Why do people not like having children at their wedding?

The biggest reason, for me, was that the cost of the reception was "per person". If everyone brought their children, it would have raised the guest count significantly, which in turn would raise the cost significantly. At $35 a plate, which also included alcohol. That is a lot of money if you're on a budget.

The wording of this post made me laugh. "Not trying to offend anyone, but I won't come to your wedding unless you invite my kid."


People don't allow children at their weddings because they...don't want children there, for the many reasons that have already been mentioned. And they should need to explain there reasonings to anyone 🤷🏻‍♀️

I get that sometimes it's cost and sometimes it's venue, but I am thankful that my venue is all inclusive no matter how many people are there; so even if the kids only eat a small portion of the meal, it's no big deal to me. It's also mostly outdoors and they only hold one wedding per day so they can run around outside and blow off some steam without getting in the way of the festivities. My future sisters-in-law have two young children, and a few of my friends do as well; hopefully they are all able to attend, but they're all from out-of-state, so I feel it would be quite rude to say, "Hey, you're invited, but please get a babysitter for your kids while you're here for the weekend!" Our venue said we can also set up a small table on the side, in eyeline of the parents, for the kids to sit, and I'm going to make up some little goody bags with snacks and activities so that they'll have something else to occupy them if they get bored (if everyone comes we'll have nine or ten kids there under the age of 12).

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I agree with this. Sounds like you have a good plan in mind.

We are not having children at our wedding and we’re a mature couple. The only children that will be in attendance are our granddaughter and grandson because they’re the flower girl and ring bearer. We are having an open bar and we want to have an adult event. I don’t want a bunch of kids hogging the dance floor and running around.

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Same situation for our wedding; we've planned a very formal event and dinner won't begin until 9:00 pm. It is a destination wedding so it's a bit complex - if the family is travelling together we're honored but at the same time, the cost is $200 per plate and bringing an extra adult (ie grandparent) would add significant cost. I'm not sure why guests don't think about cost - I love children but would not expect the wedding couple to pay this cost at an already expensive event.

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Especially since wedding venues tend to charge for children what works out to be the most expensive plate of chips and nuggets.

Extra costs, having a potential meltdown during the ceremony, some adults have to be on alert if kids are there (and you can't bank on it being the parents), keeping it kid friendly with music, toasts, vows, etc

If I didn't have kids of my own, I wouldn't want any at my wedding. Alas, I'm inviting my nieces, nephew, and kid brother so mine won't be alone/up my butt the whole time

I'm sure this isn't the case for anyone here deciding to go kid free, I get it, but it seems to be pretty trendy right now for people to hate kids. I'm not sure if it's a joke or what but I see it often on tik tok and other social media. They're loud and messy. I have a 5 year old so I know. I don't bring my son to weddings if possible. Our wedding will have an unofficial time where my son will leave (and probably older guests) and it will be an adult party.

View Quoted Comment Lol same. I guess don't go then? But don't get mad at couples for hosting adult-only events. I love kids but there are places they don't belong.

I would have chosen to have ours be kid free, but I know my family wouldn't have been happy about that. So we're allowing family kids, but that's it. No friends are allowed to bring their kids.

I am ok with inviting kids but my FH is majorly against the idea. This is a bit unfortunate since the only kids related to our guests are his nieces and nephews (5 kids total, all under age 7). None of our friends or other family have kids yet. I am trying to convince him to invite the oldest two (ages 4 and 6) as flower girls and possibly his nephew (age 4), but we shall see how that goes.


He is against the idea because in general any time the kids are around, the burden of watching and caring for them falls heavily on his mother and she can't enjoy or participate in what is going on. She loves the kids but also has rheumatoid arthritis and tires quickly. We watched this go down at every holiday and event for the past year. He really wants his mother to enjoy and participate in our wedding, not just mind the children. The kids also can be quite loud and rambunctious at times which wears on my FH's nerves as he can get overstimulated by loud noise (exuberant and shrill in their happiness but not actually poorly behaved).
The plan is for us to arrange and pay for childcare since we are inviting all immediate family members who would usually care for them. Hopefully this, along with including the older ones in the wedding, will help lessen the family drama.

Personally, we didn't invite children for 2 reasons.

the first is that they can be very distracting during important moments of the wedding. I didn't want a baby crying during our ceremony, of children running across the dance floor in footie pajamas during the first dance (both things I have seen at other people's weddings, and was very unimpressed.)

The second reason was because of the guest list size. Inviting children would have doubled or tripled our guest list. we would have also had to spend more on non-alcoholic beverages, a kid-friendly dinner option, and kid-friendly activities.

We wanted our wedding to be our friends' day off, not another stressful outing where parents are worried about how their children would behave. There's definitely a time and place to celebrate and include children, but for me, a wedding definitely isn't it. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had my own children.

Because most people do not watch their children and allow them to run free and do what they want. Most people will sit there with a crying baby and not leave the room because they want to hear the vows but No one can hear over the crying baby. Also when there is an open bar why would you want to bring your kids to be around drunk people.

Kids don't want to be at weddings.

No, they really don't.

I know people with children THINK they do, but they don't.

They are expected to be quiet for long stretches of time. They are required to wear stuffy, uncomfortable clothes that are nothing like their regular clothes. They don't know most of the people around, and they are hugely outnumbered by adults who aren't interested in entertaining them. They usually don't have any of their toys or usual activities to occupy themselves. They don't understand any of the significance of anything going on.

Kids would much rather be at their friends' houses spending the night than at a wedding.

It's perfectly fine to have adult events where children are not welcome. People go to holiday parties, birthday parties, dinners, and other such events without their kids all the time. Weddings are no different.

My personal reason is because children literally outnumber adults in my event, because all of our friends have two or more children. Our guest list would be 12 adults and 13 children. I might as well host it at Chuck E. Cheese with that ratio.

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Serious question, though, and not trying to be snide: but how do you navigate this when your future in-laws, who live several states away, have two children under the age of five, for example? Tell them to leave them with a babysitter for a whole weekend? I mean, if everyone lives in the same area and it would only be for a few hours, great, but most of our extended family does not live here in Florida.

Kids will be welcome at our wedding, but I am curious!

View Quoted Comment I have been to 6 destination weddings (where all guests had to travel out of state or out of country) and each of them were adult only. A few people brought along nannies, but the rest left their children at home with their parents, SO’s parents, or aunts/uncles.

It's all about preference. I would prefer to not have little ones running around on our big day. Also, we're having an open bar, plus I wouldn't want a parent getting upset if the kids heard something that wasn't PG rated. I can't control whether a grown adult lets out an f-bomb, but I can control whether a kid is around to hear it or not.

I think a wedding is a great way to let friends who are parents have a nice night off too.

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I agree with what you said at the end, Lisa! It is not a personal attack on young families. Just a preference and what a couple wants for their day!

I wanted a kid free wedding, but since all of my family lives in other countries, and his live in different states, plus his brothers make up his wedding party, we decided to just have family children attend. I still don't like the idea, but I want my family to be able to attend, and they just can't do that if that means leaving their kids in another country for 3-4 days. Good thing is, it's more than likely that most of the kids and a parent will go back to the hotel since they'll still be little and will have to go to bed earlier.

I personally don't like kids at weddings because I don't think of them as a kid appropriate event. I've been to too many weddings where a child started screaming/crying during the ceremony, and all of the attention went straight to that child instead of the couple. Another thing is that you have to be mindful of what you say and do around little eyes and ears. I also want the parents to be able to have a night off from mom and dad duties. They get to let their hair down and let loose for a little while! And it's not even 100% about them having fun, the parents get to enjoy themselves without having to watch their kids, and wondering if they're nearby, are they behaving themselves, are they okay?