A wedding without kids?

We decided not to invite non-WP kids because 1) I am not a fan of kids at weddings and 2) we did not have the room to invite them. There was also no room at the venue for a kids' room or sitter. We actually received quite a bit of backlash from my MIL about our decision. She thought it wasn't fair that only the three WP kids were invited to the wedding. I think this was because all three were my nieces and nephew. My husband doesn't have any kids he's close to, so there were no other kids in wedding party. What was really weird was my MIL was upset because her OOT friend's kids weren't invited, not because kids related to her couldn't come. We also had a local couple who are friends of my husband's change their rsvp to no a week before the wedding because their sitter fell through. One of my friend's and a cousin of my husband also had to leave early (as in during dinner or immediately after) because of getting home to kids. ETA - we just addressed our invites to the adults in the family. We didn't put anything on the website about it. If you get an rsvp with children included, just give them a call say, I'm sorry, we aren't able to accommodate your children.

This is a dumb question, but if you put "____ seats are reserved in your honor" on the invitation, how do you know the actual number of people attending? For example, if you reserve 2 seats for a couple, but only one person can make it? Should I add a line for "_____ number attending"?

We are only having kids in the immediate family (so my niece and nephew). We just addressed the invite to specific people -- Mr. And Mrs. X versus The X Family.

We did nieces and nephews only. For the rest we just addressed invitations to adults only and used WW for the RSVP, which allows people to only respond for guests on your specific guest list.

We didn't invite kids either with the exception of my sons (who are leaving ) after the cake cutting and my fh nieces and nephews who also won't be there for the entire reception. I too just put mr and mrs and not the whole family. I won't be upset if people bring their kids but I'm praying they don't bc it will be too many

We aren't having any kids. Then again, only about 3 of our guests even have young children.

We decided not to include younger kids because:

1. there would be at least 25 kids between the ages of 2-10 years old at the wedding. At our venue, children even if they sit on moms lap, are still counted towards our 160 people room limit. I'm assuming its a fire hazard thing?

2. We would much rather fill those 25 seats with adults. Kids that age will not remember our wedding but adults will.

3. It is in our contract that if security or venue staff has to tell anyone more than once to settle down then we will not get our deposit back and we will be charged for any clean ups/damages if our deposit doesn't cover all of it.

4. We want the parents to have a night out and to enjoy our wedding. We don't want them to worry about leaving early because the kids are fussy or bored.

the only exception i have is for our ring bearer who will be almost 2 by then.

He had zero children at our wedding. We just properly addressed the invites and if people RSVP'd with children we called and told them that there were no children to be at the wedding.

My brothers were actually relieved when I said we were not inviting kids. FH and I have 12 nieces and nephews between us, too many. So we are having an adults only wedding.

As for informing people, you just put who the invite is for. So Mr. and Mrs. Smith, instead of The Smith Family, which would imply the parents and kids/anyone in the household.

If someone comes to you and asks, you politely tell them that the wedding will be an adult evening and that only those addressed on the invitation are invited. If that means that certain people may not be able to come due to travel arrangements or lack of babysitting, you express that you will miss them at the wedding and are sorry they cant make it. Maybe make an effort to make plans with those people after the wedding if you desire.

Similar to what eveyone has been saying, address the invites to 'Mr & Mrs' and not 'The Family'.

Our only exception- my FH has a niece(FG) and nephew. We are going to add a line to our wedding website, but have also socialized the idea with our friends and I tasked my mom with the job of making sure my family knew what was up well in advance so everyone could plan for it.

Honestly, our friends seem super excited to have a night out without the kids.

We had kids at our wedding and it was very annoying. The parents weren't looking after them and they were running around everywhere. So my advise is no kids other than the ring bearer and flower girl.

I'm team no kids, and I'm not a fan of children in the wedding party. You don't need a toddler in the wedding party for any reason. Also nieces and nephews are not immediate family.

Only children coming to mine are my son, and his niece and nephew

We are doing a NO KIDS wedding. We sent out an RSVP card saying:

We have reserved ____ seats for you. Please confirm before _____ at ___-____-_____

and at the bottom of the RSVP we put NO KIDS

yes we are having FG & RB! The only kids allowed at the wedding are our cousins, nieces, & nephews. (20ish) WE DONT NEED ANYMORE!!! between ages (6-12)

You don't want 20 kids taking up seats! & in our case us getting charged for each dinner plate. Which they won't eat! I rather have 10 couples ( more gifts) )

Originally I thought the only kids invited would be the FG and RB, but FH mentioned his cousins children as well. (They're flying from out of state and I wasn't even thinking about his kids as I've never met them.) In total there might be 10 kids all together under the age of 10. For me this isn't an issue for a couple reasons, at my venue children under 10 are charged $15. There is also a groomsuite that is included(tv, video games) that parents will be allowed to bring their children to for a break if needed.

We're having an adults only wedding but we are having our niece as the flower girl during the ceremony. She'll leave during cocktail hour

'A wedding without kids? What are your thoughts on this? '

I am also having a wedding without kids. I simply stated it nicely on the site. My wedding is in two weeks and I did not have a problem til today that my cousin apparently didn't read that part on the site and assumed he can bring his two little ones. I just texted him that I was sorry he didn't read this earlier but that I had to stick to it. He understood and said he would find a sitter.

I am all for a no kids wedding (if you and most of your guests do not have small children like my FH & I )

We're having kids at our wedding, but we're doing a small, just immediate family and a couple good friends that know both of us. So of our around 27 guests, 6 will be under the age of 4. I live half way across the country from my family though so I couldn't imagine not having my nephews come because I don't get to spend much time with them already.

My older sister did no kids for the ceremony but allowed kids at the reception. I don't recall how she worded this on her invitations/website, but she had a couple of our other sister's friends (high schoolers at the time) watch all the cousins down in the church basement during the ceremony. We have a large family so there are always kids around at events. They just danced the night away.

I think whatever you want to do is fine ETA: She did not have a RB or FG. She made no exceptions for kids at the ceremony.

Absolutely do not write "no kids" or "adult reception" anywhere on your invitations. The proper etiquette way of conveying this is to address only those invited on the envelopes. I say this because my aunt was salty that my parents took me as an 11 year old to her daughter's explicitly written "adults only reception" after addressing the invite to the "blank family."

Not having kids is fine. You honestly need to evaluate your situation whether that will cause more drama than it's worth, though. I didn't want kids, but it was easier to just include them. As the youngest child, I knew my nieces and nephews would be there. You don't have to have any other kids but family. There is no all kids or no kids rule. Inviting in circles still applies.