Adults only except immediate children?

Just address your invitations explicitly to the people who are invited ("Mr. John and Mrs. Jane Doe" rather than "The Doe Family.") Focus on who IS invited, not who isn't.

Do you have an age cutoff for who will/won't be invited? If you don't have a clear, unbiased rule, then you probably will end up offending some people. For ours we are inviting ages 13+ because we feel as if our ballroom setting is completely appropriate for a young teenager but not a literal child ("adolescents" are not counted as children in our case)

We mostly want to make it 18 and up however we have 3 teen/preteens in our bridal party and a few 1st cousins that are teenagers who are invited.

Address invitations to those invited. Don’t tell people “adults only” or “no kids.” You can prefill the number of seats reserved or include the exact names of those invited on the inner envelope.

We did ___ seats have been reserved in your honor on the RSVP card; it worked well. I only had three people question it. These days I feel like the average person does not understand the envelop indicated who is invited, Most couples I know had issues when RSVPs were due.

Honestly you may have some parents who are upset because they think they are entitled to bring their kid every where, nothing you can do about it. I had one couple who totally understood their poorly behaved 2 year old wasn't invited but they were difficult and entitled about it. I refused to make an exception for them no matter how manipulative they were, they dropped their brat off with her parents and came to the wedding,

View Quoted Comment My fiance and I have a 1 year old (will be 2 at the time of the wedding) who is our ring bearer but will not stay for the whole reception.

Hi Katlynn! Welcome to WeddingWire and congrats on your engagement!

Your guest list, children included, is totally up to you and your fiancé(e). The others give some great insight in this thread. You can also check out our article here on WeddingWire about how Yes, You CAN Have an Adults-Only Wedding. Here’s How. I hope this helps!

I made sure to address the invitations to specifically the adults and not to the family. I also made sure to slip it in that it is adults only in casual conversation like "oh yeah well since it's only adults we can let loose!" or something like that.

Some people put in their wedding websites something like

“To allow all guests to relax and enjoy themselves, we have chosen to make our special day adults only. We thank you for your understanding.”

or

“We love your kids but thought you might like a night off. Adults only please!”

View Quoted Comment Thanks I like that idea of night off for the adults haha

Don’t invite children and they’ll know children aren’t invited.
It’s best to do all children or none. It’s going to be hurtful to your guests when their 13 year old isn’t invited, but they see someone else’s 13 year old there. Telling them that you’re closer to that child isn’t going make it better.

View Quoted Comment Well that isnt possible for us we have children in our wedding party. So they're obviously invited but with 240 adults at 70 bucks per plate we cant really afford to invite everyone's children.

View Quoted Comment The bridal party is always an exception.

View Quoted Comment Ya other than that there are only adults/ teens that are invited. So no kids other than the bridal party.

I would literally put the names of the those invited on the invitations. I wouldn't leave any room for error. Some people will assume if you put "Mr & Mrs. Johnson" on the invitation, that means their 4 children are invited as well. Just make sure you put "We've reserved 2 seats for Frank & Carolyn Johnson." So there cannot be any mix up in that sense. If people bring their kids after you've made it crystal clear, they do not respect you at all. I hope all goes well.

View Quoted Comment Thanks I think I will do this and have the rsvp cards say _ of 2 attending

I'm doing the same thing, and my mother did too when she got remarried recently. She put "adult reception only" on the invites and I don't think she had any issues.

View Quoted Comment Eh.. This may be selfish but it's your wedding day. Who cares if they don't like it. They can do (or they already did) what they want for theirs. I'm sure they aren't going to offer to pay for them and in the end it would ruin the vibe you want for your special day.

View Quoted Comment I dont think parents themselves will have issues since it is a night off after all and to be honest it's less stress to not have to watch a child all night. It's mostly my 2 grandmas who want to invite everyone (and their friend neighbor and coworker) When I told them we wanted adults only they felt that was weird to uninvite peoples children.

View Quoted Comment May be weird but you could always present it as a miscommunication. Its your day, I vote do what you want and don't stress about it.

So happy I came across this post. I will definitely be using some of the advice on here as I want to have an adult reception as well. The only kids that will be there are the 4 that are in the wedding party.

View Quoted Comment

I will warn you now, grandmas were the BIGGEST PITA when it came to us not inviting their grandchildren. Two of my aunts were so upset I didn't invite there young grand children (all under 3)... The parents themselves didn't even want to bring them. They both went around complaining to anyone who would listen about.