Why do people not like having children at their wedding?

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This is due to parents not teaching their children good manners and how to behave because they feel it doesn't apply anymore in today's society.

View Quoted Comment I disagree. I think kids can have good manners but still be rambunctious, I think kids should express themselves I just wouldn’t want it at my wedding. By no means does wild child = bad parent.

Because children can be really disruptive. I wanted children at the reception but not the ceremony because I was just worried they’d be disruptive while I say my vows (I had a nursery room with the venues caretaker to supervise children so they still came but they at least weren’t in the ceremony)

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I agree! Even the most well-behaved kid will get antsy after a long ceremony. I work as an assistant director for a child care center. Many kids under 5 just cannot sit for more than 20 minutes when they're not entertained and it's not right to try and force them to! Plus then asking them to sit nicely for a long dinner before a dance floor opens up can cause trouble. If someone doesn't want to go through the trouble to plan for kids at their wedding they don't have to. It's important if kids are included that they have activities to distract them.

View Quoted Comment There's a difference between a tantrum/bad behavior and a justified outburst for children, who don't have the same tools as adults do to express themselves. Pushing over a wedding cake, running around and screaming, etc is bad behavior. Crying and yelling because your parents took you to an event where dinner takes 2 hours, there's no kids meal, you have to drink ice water out of a heavy glass cup, and you were ready for bed hours ago is a justified outburst. Maybe bringing your child to an event that isn't age appropriate is the bad parenting move

Our wedding is a very formal, black tie soiree where there will be lots of feasting and drinking, and dancing carrying on until midnight with a six-piece band. The last thing I want at my wedding is to pay a small fortune for chicken nuggets and chips, let alone having little Joey/Jemima run a riot because they’re up wayyy past their bedtime and their parents doing absolutely nothing to control their behaviour because they’re too busy on the other side of the room enjoying themselves.

If you are invited to a child-free wedding, it is not because someone is trying to insult you or your child, it is because that someone wants to enjoy their wedding how THEY envision it and that vision doesn’t involve children / is not a child friendly environment.

It's all about the vibe and the setting.

While our wedding edged into formal territory, our setting was fairly kid-friendly, and we wanted to make accommodations for children, so we did.

If we had a more formal affair, or a venue that was less kid-friendly, we probably would have rethought that position.

Some of our friends have had kid-free weddings, because they were more into the drinking part of the wedding, or their venue really wasn't great for kids. Others, everything is reversed.

It's a choice, like everything else, but as long as it's coherently enforced, then it's fine.

I simply cannot imagine having young children running around at our wedding/reception, or babies crying during our vows. Granted, I don't have any young children in my family or close friend circle. But even if I did, I don't think I would stray from my 'no kids allowed' rule.

My wedding is extremely formal and romantic. I want it to be a literal party with my close friends and family. I don't want me, nor the parents, to be worried about tending to their young children while I want them celebrating with me. If you were having a more casual wedding, I guess some would let it be - but for me, I have zero exceptions and won't allow kids.

I am not really helpful in that regard because i've never actually seen kids screaming at weddings or ruining any sort of event. I don't get it either.

I was totally the kid running around events. My parents brought us to adult events with our cousins and just let us do whatever we wanted. We usually stole plates of food and hid in the coat closet so we could play. We made fun out of it, but the events weren't fun for us naturally, and our parents were not watching us in the slightest. Sometimes we ran through the venue and hid in the stairs or staff rooms, causing headaches for staff. There was just no room for us at the actual event though


I can definitely understand why people wouldn't want kids at their formal event, and honestly the kids probably will thank you for leaving them out (or would if they could)

We're not having a kid-free wedding but I didn't invite my friends kids mainly because I wanted to give them an opportunity to have a night out without kids! Of course, COVID messed that up and none of my friends with kids are coming. But otherwise, we'll have a range of kids from 8 months (my niece) to 17 (FH's cousin).

View Quoted Comment See, if I noticed one of my friends had invited some kids, but not mine, I would be so offended and not go.

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I see this! But also, if it were me I would want to enjoy a night like this without tending to kids. The guests I have with young kids are actually really excited to get a babysitter and really have fun without the responsibility. It's almost like a date night someone is giving you, you just find the sitter.

Like others have mentioned, we have decided not to invite any children to our wedding because that is the desired vibe of our event. We are having an open bar, DJ and live band, and intend to keep the party going past midnight. FH and I have a very active social life- parties, dinners, galas, charity events, evenings out at bars with friends- and at none of them to people assume/ask to bring their children. We didn’t see why our wedding should be any different 🤷🏼‍♀️

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Oh yeah I can see where that could be an issue. I think it's a bit of a know your crowd situation. I know for sure my friends did not want their kids invited/they absolutely wouldn't have brought their kids if they were invited. But there are family members on both sides that would have been offended if kids weren't invited so obviously they got an invite.

So for me, I know my family members and how their kids are at weddings. Typically the kids start off fine, but by the end of the night the parents have checked out and are letting the kids do whatever. I've also seen my family refuse to take their fussing children out of the ceremony because they want to see it. Which is my main reason for not wanting the kids at my wedding.

Also, working at a venue, I've had to watch children run literal circles through the building and not be able to get their parents to pull them in. It's just kids being kids, but I don't want to have to hound their parents all night to keep the kids from overtaking the evening.

I just want us all to have fun without worrying about where the kids are or what they're doing. Especially given that I'm getting married outside, in a zoo, I don't want to have to worry that the kids are going to wander off and fall in the stream or something.

I want an adults only affair, plain and simple. We don't have it in the budget for kids to come, and if we did, we'd still have an adult only affair.

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This, precisely, for me. Also...

1. I'm a bartender and have worked many weddings. At multiple of them I've had the DoC come over to ask me to no longer serve certain guests - not because they were drunk (they'd only had maybe 2 drinks by that time usually), but because their kids were wreaking havoc and they weren't doing anything about it. Bride and groom specifically requested that the parents not be allowed alcohol if they weren't even bothering to watch their kids.

2. I was DoC for a friend's wedding. During their first dance about 3 kids ran onto the dance floor and were not stopped by their parents. I'll be honest, if that happened to me the dance would stop and the entire family asked to leave and then we'd start the dance over. I'm a competitive dancer, so that part of my wedding is extremely important to me. But even with starting it over, the damage would be done. That moment would have been ruined and I doubt that I'd be able to get over it quickly as the whole thing would likely throw me into a panic attack. Which brings me to...

3. FH and I both just don't like kids, and they have actually been known to cause me panic attacks. My cousin had her kids (newborn and 2 year old) at our family Christmas gathering in 2019. When someone was opening presents the 2 year old decided I was the best thing on earth and wouldn't stop trying to get me to play with her and kept talking. I was literally looking around the room mouthing "HELP!!!" at anyone looking at me because I was having a horrible panic attack but didn't want to do anything that would scare or hurt my niece. Having a panic attack because of the normal antics of a child is not something I should have to deal with on my wedding day.

4. FH and I ride motorcycles, and a good number of our guests are people from that community. And here's a true stereotype (at least for this group): they have sailor's mouths. A normal way of communicating for them is, "So, [expletive], yesterday I took the [expletive] bike out on [expletive] Turri road and there was this [expletive] who couldn't [expletive] drive..." They're not intentionally being crass; it's just part of their normal vocabulary. While I may not be the biggest fan of it, I certainly don't expect them to try to censor everything all day, while they've been drinking, because there's a kid nearby. I also wouldn't want the parents to have to worry about their kid overhearing something they don't want the kid to hear at whatever age they are.

5. Not allowing kids means we can invite more of the friends and family that we actually want there. Our budget is super tight, so our guest list isn't super huge to begin with. We want to spend the day celebrating with people that we intentionally want to celebrate with.

6. Neither FH nor I want children and feel our wedding should reflect that aspect of our lives.

The original question is moot for me because we had a small wedding with immediate family only, and there were no children in our immediate family at the time. But I definitely understand why couples would prefer not to have children at their weddings. As a guest, I have seen some really disruption behavior from kids, impacting ceremonies and receptions.

I also don't really understand in a general sense why some parents choose to never go anywhere without their kids. Short separations and different experiences can be really healthy, past the infant stage.

Some weddings simply aren't appropriate for children. We're having an ultra-formal black tie wedding with a 4 course plated meal, full open bar with top shelf liquor, live band, etc. Not an appropriate environment for kids!