Children or no children at the reception??

We are doing kids too! We are having a craft table, food table, kids games, things to keep them busy. In all honesty you're going to be so busy mingling with everyone that if a child needs there parent you won't even notice there gone for 5min!! And besides I needs kids there to keep mines busy! Ahaha

I'm NOT a kid person. I actually really don't like kids at all most of the time. BUT we plan to extend invites to kids in our circles for two reasons. Most importantly, a few parents are flying out to see us. Second, the grand total is something like 4 or 5 kids.

ETA: and no, we're not having kids in the bridal party. I'd be open to changing my mind on this, but it's not a necessity by any means. My dog will be a fabulous ring-bearer.

My sister did no kids and she had no problems with people not showing up. They were able to find accommodations. It's helpful if you send invitations out early as well. I'm having kids but that's because we are having a ring bearer. You can always limit who can bring them as well.

We have 4 children so we can't escape them but we have hired guardian angels sitting service where the children will be watched in a different area with games, toys, food ect. So adults can enjoy the reception since its open bar.

I have 7 grandkids and they're all in my wedding we have 15 kids coming. I'm a preschool teacher and then moving away so I invited some kids families from my class

We are having no kids! My niece and nephew will be there, but they are older and will be our junior bridesmaid and groomsman. No flower girl or ring bearer for us either. Probably one of the best decisions we have made, nothing against kids or anyone who has kids at their wedding. Most of the kids in our family right now are our cousin's children, so things may have been different if we had more we were closer with.

We are having kids. But the only people we really know with kids are my two sisters and then the two kids I nanny. So there will only be 8, and they all know each other and play well together.

I don't plan on having children at my wedding or in my bridal party. I've attended wedding where there were kids or not. I enjoyed the adult only receptions.

We're having kids (there are about 45 on our guest list!) but FH and I both love kids and I work in childcare. I also have a huge number of first cousins who will be coming from out of town and I wouldn't want to ask them to find childcare or leave their kids at home. My family doesn't see each other very often, so weddings tend to be very family centered, kind of like family reunions. I can't imagine not having kids at my wedding, but I think it's perfectly acceptable if you prefer to have a more formal grown up vibe.

Our 16 year old daughter, who's my MOH and our 14 year old son, the Best Man will be the only "kids" there.

I never understand why some people would be offended and not go to a wedding just because their children aren't invited.. I would never even think about bringing my daughter to a wedding with us!

I think this could be one of those "know your crowd" situations. We are having no kids except for my 6 year old daughter. We have 4 couples invited to our wedding who have two kids each. They all live about a 2 hour flight from our wedding destination. We know that these are people who routinely go away for weekends without their kids so we knew that they would probably be comfortable leaving their kids behind, and had people to watch the.. Sure enough, all four couples are attending the wedding and not a single one asked about bringing their kids. And all these kids are on the younger side. All between the ages of 2-7. Like I said, it depends on your crowd.

We invited kids, but honestly the youngest one coming is 10, so it wasn't a big deal for us.

NO KIDS except ring bearer and flower girl.

We have my 2 nephews in the wedding other than that no kids.. we are very close to them, I could never imagine them not there.

It's a general consensus throughout our friends that they wouldn't bring their kids to a wedding because they want to have a night out.

We have no one under 21 except the kids that are involved in the wedding (so my 2 nieces and my 2 nephews). I specifically addressed the invitations to those that were invited and on the RSVP cards I added " (#) seats have been reserved in your honor." I also made a note on my wedding website that as a general rule, no one under 21 was invited except for the children involved in the wedding ceremony.

When I reached out to a family member that hadn't returned their RSVP I was told that he and his wife would not be attending because He "is not inclined to attend an event that his children are not invited to." I could maybe see that if he had young children, but I'm pretty sure his high school and college age children with jobs couldn't care less if they were invited or not. I get doing things as a family, but I was slightly offended at first when he said that to me. I'm totally over it though. We'll still have a great time without them.

ETA - spelling...oops!

Keep in mind that if you invite children to the ceremony, they must be invited to the reception.

If you don't want to invite children, don't. However, don't offer babysitters, parents are very picky about who they will let watch their children. You also don't have to do an all or nothing. You can only invite children you are close to.

NO KIDS! weddings aren't for kids. They will be running all over the place and it will be pure chaos! I've seen it and people regret it. Best of luck!

We had kids there and it was a blast. We didn't care much about the formality of it, just that people were hosted well and had a good time. It was a big priority to us to make sure people could attend who really wanted to, and allowing kids there definitely helps with that.

It's also a know your crowd thing. Between DH and I, we have 24 nieces and nephews who were coming from three different states and we never would have excluded them, so at that point it wasn't a big deal to let our friends bring kids too. They're all used to attending weddings so they were well-behaved - one of my nephews is pen pals now with my best friend's kid, which is adorable.

We are just having a few kids because honestly most of our guests either don't have young ones at home. Maybe 5 kids. I think its ok to invite just kids whose parents have to travel to your wedding.