Why do people not like having children at their wedding?

I know for my venue they have a policy that if we allow children at the wedding, we need to hire a professional babysitter to make sure the kids are taken care of if there are more than five kids at the event. My nieces are in my wedding ceremony (one a junior bridesmaid and two are flower girls) but my sister (their mother) said she already arranged for her in-laws to come by the venue and pick them up after the ceremony and pictures because she knows it will be a long day and a lot of excitement for them so they will be exhausted. My sister/brother-in-law want to just have a good time at the reception and not worry about getting the girls home in time before they get sleepy and cranky.

We come from families that do have children but our ceremony and reception is kid free. I (just my preference and thoughts) don't think that a wedding is a place for kids. We want those that are attending (family and friends) to have an adult evening. They are all respecting that; we personally don't have kids yet and we love kids and plan on having our own family but our preference is for no kids. Our venue also charges $72/child. There are so many that its not in our budget and I was not willing to go with another venue just to invite kids. We aren't even having a flower girl or a ring bearer. If we had kids and were invited to a no kid wedding, we wouldn't be offended at all...we'd get a sitter and make sure we enjoy the heck out of our kid free night

I used to never get it but when I went to our venue the first time, it's a historical site. I noticed this old piece, one of the only things they have left to the venue, was held up with a ziptie. My fiance asked and they said a kid twisted it until it broke off at a wedding. Now I'm dreading any kids going down there and breaking something. Or there's an open area where a kid could easily climb up and fall down a story and it has to be open because of the type of venue it is and the season we're having it in. I. Get. It. Now. lol.

Personally I am not having kids at my wedding. Not that I don't like kids or love my friends kids, its just that I have never pictured my wedding day including kids. I'd rather not be exchanging vows with my fiancé and hearing antsy kids being annoyed because they have to sit through the ceremony. Also our wedding is a formal evening wedding with an open bar so its not exactly kid-friendly. Out of all the weddings I have been to, I have only seen kids at 1 of them and it was probably only a handful. A few of my friends have young kids now and a lot of my fiancé's friends have kids so inviting all of them would substantially increase our guest count and impact our capacity. Also I want our guests to enjoy themselves without having to worry and follow around their kids all night. Some of them are young parents and have already told us they can't wait for our wedding because its going to be parents night out!

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I feel like this is an unpopular opinion, but I would be disappointed if I didn't have any kids at my wedding. I work with children and honestly, I like most kids more than I like most adults. For me personally, I feel like kids make weddings more fun. FH and I are inviting his niece and nephew, and I'm so excited! As for other kids, we haven't finalized the guest list yet, but if any of the other guests we do invite have kids, their kids will be invited to.

I don't think adult-only weddings are rude, but when some kids are allowed and others aren't, I think that's a problem

Honestly sometimes it just for financial reasons my fiancé and I have very large families so we had to draw a line somewhere so we decided no kids under 13 and our wedding is still at about 275 people. We are paying for the wedding ourselves.

Personally, we said no due to one particular family. They have literally crazy hyperactive kids. Our friend is the kind of parent who would let them run screaming down the aisle knocking flowers over, and she'd be like "oh they're so cute!". So because we didn't want those kids there, we had to say no to all kids. We did allow some teenagers, 13 and 16. They're super well-behaved and polite. And we know they'll always be a part of our lives. So slight loop hole there.

My wedding is black-tie in a venue with stairs and I'm just putting on my website, that the venue is "not safe for children" (as recommended by a WW article). Some have asked me in person, and I just tell them, kids like chicken fingers anyway. I really do feel my friends and family deserve an evening off. Grandma Jane needs a day where she's not worrying the kids are on the elevator because they're bored. Any other day, they can worry about the kids. My mother asked me if my nieces and nephews could come to cocktails, and I said no, people are drinking. It's really that simple.

I think my nieces and nephews will be upstairs in the hotel together watching movies, eating pizza with the nannies. I may include them in the ceremony though because the Church event would be daytime.

I actually wanted a gorgeous microwedding under 50 with my immediate family incl. nieces and nephews and was willing to pay $625/head. But, my partner wanted something bigger, so we settled on a different venue for more adult friends and family with dancing, no children. My big fear is if my partner's friends came with their kids and disregarded our wishes and our friendship. I won't even go into a rage, I would have security ask them to leave.

We had many reasons for not inviting children to our wedding and we contemplated our decision A LOT before coming to an agreement.

1. We would have 8+ children there, all under the age of 4. While it's cute to see them all playing at picnics and running around together outside, I did not want this happening on my wedding day when I'd like the day to be more about my fiance and I starting our married life together.

2. We still have to pay per plate per kid, and it's not cheap. I think our venue charges about $35-40 for a plate of chicken fingers and fries, which the kids probably won't eat all of.

3. We didn't want noise during our ceremony.

4. Kids would most likely be bored at a wedding as there's not a lot for them to do, and we weren't going to provide activities for them because again, that costs money.

5. Kids have a bedtime. For the kids 4 and under, that bedtime is 7-7:30, some are 8. That means their parents are most likely going to leave early in order to get their kids to bed on time because children tend to need that consistency with schedules at that age. We want the parents there and to enjoy their time, not rush to leave to put their child to bed.

6. This one is going to sound really selfish, but so be it. My FH's family is BOOMING with children, so naturally all of the attention at any family function is almost always on the children. We didn't want this to happen on our wedding day. We wanted to have a day where people were more focused on us and celebrating our love vs. gushing over the kids and paying attention to the kids.

We do enjoy seeing our nephews and all of the other little ones in our family, but for us it was just going to be too much and neither of us ever envisioned having 8+ children running around at our wedding. So we opted to do adults only.

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Perfectly said.

I love kids myself, and I come from a big family. In my extended family there's nieces and nephews, the children of cousins and so on. I wouldn't even consider a child free wedding. But kids are messy and noisy, it can be difficult to keep them quiet at the right time, so I can get why some people wouldn't want kids at their weddings.

I will say though I'm surprised people exclude teenagers as well.

We're not having kids at our reception for a few reasons. First, our venue isn't exactly kids friendly and I would absolutely hate for any of them to get hurt or into something they shouldn't. Off of that, my mom is the type of person who would make it her job to keep an eye on them all and that's not what I want for her on her daughter's wedding day. The last big one is space. While there are some cousins in their teens that I'd be okay with extending an invitation to, we don't really have the room to extend the age range to under 18.

We are having FH's nieces and nephew in our wedding and they will be taken home by FSIL's in-laws either before or after dinner. We will be giving them activity boxes to give them something to do while everyone is getting ready and will be paying for the kids and in-laws to have dinner whether they decide to stay or not so they can make the decision based on how the kids feel.

View Quoted Comment I’ve never been to a wedding where kids were disruptive like u are all saying. All this does is keep loved ones away. Have never seen a couple that loves kids keep them out of their wedding. So selfish.

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Selfish is not respecting boundaries and feeling entitled to bring your children along where they're not invited. No one will love your kid or your parenting as much as you. Having an adults-only wedding is not a personal attack on you.

I don't know anyone who has declined a wedding because their kids weren't invited so I don't think it keeps people away. Also a couple having a vision for their wedding that doesn't include kids isn't selfish. What's selfish is people believing their kids need to be accommodated at all events.


Also before you jump to conclusions about me, I have two children who have rarely been invited to weddings and it's never been an issue for us. We've missed one wedding in the last 8 years of being together and that was because we already had a pre-existing engagement for that weekend.

View Quoted Comment Your 7 year old “angel” is subjective to, oh, you. And some couples are faced with cutting their own sisters and best friends kids with a NO KIDS NO EXCEPTIONS or inviting the other 28 children that include yours. You want to spend THOUSANDS of dollars on an event those 28 children care about so much to be there? Rest assured, if someone invites you and not your children, they didn’t take it lightly. It’s not easy to make these decisions and people like you who have no money in the game but plenty of opinions drive brides crazy

We LOVE kids. We have 22 niece and nephews and we seriously adore them.

And yet, we are having a black tie wedding with no kids. You know who was super pumped about that? The parents. They were thrilled to have an evening (weekend for most) away from the kids, getting dressed up, going to a fabulous party and spending quality time with their partner and friends and family that they otherwise rarely get to do.

It's really weird to say that someone doesn't like kids because they prefer to keep a wedding adults only. You only have one wedding. One night or one weekend or whatever. God willing you have had and will have MANY more birthdays, holidays, milestones etc with the beautiful children in your lives. Also, kids don't care. They'd rather be having pizza and staying up late with the babysitter than attending a day long event that is not intended for them.

Btw, I'd be willing to be a good amount the people who are so offended by an adults only wedding concept are the ones with the most rambunctious kids.

Anyway, to each their own! Good luck!!

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Angie,

Your point about rambunctious kids is a big one nowadays. Partly there is hyperactivity issues but there are also more discipline issues -- or lack of discipline.

Maybe another option would be to have sort of a family reunion that is also a second "reception" to honor the newlyweds with the younger relatives. This would not benefit the friends of the bride and groom though -- or some of their children could be part of the reunion/reception event.

View Quoted Comment I hate hate hate this comment. “You must not love kids if you want to keep them out of your wedding”. This is the most ridiculous generalized statement I have ever heard in my life.


I love my dog a lot but I don’t feel the same way as other peoples dogs. DO I WANT MY DOG AT MY WEDDING EITHER? NO. It doesn’t mean I don’t like dogs.
Just because you don’t want kids at your wedding DOESNT MEAN YOU DONT LIKE KIDS.

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That's so true. But I have seen those wedding pictures where people have made their dogs part of the ceremony along with them at the altar. The dogs will not know what this is all about. Maybe such ceremonies are still pretty rare.