Children?

It's perfectly fine not to want to have kids at the wedding, but I don't recommend making an arbitrary cut-off age (that might separate families and that's typically more inconvenient, and possibly rude, than just not inviting kids). You can have just children you'd like in the wedding party or just family children (nieces, nephews, cousins' kid, etc.), but there's usually no way beyond that to pick and choose who's children are invited without coming across as rude.

I agree with pp, I don't think have a cut off age is appropriate.

View Quoted Comment What about not inviting younger kids?

View Quoted Comment

What do you mean? That's still using a cut-off age. If you have a family with a six-year-old, a ten-year-old, and a fourteen-year-old, you'd be making the family choose between leaving one/two kids, all their kids, or not coming.

Agree with previous posters that the most tactful options are:
1) Invite all kids
2) invite no kids3) only invite immediate family kids, those in wedding party and those nursing
We’re going with option 3 and have had no pushback, even our friends with newborns are leaving their babies at home.

I get what PPs are saying but in my opinion it also depends on your guest list. We technically do have a cut off age but it works for us - were just not invited little kids. The kids in our family or circle are all under 5 or they’re teenagers and there are no families that have a 8 and 13 year old or whatever combination. It’s either they’re all toddlers or they’re all older teenagers (15+). A 15 year old is SO much different than a 4 year old, obviously lol. They’re not likely to randomly start screaming during the ceremony, they don’t need to be constantly monitored, they’ll probably eat all of their food (my venue doesn’t have a kids menu so I’d be spending 100+ for a four course meal and open bar for a toddler... makes no sense, open bar still doesn’t make sense for a teen but at least they’ll take advantage of pops and Shirley temples), and they’re not as likely to break the items in my historic venue, which I’m liable for, and etc., and if my guests don’t get that and are offended that their toddler isn’t invited but a high schooler is then that is on them lol. However it might be different if you have a ton of 9 or 10 year olds and a ton of 13 year olds where the 9/10s aren’t invited but the 13 year old is. That’s a lot different and might offend some people. I’d take a look at your guest list and if that’s the case then I’d just do no kids altogether.

I'm not inviting anyone who's under 18! Besides my little brother who will be 17. I'm phrasing it as adults only and it's in Vegas and will be a later wedding so should be understood.

We will offer a sitter in one of our suites. I'm more concerned with disturbances during our ceremony. Our videographer also ensures us that a major disturbance would have to happen to impact our video from a sound perspective as the mic's are noise canceling to focus on our voices and the officiant.

I attended a wedding a few years ago where they stated that they were having a kid-free ceremony but kids were welcome to the reception. From your last response, it sounds like ceremony disruptions are your main concern. This way you can have an adult oriented ceremony and parent's that may be inclined to skip the event if their kids can't go can just join the celebration after.

On our invitations I added this blurb "Please join us for an adults only evening filled with love, fun, food and laughter"

I too didn't know how to broach the subject, but if people ask I just tell them the truth. I want our reception to a "date night" for all of family and friends. A time for them to come and enjoy themselves and celebrate our marriage. I don't want them to have to worry about where their children are or what they are getting into.