How do you politely say 'no kids' on an invitation?

I wouldn't put the wording on your invitations, though if you have a wedding website, definitely list it on there, and add your website to your invites! On your website, you could state something along the lines of, "Due to venue capacity limitations, we are unable to accommodate children at our reception. We apologize for the inconvenience." Also, address your invites only to the adults ("Mr. & Mrs. Smith" instead of "The Smith Family"), and also maybe add a line on the invites stating something like, "We have reserved __ seats in your honor".

I'm confused. You're inviting children to the ceremony and the dinner, but not for after dinner? If that's the case, I would plan that people will either not come or will leave after dinner when their children have to, because people aren't going to want to take children home and come back. We had children at our wedding, but if you don't want children at the reception, I would plan on having a child-free wedding (though your children would obviously be an exception). I do wonder who will be taking your children home though?

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I agree with this.

If you want adults only, you address the envelopes to the adults instead of "The Jones Family". You also print out on each reply card the invited guests' names so there is no confusion. You do not put "adult reception" or related verbage anywhere on the invites or inserts.

Hi Kayleigh! My husband’s aunt gave me the best advice- place “We have reserved x seats in your honor” on your RSVP cards. On the envelope address it to only the adult names (ex: Mr. and Mrs. Smith). Luckily, we had no questions about bringing children. In fact, many of our guests were relieved as little ones do not always understand social distancing or too small to wear masks. We had a very covid-cautious crowd and from a safety perspective (and probably a much needed break), the parents appeared to be happy and enjoyed themselves. Hope this helps! ❤️🙂

We’re doing a child free wedding/ceremony. It’s been a word of mouth since the beginning. We also put on the RSVPs “Adult Ceremony/Reception” so there wouldn’t be any question. We also addressed the envelopes to the adults example Mr & Mrs Chavez not Mr & Mrs Chavez & family.

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Since our children are in our wedding, and many of our family members with younger ones aging about 10-16 will be travelling from other states, we know that they would at least like to participate in seeing the wedding, so we weren't planning on an adults only wedding. With that being said, we know most of the cousins will most likely go back to their hotel, where our children will join them. Those logistics have been planned in advance. We don't expect a lot of the younger ones to even stay for dinner, in fact, I anticipate most of them leaving after the ceremony since cocktail hour will be following.

View Quoted Comment Who is feeding the kids?

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I wouldn't expect people to come back for the reception, then, unfortunately.

It honestly depends, I see a lot of great ideas for clever ways to do it but honestly depending on your guests you may need to plainly spell it out for them. I agree with putting it on your website but don’t let it be the only place you put it. Only 3-5 ppl of my guest list visited mine. And if that happens to you guests will miss out on a lot of info. I say put it on your rsvp card something like we have reserved __ seat(s) in your honor for our adult only affair. Enter in how many seats to further reiterate how many can come and in the envelopes also write out who this invite is for. If youre sending a covid safety note like I am put it there too and on your enclosure card. Even on the save the dates, (save the date for our adult only wedding.) you can find better wording. But if you are worried about ppl not being informed try to put it out as much as you can. Even use word of mouth. Let your parents spread the word by phone. Just cover your basis so you know the information is made known to everyone.

My fiancé and I are lucky that the only guests with children are his immediate family members so we are going to discuss it with them directly prior to sending the invitations. We are also going with "we have reserved ___ seats in your honor" since our event is small and not everyone is getting a plus one.


Since his sister (who doesn't like me much but we really want to be there) has 4 kids under age 10 and is struggling financially, I am also planning on offering to pay and/or arrange for childcare for that day. She has occasionally asked my fiancé for money for bills so I am not worried about offending her pride with the offer of financial help.

On my invitations I'm putting Adult Reception. Only kids we are allowing are the ring bearer and flower girl.