First Rsvp- including kids that weren’t invited :(

View Quoted Comment You are not crazy. Guests who would have to travel have the option to decline if they do not feel comfortable leaving their children at home to attend. I would have called that guest and told them that you are sorry but the invite did not include their children and you understood if that changed their ability to make it to the wedding. Many people travel to attend a wedding and leave young children at home! When you have kids sometimes you have to miss events if your children are not invited!

View Quoted Comment Unless you are talking an infant ( an exception), there is no reason you cannot allow these friends to travel with kids, see people before the wedding and after if they know people in the area, but you locate a babysitter for 6 hours of the wedding and reception . Let them know of their error, tell them you have located a babysitter at a certain rate, if they choose, or they locate their own. We travel with kids, not just for weddings. And every trip, no matter where, there is much of a day or evening where we are going to an evening affair, maybe adult oriented, or maybe show tickets of $120 and a minimum of $50 for dinner per person. Which we are not willing to take kids to (5). And we have never not been able to find a babysitter , usually vocational nurses, teachers , or daycare people looking for an extra $120. We also have 2 children who periodically need surgery or other medical things, and must travel from our rural area to get it. Which means finding a sitter in that place for 3 hours at a time, if no family available to travel with us. We decided to have 5 kids. And we are responsible for their child care, when at home, or traveling. Not party hosts paying $60-150 per child to have children they decided not to invite. It has never been the rule that if you invite one child to a wedding, you must invite all. If you invite your brother's 6 and 9 and 14 year old, it would not be nice to exclude your other brother's 8 and 13 year old. They are the same degree of closeness. But not inviting kids of an old school or army buddy, kids rarely seen by you and not known, while still inviting nieces and nephews, is fine. We did not have any problem with the , we always bring our kids everywhere crowd in FI family, when we explained just once that the adults we were inviting had 157 kids we were not inviting, age 2-15, though we did have a nursery at venue site for 15 infants. Not hard to see why it was unreasonable to expect us to pay $8000 plus for basic meals, plus rest of costs, and tax and tip increases, to drive it up to a $12,000 cost. For a 7 pm to 1 am, very formal affair? No. Our whole budget, including clothes, was under $15,000.

View Quoted Comment I do not know about your family. But for the past hundred years, whenever children are invited, it says it on the invitation, each name, or & family. To ASSUME kids are welcome at all weddings shows no knowledge of etiquette, or social manners. Not just weddings: For any occasion for which invitations are issued, only individuals who are named on the invitation, are invited. People do this at graduations, too, 21 people show up for 4 seats. Never assume your spouse, your friend, a date, or children, are invited " automatically." No such thing.