Is excluding children ever ok?

Thanks for the advice and support, everyone! I forgot to mention that on top of concerns over cost and behavior, this is an evening wedding/night reception. It'll cause a rift, but I know her husband, my cousin, won't let her bring the child if I explicitly say no.

We're only have my fiance's two nieces (4 & 6) as our flower girls and NO other children were invited. I got yelled at by his sister (whose daughters are in the wedding) that some family friends' children MUST be invited. I put my foot down as we are also charged adult prices for kids. When we added it up, there would've been 30+ kids to invited once we opened that can of worms and that A LOT of money! I have only one into one real problem so far, my fiance's sister's friend who is due to give birth 2 weeks before my wedding RSVP'd that she and her husband are coming (didn't know she was pregnant when we invited her) and she has since informed me that they are planning to bring their NEWBORN. They know it's adult only and clearly don't care. We really have not one iota of extra space so I'm seating them out on the patio (the only area with room enough to set a baby carrier) which also happens to be right next to the band. I think she might regret her decision to bring the baby, if she even is able to come.

Bottom line, it's your wedding, do what you want! And another tid bit of advice I wish someone would've told me in the beginning... be vague about wedding details or tell people you want everything to be a surprise on your big day... otherwise you will have to deal with way more opinion and unsolicited advice/insistances... what details people don't know they can't complain about or try to change!

We will only have the children who are in the ceremony at the wedding and reception. I had a coworker who has 3 boys ages 8-13 ask if she could bring them, at which point I explained that only children who are family will be attending. She seemed fine with it.

No kids in our wedding party. We wanted to exclude kids except for nieces and nephews, about 4 total of them. But because we have cousins that range from late 20s to under 10, we find it hard to invite only some of them. Because of this, I decided to tell guests how many seats are reserved for them. This way we can invite the kids related to us and make sure other kids we don't want there (or to pay for) can't come.

Its your wedding, you pick as you wish. Personally i do not want children running around my wedding so we will be having an adults only reception, and partly because of this reason we wont be having ANY children in the wedding party. Neither FH or i have children in our immediate families but we already had to put a disclaimer out on Facebook saying that "due to the massive amounts of overwhelming cuteness in the children of our friends and family we have opted to not have any children stand up in our wedding."

This came after several people starting dropping not so subtle hints about how cute their kid was and what a great flower girl/ring bearer he or she would make. It definitely worked and got our point accross.

Maltese, that is a perfect way to put it! I was thinking something along the lines of generally letting people know that, sorry, there are just too many kids whom we love very much to include everyone and we don't think it's fair to anyone to pick and choose. I think it's important to make this clear early on, but it is a sensitive subject, so don't make it about your concerns that Johnny and Jane can't behave for 4 hours, lol!

We are having an adult only wedding, 1. because of the financial burden, 2. because we don't want there to be kids in/at our wedding, & 3. our contract with our venue states that if alcohol is present, all guests must be 21 years of age or older. I put it in the invitations. Mine read as follows "Due to the nature of our contract with the venue, all guests must be 21 years of age or older to attend. The bride and groom thank you for your cooperation." It is straight and to the point. It is your day and people need to either come and celebrate or sit home and pout because their kids aren't invited.

As far as the cousin saying her daughter HAS to be the flower girl. I have a friend that was very insistent on her children being my flower girl and ring bearer, even went as far as picking out a dress and tux...I had to put my foot down and tell her I was having an adult only wedding with no kids in the bridal party. She was upset at first but got over it. You need to be stern in what YOU want for YOUR day. I hope that helps!

It's absolutely fine not to invite kids-I've been to plenty of weddings that were adult-only. I'm in the same boat as you. On my dad's side, I have 28 first cousins and between them, they have over 40 children!!! FH and I are paying for everything on our own too and we'd go broke if we invited them all!! It's your day and it's your wedding and if you're paying- you have the say so Plus, its common nowadays to have adult only receptions, most people should understand

I think it's so rude of people to insist their child be in your wedding. I would never do that!

I learned that in my husband's family they differentiate between children and babies. We had a reception back in his home town and children were not invited. some babies showed up and he said "well they aren't kids, they are babies so it's ok" I don't make that distinction. It was a casual reception so it wasn't a big deal but I definitely didn't want a baby at my formal wedding and got one anyway.