for a sleep over with a baby sitter before the meal begins .

All of them are under 6 , One is 16 so he'll be there for the whole day & night

dobman88 · 23-06-2021 2:27pm

Only kid we will be having is a niece who will be 10 by then. I've never been to a wedding where kids haven't been a massive pain in the hoop. It will probably mean we get some rejections to invites but we are happy for people to make their own choices.

23-06-2021 2:31pm

My Fiancé has a niece and nephew and we are leaving it up to their parents to decide if they come or not. As far as we are concerned though they are welcome. My bridesmaid also has kids and has decided to leave them at home.

Thankfully there are no others because we wouldn't be inviting them if there were.

It is a personal decision and there is no right or wrong way to do it I think.

yourdeadwright · 23-06-2021 2:33pm

dobman88 wrote: »

Only kid we will be having is a niece who will be 10 by then. I've never been to a wedding where kids haven't been a massive pain in the hoop. It will probably mean we get some rejections to invites but we are happy for people to make their own choices.

Ye to be honest im off the same opinion,

I want my own there for a few pictures at the ceremony & then send them home so i can let the hair down without worrying about what there up to,

I asked my brother if he wanted to bring his to the whole thing but he is delighted to have the same arrangement , My sister isn't going to get a choice now decision has been made

The missus worries her siblings mite take offence so iv said to tell them i insisted no kinds from the start of the meal on ,

witchgirl26 · 23-06-2021 3:24pm

So we're having nieces, nephews & our own little boy. All in all that will be 11 kids. No others unless they are babes-in-arms. As the age range will be from 18 down to 3, we can't really do a hard & fast rule on no meal etc. I think we'll have them there for the meal but then arrange a babysitter in the venue (all been figured out while looking) so that they can have some fun. The one we've talked to is happy to stay until about midnight.

Going to another wedding ourselves (family wedding) & the other 2 kids at it are being collected pre-meal & brought home. Unfortunately we don't have someone who could do a 2 hour round trip for that so my little boy is staying the night.

Honestly if we didn't have our own, we'd probably be looking at child free.

I know some friends may not be able to come because of lack of childcare which is sad but I don't think we can accommodate everyone. And once you let one friend bring theirs, it can snowball. Like I said though - small babies are fine and understandable.

lazygal · 23-06-2021 3:50pm

We had none at ours. We didn't marry in a hotel and we had the ceremony in a small enough space so we didn't have a place to bring kids to. There was also a rule that all children had to be off the premises at a certain time (it was a private club). We would have made the exception for the sole grandchild in the family at the time but my sister in law was happy to have the other granny mind her for the day.

We had one couple try to get us to include their child, but we simply couldn't because then that would put out everyone else who organised babysitters or decided once half of the couple would come and leave the other with the kids.

We have never brought our children to a wedding, we either leave them at home or we go solo even when they have been asked. Apart from one very, very small wedding with immediate family only.

I don't think weddings are kiddie friendly but I have been to many where there were a few or many kids and that's up to the couple getting married.

You will always have someone moaning, weddings seem to bring out the crazy in some people, so suit yourselves.

eviltwin · 23-06-2021 3:56pm

We had kids at our wedding but it was a very laid back and informal thing at home so it worked well. Personally I would not have felt the same way about the day if the kids hadn't been there and we had our own child at it so it made sense to include them. I understand the pros and cons of both options and I think a lot depends on the venue.

CheerLouth · 23-06-2021 4:09pm

We just had our own kids & our nieces & nephews - 7 in total & it was enough for us & we had a babysitter to look after our own kids in the evening. It definitely depends on yourselves but I know that as a parent, the last place I ever want to take my kids is to someone else's wedding. It'd be much too long a day for them - even for my sister's wedding, our kids came for the ceremony but were collected by my inlaws before the meal. Plus it's nice to have a break from them now and again :pac:

25-06-2021 9:05am

We just had one, our own who was 8 at the time. That was a personal choice, I dont like kids and always planned on having a kids free wedding.

25-06-2021 9:09am

I think it depends on what kind of wedding you are having.
A typical Irish wedding hotel, booze, more booze, etc etc then no, not child suitable.
But if it's a more laid back affair, daytime, small restaurant, garden type wedding, having family kids is nice.

Treppen · 25-06-2021 9:15am

bubblypop wrote: »

I think it depends on what kind of wedding you are having.
A typical Irish wedding hotel, booze, more booze, etc etc then no, not child suitable.
But if it's a more laid back affair, daytime, small restaurant, garden type wedding, having family kids is nice.

If it's a laid back chilled affair it'd be worse when kids kick off as everyone will be watching and passing judgement.
Boozy large Irish wedding, no one gives a frig .

Think it's odd not allowing kids, or even worse, selecting which kids you want.
It's like, we like you ... but not your children!

25-06-2021 9:22am

Treppen wrote: »

If it's a laid back chilled affair it'd be worse when kids kick off as everyone will be watching,l.
Boozy large Irish wedding, no one gives a frig .

Think it's odd not allowing kids, or even worse, selecting which kids you want.it's like, we like you ... but not your children!

I wasn't thinking about kids kicking off at all tbh, I was thinking more about it being an appropriate place to have kids, when adults are all getting hammered etc and letting kids run around half supervised!

Treppen · 25-06-2021 9:51am

bubblypop wrote: »

I wasn't thinking about kids kicking off at all tbh, I was thinking more about it being an appropriate place to have kids, when adults are all getting hammered etc and letting kids run around half supervised!

I think people are tying themselves in knots about "kids running around"... Supervision is up to the parents. Everyone else can just get on with it and let them have their fun.
We had kids running half unsupervised around at our wedding, nobody batted an eyelid.

JayRoc · 25-06-2021 9:58am

I think I've said this before, but I would be a lot more tolerant of the idea of kids at weddings if you could expect their parents to supervise them properly or take them out when they make noise.

I cannot count the number of times I have seen a baby wail during a wedding ceremony while their mammy and daddy seem completely oblivious to the irritation they are causing everyone.

Babies cry, not their fault. Take 'em out straight away and let the rest of us hear the wedding.

woodchuck · 25-06-2021 9:58am

We're not having kids at our wedding. We don't have kids ourselves and there are no nieces/nephews. We do have friends with children and babies, but I'm hoping they won't be offended that only adults are being invited. I'd assume most parents would look forward to a day away from the kids tbh!

Our venue is on the smaller side and it could feel crowded and noisy very quickly if everyone brought their kids.

Also on a more selfish note, I'd like to be able to spend some quality time with my friends and have a proper catch up. When kids/babies are around, naturally the parents focus is split and we need to tailor our language for little ears.

We're getting married in September and my latest Covid concern is that anyone with kids, pregnant or trying to get pregnant won't want to attend (which is a LOT of our friends, as we're all mid-30s). People might be worried about catching the virus and passing it on to their unvaccinated kids. I've already had one close friend tell me that they're trying to get pregnant, so if that happens, she won't feel comfortable mixing with people. I was actually really upset about it. Not upset at HER specifically, but I just assumed she'd be there. We were one of only 6 guests at her wedding last year, acted as their wedding photographers at their request and really tried our best to be as supportive as possible in the run up. I just assumed she'd be there for us when our turn finally came around. And if someone on our "safe bet" list is effectively declining before the invitations have been sent, how many more will decline. Sorry, going a little off topic now...

yourdeadwright · 25-06-2021 9:59am

Treppen wrote: »

I think people are tying themselves in knots about "kids running around"... Supervision is up to the parents. Everyone else can just get on with it and let them have their fun.
We had kids running half unsupervised around at our wedding, nobody batted an eyelid.

I think age is a big thing having kids who are 4 up running around is different to having 2 year old's running about for example

confusticated · 25-06-2021 10:37am

woodchuck wrote: »

We're getting married in September and my latest Covid concern is that anyone with kids, pregnant or trying to get pregnant won't want to attend (which is a LOT of our friends, as we're all mid-30s). People might be worried about catching the virus and passing it on to their unvaccinated kids. I've already had one close friend tell me that they're trying to get pregnant, so if that happens, she won't feel comfortable mixing with people. I was actually really upset about it. Not upset at HER specifically, but I just assumed she'd be there. We were one of only 6 guests at her wedding last year, acted as their wedding photographers at their request and really tried our best to be as supportive as possible in the run up. I just assumed she'd be there for us when our turn finally came around. And if someone on our "safe bet" list is effectively declining before the invitations have been sent, how many more will decline. Sorry, going a little off topic now...

I know this is easier said than done but try not to worry about that for now, there's a lot of hypotheticals there. September is three months away, that's a long time with Covid, go back three months to the end of March and it was like a different world. Your friend might not be pregnant yet, and even if she is, she might be mixing with people a lot more than at the moment and could have acclimatised back to it. I'm a similar age to you and can see that a lot of my friends are only getting back to meeting up now that their parents are fully vaccinated and their own vaccinations will be coming up soon.

ec18 · 25-06-2021 10:40am

Treppen wrote: »

If it's a laid back chilled affair it'd be worse when kids kick off as everyone will be watching and passing judgement.
Boozy large Irish wedding, no one gives a frig .

Think it's odd not allowing kids, or even worse, selecting which kids you want.
It's like, we like you ... but not your children!

Is that not a fair comment? Why should people automatically assume that your friends will want your kids at their events?

You select guests that includes the kids and the adults. This pops up here every few months and the replies are always along the same lines.

Treppen wrote: »

I think people are tying themselves in knots about "kids running around"... Supervision is up to the parents. Everyone else can just get on with it and let them have their fun.
We had kids running half unsupervised around at our wedding, nobody batted an eyelid.

It's fine to say that supervision is parents problem but if their are unsupervised kids shouting and running around during the ceremony or speeches is imposing on everyone else. The easiest way for a lot of couples to avoid that is to have no kids or be selective about the kids

JayRoc wrote: »

I think I've said this before, but I would be a lot more tolerant of the idea of kids at weddings if you could expect their parents to supervise them properly or take them out when they make noise.

I cannot count the number of times I have seen a baby wail during a wedding ceremony while their mammy and daddy seem completely oblivious to the irritation they are causing everyone.

Babies cry, not their fault. Take 'em out straight away and let the rest of us hear the wedding.

100% it's not the kids faults it's what parents let their kids do at weddings, making it easier in most cases to not have them

25-06-2021 10:41am

Treppen wrote: »

I think people are tying themselves in knots about "kids running around"... Supervision is up to the parents. Everyone else can just get on with it and let them have their fun.
We had kids running half unsupervised around at our wedding, nobody batted an eyelid.

Or they didn't say it to the bride and groom!
I wouldn't either, it's their wedding, who would complain to them about children! Would be very rude of them.

Neyite · 25-06-2021 11:17am

Ours will be a laid back small wedding in an informal setting.

All my siblings and ourselves have kids ranging from young adults right down to toddlers so we've decided to embrace it and do the best of both worlds. So kids are getting a bouncy castle, teens are getting a glamping beach party beside the venue and young adults can either hang with them or hang with the ancient folk in the bar.

From 7 or so onwards, after the kids have had their meal and a bit of dancing we've organised babysitters so parents can slope off, settle the younger kids and come back for a more grown up party and not have to worry that toddlers will get trampled underfoot when we are all moshing our heads off to Iron Maiden

It really depends on the type of wedding you want, the ages of the kids in the family /friends group, and venue restrictions though. I will say though that from what I've seen on forums for UK/ US weddings, Irish people in general tend to accept that weddings here usually only have niblings and are happy enough to sort a babysitter. They don't tend to rock up with their assorted kids and get offended because adults are drinking alcohol and telling rude jokes in front of their darlings the way some weddings in the UK /US tend to go.

fits · 25-06-2021 11:24am

I agree. It really depends on who will be at wedding. In our case everyone was at least mid thirties up and it was a laid back affair. The children ( about 15 of them) really made the whole thing and I didn’t have kids at the time

If it was a big boozy wedding with lots of people in twenties and early thirties and few kids in family it would be different.

aoife1991 · 25-06-2021 2:35pm

All of my first cousins are invited, of which five cousins are underage - 17, 14, 10, 9 and 6. However our venue has said everyone underage will need to be off the premises by 9pm. I strongly suspect that two of my invited cousins won't attend (teenagers, too cool to hang out with the family). I know that at half eight, my aunt will go and ask the pizza food truck for two pizzas for her girls and they'll be sent home with a childminder. Absolutely none of my friends' children are invited - after the last eighteen month or so, all my friends are going to want to go on a session and no one wants their kids around to ruin it.

Anecdotally, I was always bored out of my head at family weddings as a child. My parents frequently left me with my grandparents even I was invited because that was more fun for me and they got a day & night away from the kids. Win win all round.

witchgirl26 · 28-06-2021 10:50am

woodchuck wrote: »

We're not having kids at our wedding. We don't have kids ourselves and there are no nieces/nephews. We do have friends with children and babies, but I'm hoping they won't be offended that only adults are being invited. I'd assume most parents would look forward to a day away from the kids tbh!

I definitely think they will! I know it can be a pain to organise childcare but from chatting to other parents, most are more than happy to go through that rather than having to deal with a child on the day sometimes. It can be really tough depending on the age of the child (was just at a wedding with my 2 year old - stress).

woodchuck wrote: »

Also on a more selfish note, I'd like to be able to spend some quality time with my friends and have a proper catch up. When kids/babies are around, naturally the parents focus is split and we need to tailor our language for little ears.

Not selfish at all!

woodchuck wrote: »

We're getting married in September and my latest Covid concern is that anyone with kids, pregnant or trying to get pregnant won't want to attend (which is a LOT of our friends, as we're all mid-30s). People might be worried about catching the virus and passing it on to their unvaccinated kids. I've already had one close friend tell me that they're trying to get pregnant, so if that happens, she won't feel comfortable mixing with people. I was actually really upset about it. Not upset at HER specifically, but I just assumed she'd be there. We were one of only 6 guests at her wedding last year, acted as their wedding photographers at their request and really tried our best to be as supportive as possible in the run up. I just assumed she'd be there for us when our turn finally came around. And if someone on our "safe bet" list is effectively declining before the invitations have been sent, how many more will decline. Sorry, going a little off topic now...

I think people might change their mind a little towards September on that as the vaccinations continue to roll out. Over 35s can now register so hopefully most will be at least on their first dose. For example I was at a wedding last week were only 7 of the 25 weren't vaccinated.

bubblypop wrote: »

I wasn't thinking about kids kicking off at all tbh, I was thinking more about it being an appropriate place to have kids, when adults are all getting hammered etc and letting kids run around half supervised!

I've been to a few weddings with kids & I've never seen the parents getting hammered & not looking after their kids. Normally 1 parent disappears off with the kids to put them to bed & lets the other have the night out. Maybe I've just been lucky with my family & friends though.

sekond · 28-06-2021 10:59am

My plan was no children at all - not even our own (she was just under a year at the time, she stayed with her minder for the ceremony, was brought to the reception for a little while to let people meet her, and for some photos, and then her minder collected her again when it was time for the meal). But then there was family chaos, and I was pressured into changing for some distant cousin's kids after plans had already been made - which meant I had to then change for some closer relatives too.

They were mostly well behaved, to be fair, although one of the distant cousin's kids followed me around stroking my arm every time I got up from my seat at the meal to talk to people, and then was given my bouquet by her mother and refused to give it back (I had wanted to put it on a relative's grave the following day).

It wasn't the end of the world, and I was actually more annoyed with the close family members who made such a drama beforehand and were quite horrible about it until I gave in.

aoife1991 · 28-06-2021 11:08am

sekond wrote: »

My plan was no children at all - not even our own (she was just under a year at the time, she stayed with her minder for the ceremony, was brought to the reception for a little while to let people meet her, and for some photos, and then her minder collected her again when it was time for the meal). But then there was family chaos, and I was pressured into changing for some distant cousin's kids after plans had already been made - which meant I had to then change for some closer relatives too.

They were mostly well behaved, to be fair, although one of the distant cousin's kids followed me around stroking my arm every time I got up from my seat at the meal to talk to people, and then was given my bouquet by her mother and refused to give it back (I had wanted to put it on a relative's grave the following day).

It wasn't the end of the world, and I was actually more annoyed with the close family members who made such a drama beforehand and were quite horrible about it until I gave in.

When did you get married? Any relatives throwing a strop about not being allowed bring their kids should be told where to go!

I'm not really a kid person so I don't think I would be able to contain my temper if some far flung cousin refused to give back my bouquet. Their parent should absolutely have made them give it back. I have no patience to deal with bratty kids!

28-06-2021 11:53am

Entirely up to the couple if they want to invite children or not.

I would lean to the no kids side personally, but understand some people want nieces, nephews etc there. However, I don't get the part of inviting them to the ceremony and then sending them home after. I always thought it better that IF you were to invite children, to invite them to join the wedding after the ceremony.

The ceremony is where they can cause a major distraction, and its boring for small children. I had a friend once where a guest's child cried the whole way through her ceremony. In fairness to the child's parents, they brought the child outside yet could still be heard inside.

shesty · 28-06-2021 11:58am

It's a long day for kids, especially small ones.If you have your own, it's different I think.We had a few kids at ours but the youngest was 7, so they were that bit older.Smaller kids were left with minders by their parent's own choices.Small babies, I have no problem with at weddings, I would not ask a mother to leave her baby if she was not comfortable with it.I think if you have a lot of small kids of toddler age in the immediate family, it is a very tough decision to make, especially if people are making a fuss.Ideally though I don't really think it's place for small kids after a certain point in the day at most weddings.

woodchuck · 28-06-2021 12:32pm

shesty wrote: »

Small babies, I have no problem with at weddings, I would not ask a mother to leave her baby if she was not comfortable with it.

Generally speaking, how young is too young to expect parents to attend without their babies?

The youngest baby in our friends group will be about 9-10 months old on our wedding date. We've only put the parents on the invite, but if the baby is too young to leave with someone else, we'd be open to them bringing the baby (just have no clue how this works with the venue as we hadn't pictured any kids/babies being there, so never asked any questions about it!).

lazygal · 28-06-2021 12:43pm

I didn't bring any of mine when they were babies. They were left with one or other of the grannies. Youngest was 4 months when I went to a wedding. Just left expressed milk and went home about 10pm.

woodchuck · 28-06-2021 12:45pm

lazygal wrote: »

I didn't bring any of mine when they were babies. They were left with one or other of the grannies. Youngest was 4 months when I went to a wedding. Just left expressed milk and went home about 10pm.

Phew, ok, good to know

Was afraid I'd made a major faux pas with the invites!! I'm totally clueless when it comes to babies...

lazygal · 28-06-2021 12:54pm

I know some people would say they'd be OK with a breastfeeding baby but ime once you let one guest bring their baby other people will get the hump. There's something about weddings that makes people lose reason. We had issues with a couple of people who had child free weddings themselves and then couldn't understand why we were not budging on having kids at ours. You'd never ask to bring a baby to a 21st or 50th party like!

Children at Weddings

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