Is it rude???? No kids to a wedding!!!!?

When my parents received an invitation as “Mr. and Mrs. _____” to my cousin’s wedding, I was insulted because we are family. I was 13 at the time, my first cousin was getting married, and I was considered a “kid” to her who she did not want present. The couple did not want to have our entire family present so my parents did not want to go at all, and they did not. This still remains with me. I think blatantly stating “NO KIDS” is rude, and instead of that approach, you may try just addressing the envelop as Mr. and Mrs. _________. By stating no kids, if any of the guests with children see another child at the wedding, they will get insulted that you did not want their children but accepted others, and your manners will be talked about and gossiped. Decide who you need to invite as a family and invite them as “Mr. and Mrs. ______ and family,” and those where you can get away with inviting just the couple or the adults, invite as “Mr. and Mrs.” or “Ms. and Guest” etc. This is your special day, so you want everything to go well..you want to be admired and not gossiped or disrespected.

Well, if your list is getting too long, I’d recommend three lists: a “must invite,” a “should invite,” and a “would be nice to invite” list. Not everyone needs to be there for your special day. That might cut it down a little.

I would totally support your decision to just keep kids out of it as well, because they do more than drive up wedding costs! Having a ton of kids around, particularly if their parents are partying with the other grownups, can get to be a disaster really fast. If you feel bad about saying “no kids,” I have suggestions.

First, you can consider that requesting that no kids be there might cut more than just kids off of your list. Lots of parents might have trouble getting a sitter or whatever, so they’ll just miss out. That could help cut your invitation list down a lot.

Second, what about a babysitter on-site? If you have a reception that’s in a hotel, for example, rent an extra room, hire someone for a few bucks an hour, and fill the room with toys and activities for the kiddos, so they’re out of the way, their parents can celebrate with you, and you won’t have to have a seat at the table or a plate of food for each kid. You’d spend on the room and the sitter, but it would be cheaper than keeping them all in the reception … especially if the little rugrats knock over your cake or something. Just specify on the invitation, something like “seperate activities for guests under 12 years old.”

Okay this is tricky….my husband and I are already married but due to him being deployed to iraq we didn’t get to have an actual wedding. Now since we are already married we told our parents we want to pay for it ourselves. I too am trying to keep my guests down so inviting kids and paying $60 a plate for a 4 year old to enjoy steak is a bit ridiculous. However I am having a flower girl and a boy ring bearer who’s parents are also in the wedding so yes they are invited. What I did was only invite our closest family and friends…people I speak to everyday and are comfortable with. Being comfortable w/ everyone also meant that I was comfortable enough to explain to those w/ children that we are paying for the wedding ourselves and trying to keep costs low. We would be honored and thankful if they could spend our special day w/ us but other than the two children participating in the wedding we have to ask that all other children be left at home for the evening. I called all 50 or so family/friends on my side personally and told them this and my husband did the same for his side. By not putting it in the invitation and calling personally no one had any misunderstanding about us “hating children”….and understood our situation. Not one person had a problem with it. There are a couple people who won’t be able to attend of course but they are not sore about it. They understand that when you have children, there are sacrifices to make…and sometimes that means not being able to attend functions if you can’t find childcare.

One day I will have kids and I too will have to be understanding.

No it’s not rude but you will have to word it politely. I love kids and I have kids of my own but other than our own children and my flower girl, there will be no children at my wedding reception. Here’s why: we have a total of 90 guests and almost all of them have 2 to 3 children each. We can not afford to pay to have them all there. Next reason is because our venue is too small. If people get offended by the no kids rule, then they don’t have to come. I don’t think a wedding is a place for children anyway. It would be quite broing for them too. If I was invited to a wedding where the children were welcome, I still wouldn’t take them anyway because I would rather enjoy the night celebrating, dancing and drinking…not running around telling my kids to sit down, stop squeeling and behave themselves. We have foud that most of the people on our ‘no kids’ guest list agree with us and have said they wouldn’t want to bring them anyway. Just make sure that you send your invitations out on time so that it gives people the oppoutunity to make arrangements for their children and it will be fine. Hope you have a great wedding. Congrats.

Source(s): bride to be in 8 weeks tomorrow

I can see both sides of the argument, as I am getting married in December and have come across this problem! This is what my mum said to me

– Young children (under 5) need lots of supervision and do not understand a wedding anyway. Most parents understand if you request babies stay at home

– On the other hand, older children may feel left out, particularly if they are close family friends and are excited about the wedding. I have a 14 year old family friend who is so excited about the wedding!

– At the same time, you are paying for the wedding – you choose who comes. It is your right to ask for no children at the wedding…this is actually quite common! In fact, most adults enjoy the night out to themselves, instead of having to worry about the children.

– My maid of honour has 3 children under 6, so I asked her what she thought. She said if the wedding was in her home town, she wouldnt mind it if the children were not invited… in fact she would love it for the chance to attend an adults function and let her hair down!!

But on the other hand, if her entire family was expected to travel a long distance to the wedding, then she would feel a little off-put that her children couldnt attend. Especailly as they are not old enough to be left on their own – they would have to pay for travel, accomodation, meals etc for the children, even though they are not invited. They would also have to find a stranger in a unknown town to look after the children. So she said in this case, she would be a little offput, although at the same time she wouldnt actually voice her complaints because its not her place.

At the end of the day, its your wedding and your decision. Personally I am having 5 children at the wedding, all over the age of 11 so hopefully they will be well behaved. The rest of the children are under 5 years old, and we have organised a babysitter for them, at which the parents are thrilled at!!!! They get to have a good night!!!

It depends. Are these kids that you never interact with? Are they close relatives, like nieces and nephews?

You may want to find other ways to pare down the guest list. I went to my fiancee’s aunt’s wedding, and she chose to only invite people they have known for 5 years or longer. I don’t know how you got to 3 people, but maybe you could make a “must” list and a “maybe” list to start narrowing it down. You can easily cut 2nd cousins, childhood friends you haven’t seen in 20 years, and coworkers.

Nobody I’ve ever known has done it that way. Some people would probably be offended, but others might like the idea. It is your wedding, but remember that a wedding is joining two families and excluding part of the family based on age seems harsh to me. Also, if others are traveling to your wedding, they might not have a nanny to travel along and may be uncomfortable leaving the children behind. So if they don’t come, they’re not being rude.

belive it or not, but most people don’t like to bring thier kids to a wedding. Think bout it they got to get all ready and suited up and on top of all that they got to get something nice for the kids to wear, plus they got to keep an eye on the kids the whole time plus the reception. Trust me, they won’t have fun. You should create a butiful wedding but also an intimate experience for your guests. Serve alcohol, that way the parents can relax and enjoy the evning, with out the stress of bringing the kids along. If you don’t want to sound rude then explain to your guests that it is a time for celebration for your new marridge but also a nite of fun for everyone stress free.

Nope, not at all. I didn’t have kids at my wedding, and my girlfriend didn’t either. One good reason for not having kids there is that if you’re planning on serving really fancy food, like fillet mignon, kids aren’t going to eat it and its just going to end up being a waste of money. Not only that, someone is going to have to deal with an upset kid who probably wants chicken nuggets. When I was telling guests there were no kids, my excuse was that I wanted the adults to be able to enjoy themselves and not have to worry about that. Not only that, i didn’t have any of those stupid dances like the chicken dance. Basically my reception was NOT kid friendly.

Source(s): 10-06-27 bride

It’s not rude, no. People do it all the time.

Start by addressing the invitation to Mr. and Mrs. X, rather than The X Family. And perhaps something more like “no children may attend” rather than “NO KIDS”

If that’s not enough than be sure to have your guests include the number of attendees on the RSVP card. That way you know exactly how many people are coming.

Congratulations and best of luck