Children and Weddings - Polite way to Control

I’m planning on crayons and coloring paper (printed myself) to put at the tables... our ceremony is the same room so as long as they are entertained 30 mins that’s enough for me! We have 55 kids on our guest list! And two are my future step kids and yes they have energy!! I personally am bribing mine so I don’t have to worry lol

Hi there! So I’m having a few child as I’m a children’s minister and wanted to share this day with some of them, as well as FH uncles all have children under the age of 14.
We are going to have crayons and wedding activity books for them, and we are also going to have songs throughout the night that are songs they will enjoy dancing too (Happy, Disney songs, trolls etc.) they are guests too so I want them to enjoy it.
Everyone there also knows my job and if they didn’t see an ounce of Disney they would be shocked (as well as my FH! 😅)

16+ wedding. No regrets lol. Just couldn't take the chance of them all acting up. But we are also spending a lot of money on a cinematographer and I'm not the kind of person who considers a child screaming during my vows endearing. I pitched it as a night out.

I just realized I didn't even address OP's question. As I mentioned, we'll have lots of kids. I'm going to also have things for them to do - a basket of bubbles, some crayons/coloring books, and a few lawn games like cornhole and bocce ball.

Also, I don't know about your crowd, but in our circles we all sort of help out to "parent" the kids. If there are kids getting out of control I wouldn't hesitate at all to take them in hand myself and have a little chat with them. In group situations, we all sort of look out for each others' kids and know that everyone is OK with us laying down some discipline if need be. Obviously, as the bride, it's a different situation - but my point here is that as a guest, I'd help out the bride AND the parents by taking them to task immediately if I saw something out of line.

View Quoted Comment Thank you! Yes our family circle is no issue, the problem is the friend’s kids. Which means family won’t be okay stopping them and I’ll be the one to have to address myself.
im gonna give the coordinator a heads up and tell her to feel free to talk to my friend or come to me if need be.
We don’t have a large hall or anything, is the gardens of a hotel so I don’t have the physical space for too many games =\ ugh it’s been a rude awakening 😐

View Quoted Comment Shame on the parents who allowed that to happen. I had 4 kids, all around the age of 5 at my wedding. They had tons of fun and their parents brought coloring books for them at dinner and they stayed on the dance floor all night. Of course, my nieces (their parents) would never tolerate any bad behavior.

if I saw any kids behaving badly or being destructive at my wedding I’d have no issue talking to the parents (privately and quietly).

We we had a welcome party the night before and one of my husband’s cousins was feeding her 5 year old and put his plate of food on my new couch, even though there was a coffee table right there. Her other kid who is 9 was banging on an antique scale we have in the kitchen and she wasn’t doing anything. I took her aside and asked her to have him stop. I also asked her to take her other kids plate off my couch. If she didn’t like it, well, too bad.

Do you have a DOC? This could be one thing that she watches for you and helps control

FH and I went to a wedding last May where people brought their 4-8 year old children and mom and dad got drunk and the kids were running around, like full speed, and SCREAMING at the top of their lungs during dinner and no one did anything. That's when FH and I said 'yep, no kids at our wedding" Yes they were cute for 2 seconds on the dance floor, but I was nearly deaf from their screaming other than that.

Hope for the best, right? haha... but otherwise, wedding guests can be mad at your for what other people's children do so I guess just do your best to ignore it and have your DOC help control them if needed. I second the coloring book and crayons idea. It also helps if you have a limited passed dessert. A cupcake/cookie stand with little kids might not help

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Ugh that sounds like a nightmare! I might approach them if needed and will be giving a head's up to the staff. We are having a desserts table which I am hoping will survive until end of dessert. I was thinking about talking to my friend (the mom) ahead of time but I think I will wait to see what happens the day of and address as it happens, I think it will be less of a chance to hurt feelings. I get that people don't want to be called out on how they parent, I would not appreciate that too, but when it harms others and ruins a very expensive and so carefully planned party I don't think I will be able to sit back and just watch.

I do have crayons and bubbles and glow in the dark stuff, but like I said, they also had that at my shower and the kids lost interest so fast! - THAT is when it hit me that there's a possibility that won't work on wedding day!

I am having a no children wedding unless they are related to me by blood....that makes a total of 4, everybody else is over 12.

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I should have done the same but I felt so bad. The worse kid is my friend's girl and she is going through a very difficult divorce. I know she wouldn't be able to come without kids and it broke my heart. Truth is, I don't see her or the kids as often anymore, because I moved 2 hours away, but whenever I see the girl, she is really sweet and quiet, except that it all seem to have changed in the past few months, and maybe got worse by the fact that she had more kids around to be going wild with. I cannot and would never un-invite someone because of that, but my shower put a big weight on my shoulders on how to handle, especially because I did notice that my FMIL was very, very upset with the whole thing, and I absolutely don't want her to be that stressed on our wedding day.

We were open to having my cousins kids come to the wedding but thankfully they are not. We are having a DW as well and one of my cousins has a kid who I cannot stand. They do not parent him. He came to my son's birthday party last weekend and absolutely would not listen to me and his mom just sat there with a dumb blank look on her face. So far we will just have my 9 year old son and FH's nieces. I've never met them but I'm hoping they are well behaved. I don't think FMIL would put up with bad behavior though. I believe in parenting kids. I dislike the kids will be kids thing. Kids who get disciplined know when to not act out. My aunt always said boys will be boys and let her sons act like little jerks while her daughter had to clean and cook and do all the chores while I visited and the boys just ran around screaming and breaking things and acting like monsters. The one boy is the father of the monster child. Shocking that he doesn't know how to parent since he was allowed to do whatever. My female cousin who was actually parented( a little overly) has the best behaved kids I've met outside of my own. Ok that got long but I don't really know what to say as far as advice but parents really need to control their own children.

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I agree with this 100%. As a parent, that would be helpful for me as there is only so much I can do aside from pick them up and leaving if they get ants in their pants and start acting silly.

I'm admittedly a bit worried about this too, but I don't think there's much you can do besides provide activities should you choose to do so - and that won't necessarily help and could wind them up. I've heard a lot of suggestions to have coloring books, but no WAY am I having crayons or markers laying around for fear they'd color on the walls or tablecloths - as my future nephew is known to do. If anything, maybe see if anyone in your BP likes kids and would be willing to help usher the kids onto the dancefloor and tire them all out early!

View Quoted Comment Hahaha I’m laughing cause this is making so nervous! 😂 oh man! Final days are the most adrenaline rushing for sure!
I don’t have a bridal party (Just MOH and best man) and most of my guests (females) were at my shower and mortified to see what was going on !

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Hahah don't stress! I just have a couple of little ones in the mix who are notorious for coloring on things, and we'll have white tablecloths and the entire venue is made of antique wood, so I wouldn't push my luck.

Sounds like you have a DOC though? Might be a good job for her to corral the kids on the dancefloor for an hour or so!

I'm actually so glad you posted this, it'll remind me to make sure nobody plans on bringing their baby to the shower - I love kids but I'm tryna' have all the attention on me and the mimosas lol

View Quoted Comment Yes make sure to stress that if you want a kid free. I know that having kids at the shower worked well for a lot of my attendees because they have kids but one or two caused so much commotion I felt maybe we shouldn’t have - if it wasn’t for the mimosas, I would probably not have handled so well. I know it sounds silly but I still have vivid memories of this boy grabbing my FMIL’s necklace and pulling down and laughing uncontrollably while she was about to snap and completely in shock with her eyes wide open and her face getting pale! And then the ass kisses! I swear I didn’t even realized cause it was when I was going from table to table to take photos and then I noticed a small crowd around me of people pointing and trying to get my attention to let me know that she was doing that - and checking if my white dress was still white! Would be hilarious if it wasn’t a possible preview of my wedding day!