How do we tactfully invite adults only?

Hopefully just addressing the invitations right and limiting the RSVP number should do it. I.e. To Mr. and Mrs. Smith" and "_ of 2 seats have been reserved in your honor"

We used:

M______________________________

____ # of adults attending

____ Unable to attend

Just address the invitations to only those attending. Mr and Mrs Jones, not The Jones Family. I will be having and adult only wedding. If anybody has a problem with this they are more then welcome to not attend.

With respect, we would like our special day to be an adult only occasion.

This can be added to an invitation insert or your wedding website. Short and sweet! It is not rude, and you certainly don't want to send any unclear messages. If the message is unclear more often than not some guests will go with the option furthest from what you desire.

We discussed this with our family first so that they kind of had a heads up and knew what to expect. If you have a website, you can include that in the information section that you are requested "an adult affair" or however you choose to write. People in my family were still playing dumb about having adults only so I included a separate enclosure card with our invitations.

Short and sweet isn't always polite.

Invitations by name are always tactful. Address the invitations to those who are invited. Don't point out who is not invited.

If someone adds guests, children or otherwise, deal with them individually.

"I'm sorry, there must have been a misunderstanding. The invitation is for ___ and ___. We are unable to accommodate extra guests."

Normally I would add " If that means you will be unable to attend, we will miss you at the wedding.", but that's a bit difficult to do with a groomsman.

Word of mouth works great as well.

ETA: Who wants to hold a child during the ceremony?! That's just plain nuts!

You...um...invite adults only.

On my invites I plan on putting in bold. No children under the age of 16 please

You never say who isn't invited, you invite, by name who is invited. You put "we have reserved _ seats in your honour", and wait. If things change at RSVP time, you address it then. You pick up the phone and say, "I'm sorry but the invite was for you and your partner only, we hope to see you there!"

ETA: Putting who is not invited i.e. no children, adults only, is considered very gauche.

Just because you address the invite to "adults only" does not mean anything. There are going to be people who completely ignore that and think that their child is included. As WED189 mentioned, word of mouth is very effective. Ultimately, you know you're guests/family the most and will know how to effectively communicate your wishes. On our RSVP card we put the # of guests that were reserved for each household. The line was long enough on the RSVP so we put everyone's name as well. We left 0 room for error LOL

We let everyone know through word of mouth and put it on our wedding website. Also, as PP stated, we addressed the invitations by name and added the "___ seats reserved in your honor" language. Hopefully people get it lol.

If there are members of the bridal party who seem upset by this, i would speak with them directly to confirm they are still interested in being in the wedding rather than leaving it until the invites go out.

@tattooedbride Just don't invite children under 16 instead.

I put this on facebook and talked to all my family members about not having kids at my wedding. They all understood!

We did this for our engagement party & put "our celebration is adult guests only" people deff got the hint !

Sometimes people worry too much about being "politically correct" or "appropriate."

Get your point across however you see fit! It's your wedding!

@AK what? I am not inviting children I am inviting their parents. So what does your comment even mean

We don't want children and that's how we word it.

@Rachelle wtf?