How did you clearly imply a "child-free" wedding day on your invitations?

We didn't invite children. If that isn't clear enough, we also plan to write "We have reserved 2 seats in your honor," or however many seats is applicable to each household, so that they cannot add extra guests. Some people also mention it on their website, but we haven't found that necessary thus far.

We just addressed our invites to the parents names and not the _____ family. So far we haven't had anyone RSVP with their kid. We also listed on our website that it is an adults-only evening and our website was on our paper goods so I think everyone in my family got the idea. I've also had a lot of cousins get married before me the past few years who all did child-free weddings so it is pretty common and known knowledge in my family thankfully.

We are having smaller wedding (70) so all our guests were personally informed that our wedding will be adult only. In your case, that might be not possible. So I would write at the end of the invite “adult only event”. We don’t have it on the invite (because as I said everybody knows), but we did add it to our website under Q&A section.
There is nothing wrong or impolite about writing this. I get invites for many social events (not just weddings) where this is clearly stated on the invite.
Also “adult only” wording is more tasteful than “child free” lol.

My advice is: don’t assume all people will just know you’re having adult only wedding, because you address the invites to only parents names. They will not 😆 Also, I’ve heard from other brides that “we reserved __ seats” sometimes gets ignored by some guests, especially if children are small enough to sit in their laps (babies & toddlers).

I would simply just put “Adults only affair”

Etiquette wise, you aren't suppose to say adults only or no children. You should only address the people invited. Aka- Mr. and Mrs. Smith vs Smith Family. Word of mouth also works well. But ultimately you know your guests the best, so if you want you can put adult only reception.

We are also having a "kids free" wedding. The only children that will be there are the 3 that are in our wedding party. The way we went about addressing it is first off we posted it on our wedding website and the URL to our website is on our STD. Then we also put it on our invitations by stating at the bottom "Adult Only Reception to Follow"

I put on the bottom of my invite "Adult Reception to Follow" and haven't had any issues so far! The only thing that has come up was a cousin wanting to bring their new baby due to feeding reason, so that will be the only child other than the two kids in the wedding party

We addressed the invites specifically to the people invited, and put a "Guest names: ____" section on our RSVP. We also toyed with the idea of putting that statement in our little info section on the invites:

*Garden Ceremony*

*Gallery Reception*

*Adult Event*

In the end, we omitted the "Adult event" part, and instead I spoke individually with the families who would be affected (like 5 conversations total). One or two conversations were a little awkward or tense, but for the most part it was good to give the one on one attention to those guests and handle it head-on without any weird hidden resentment - or misinterpretations- from those families. I just said something along the lines of "oh yeah hey so I just wanted to follow up after sending our invites, because we're having our wedding be for guests ages 15 and up, with the exception of the flower girl, and I wanted to call to chat about it". I answered some questions, allowed one cousin to vent, more than not people were happy to hire sitters, leave the kids home, or politely decline, and that seemed to do the trick.

I put:

"Although we love your children we unfortunately cannot accommodate them at the venue due to restricted numbers.

We hope you take this as an opportunity to let your hair down and join the party with us!"

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Yep, I've heard most people ignore the reserved seats thing and just put what they want anyway. I would just put Adult Only Event on the invites.

We're going about this in a few ways:

- Addressing the invites to the adults

- "We are reserving X seats..." on the RSVP card

- Putting it on the website

- Telling everyone ourselves

We are addressing invites to adults, and put it on our website.

Adults only.

On the invite I wrote " we kindly ask for a child free wedding"
I'm sure that's probably not proper thing to do but I know my people and if I wasn't clear I would have had a bunch of kids.
I also wrote on the RSVP who the seats reserved were for

RSVP online where they cannot add their children
we have reserved X seats in your honor
“the celebration will be long and we don’t want to tire the children out so we are keeping it adult only”
“this is a teens and up event”
having someone else or yourself say in person NO kids
on your website you can also put “please contact if you need assistance finding childcare for the evening”

I only addressed the parents and if someone asked about the kid thing,I explained that because there is a river going through our venue, I didnt want kids running around and something happen. They understood.

Respectfully let them that you have room for a number of guests coming your wedding. You are inviting adults for the wedding except for the kids who are in your wedding party (ring bearer and flower girl).

This is what I plan on doing! I love this wording!

Hi my fiancé and I had the same issue and we just decided to tell everyone in our bridal party first in person and it’s kind of getting around by word of moth. We did our invitations and they are simply stating, “we love children’s but this we be an Adults only event” on both invites and RSVPs. There’s more that goes into feeling bad about it than actually doing it. You’ll be so at ease once you do. Those mature enough will understand, it’s not the first or last wedding like this! Hope this helps.

Definitely don’t IMPLY that you don’t want children present… Explicitly state it so that it’s clearly understood

• Adult ceremony and reception
• We have reserved 3 seats for you to celebrate with us