Children and Weddings - Polite way to Control

I have not "field tested" this idea, but I was a camp counselor for several years and I think it might help to have some activities for the kids to do at their tables to help keep them occupied, coloring books and crayons or pencils (not markers!!) a small craft project or two? No clue what your venue is like but if you could designate a play area for the kids that might help keep things contained. Not sure any of that is realistic, but I hope this helps!

You don't. You let parents parent. There is no nice way to tell a parent to control their child.

Agree with @A_Mart though, having a few things for them to do might mitigate any distractions.

I personally only have the children in the wedding party attending the reception as anyone may come to the church ceremony if they wish. The kids are my future step children and the other is my niece, I am trying to make it a "night out" without children as to make it less hectic in a way and more of an adult night. Best of luck and I'm sure if there are some activities like others have mentioned it will be even more fun for them and very thoughtful that you planned something just for them!

View Quoted Comment That's what we're doing. My son is 4. He has lots of cousins. They're not totally out of control or anything but they're kids. They don't want to sit all night or whatever. We will habe2 coloring books and we might have a lego table. My son would sit with the Legos forever if I let him. As parents though, we always make sure our kid has a toy or something to entertain himself at things like this.

Do you have a DJ? If so, perhaps he/she could make a humorous announcement about unsupervised children. Will a venue manager be present? If so, mention your concern to the manager and encourage the manager to take control is the kids get out of control. Believe me, the manager won't want or tolerate the servers being knocked into. Way too much liability.

I don't think you can do anything about this that will not piss people off. This is one to the many reasons I had a child free shower, will have a child free wedding weekend. My FMIL was just complaining to my FI about how many people claim they are going to decline oh well.

OP, leave it alone and hope for the best. If you have assigned seats, maybe leave a little something on their seat to help them be constructive.

My mom helped me make activity bags for our flower girl and ring bearer (7 and 5) that has things like a felt checkerboard set, Color Wonder markers, and a Lego kit to keep the kids busy. My cousin is also very good with kids and adores my flower girl and ring bearer (also his and my cousins) so I've just told him to make sure they don't set anything on fire or stick a fist in the cake. Besides that, kids will be kids and you have to let their parents deal with them.

My problem is that this is a DW And some guests (which are very few) wouldnt be able to attend without the kids.
I am all for letting parents parent but the main thing is, one of the children in the shower for example was kissing everyone’s asses. I’m not kidding. This girl would come from behind you and kiss your rear. Now imagine after eating Italian a kid comes and marks your ass with tomato sauce! She also stuck her hand into my cake - my FMIL almost had a thing.
They had crafts available but that only lasted one hour or so.

I'm going to have 25 or so children between 3-11 (all family - my friends children aren't invited). I am going to trust that my brother and cousins will supervise their children :-) I do have wedding coloring books/crayons which will help and i'm going to ask them all to make me a wedding card. I don't see myself proactively trying to do anything to minimize this but if there is an issue, I'd just speak to the parent privately for a moment. I really do think it will all be fine though. My venue has a lot of space and my family is thankfully filled with responsible parents.

What are the ages of these children? I don't understand a mindset that thinks it is okay for children to harm others, which running into a server or destroying someone else's property are both forms of harm. And unfortunately, there is no nice way to tell people they need to round up their children who are causing damage. What would have happened if the server dropped something on the child when he/she ran into the server? Or if the child broke glass and then cut themselves?

View Quoted Comment

There has to be a point that it's acceptable to say something. If they are damaging your property/running into servers who have plates of food/drinks and the parents aren't doing anything, you're just supposed to let them keep damaging stuff and running around? I don't get that.

View Quoted Comment

Oh no no no I would of said something to the kid, let the parents get mad I don't live in a world where I cater to children and let them run the show. Luckily all my cousins kids and kids from my FH side are all well behaved because they know what would happen if they didn't.

I dont know about your area but in mine there is actually like a babysitting company that comes to your event and takes care of the kids while the event is active.
They have games and toys and activites that they bring with them to keep the kids entertained and their age groups range from infants to i think 14yrs.
Might be worth your while to look into something like that in your area.

View Quoted Comment

I'm really glad to see this post - I have about the same number of children that are just in our family (and two of our closest friends which I consider family, and we're close with their kids). I haven't yet sent invitations but I just went through my guest list and deleted all of our friends' children. Because if I hadn't, it would have trended towards FIFTY kids. Now I know for a fact that a good many will not be coming, but I wasn't sure about others. So I made the decision to just leave the kids of family members on the invite and remove the others - I was feeling some guilt because of an "all or none" mentality that I have. So it's great to know someone has done something similar and the world isn't ending.

View Quoted Comment That’s how I feel - I mean I would feel bad for my other guests to have drinks spilled or clothing stained because I kid was just running wildly with no one watching. Like I said running around the room playing with each other is cool, even a little mischief here and there but when it affects other people (a lot of non parents too and older ones) that would make me more uncomfortable than talking to the parents - I guess I’ll have to accept that that’s the only way if it reaches a point where I see no one is controlling.

I'm all for letting parents parent, but I'm NOT for letting kids run roughshod over a party. I'd have said something to these parents, and not worried whether I offended them.

It may be just me (mother of 4!) But if someone sees my child doing something out of line, that I'm not seeing, I would absolutely prefer you telling me so I can handle it! I would not take offense at all!! Unfortunately not all adults are the same, and you can very well offend someone. I do agree with PP that having stuff for kids to do is a big plus! Not all parents realize this and kids get antsy! We are doing a full kids section, with games, coloring, tablets, etc... there will be approx 13kids at our wedding with our 4. Good luck OP!

View Quoted Comment Thanks Emilie! I was panicking watching my FMIL getting all the stuff they prepared destroyed and asking the kid to stop with no response and worse, the mother doing nothing. We have crayons and coloring books and glow in the dark toys but we will be outside in a garden area for my reception so it won’t be bright the whole time and at some point (just like the showering) arts and crafts won’t work anymore.
I’m hoping my DJ will keep everyone dancing -
even the kids!

View Quoted Comment I would have asked them to leave. Point blank. I have honestly ended a friendship over how someone didn't parent their child. I have three myself and understand how kids can be kids, but when you see them out of control and don't do anything about it, I question your critical thinking skills. I'm really still weighing the whole kids at a wedding thing. Mines and wedding partys kids will be ok to attend, but I told my fmil that in a wedding of 100, I can't have 50 kids, especially when there are other adults I want to invite to share this day with us. Almost no one that has kids in our family has just one, they have 3 and 4!

I think people worry too much about "offending" others, to the point where you have things like kids running around kissing strangers on the ass and nobody says boo.

Speak to the parents of the kids who were wild. Remind them of what happened at the shower, and tell them that the kids need more supervision at the reception. Word it like, "I know kids get excited when they're in a big group like that, but I don't want anyone getting hurt." If the parents get defensive or push back, let them know in no uncertain terms that SOMEONE will address out-of-control behavior if they won't.

Then have a few trusted friends or family that would be willing to redirect an unruly kiddo (or at least make sure Mom & Dad do!).

There's no reason why your wedding should be a disaster just to avoid the possibility of offending a parent who clearly needs to work on their kids' manners!