Is it okay to only invite children of out of state guests?

That is what I'm doing. If I'm inviting pretty much all of the family that would normally watch their kids for them then I am inviting the kids too. I have a 4 year old son and I wouldn't leave him with a babysitter for a weekend to fly out of state unless it was family. For example I invited my aunt and uncle and my cousins. Normally my aunt and uncle would watch my cousin's children when they go out of town - but my aunt and uncle will also be out of town. So I wouldn't expect them to come and leave their kids or try to find a babysitter in an unfamiliar town. So they are invited. But kids of local friends are not. I also have nieces and nephews who we are super close to who are invited - but that doesn't mean I need to invite everyone's children. The only children who will be invited will be family too and I think that makes a difference.

No, it needs to be one or the other. You can't pick and choose whose children you are inviting to the wedding. You either need to have a completely kid-friendly wedding or a kids-free wedding. Your son, flower girl and ring-bearer would be the only exceptions to the latter.

I also just want to add that I've been to lots of weddings and never have I looked around and been like "Ugh, why would their child be invited and not mine!" I know people invite based on a number of factors - family vs. friends being one of them - as well as travel. It might be a know your crowd thing - I don't think that is what anyone would be focused on. I didn't put adult only anywhere on my invite either though.

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I agree with this

I think where it gets tricky is the number of kids. If adding family kids only adds 5 kids, but adding friends’ kids would make it 30, I could understand. If it’s the opposite and you have 20+ family kids, I’d be annoyed if I had to pay for a sitter (which would cost in my area well over $100 for my one kid for 6 hours) and then had to watch 20 kids run around all night.

I've always felt it need to be one or the other. I can understand inviting only the children who are in the wedding (flower girl, etc.) & of course children that the bride and/or groom have, but I think outside of that it has to be either adults-only or children welcome. It just would feel pretty rude inviting my local friends, not their children, and having them come to a wedding where there are children running around.

I disagree that it needs to be one or the other. I have kids and if I was invited to a friend's wedding where family children were present, I wouldn't be upset that my children weren't invited because family children "out rank" my children in terms of invitation priority, if that makes sense. I think if you just stick to inviting children of family, that's ok.

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Agree with this!

You don’t have to invite all or nothing with kids. We are having immediate family kids only, which is only 3 nephews and 2 of them aren’t even kids bc they are older than 16. We have out of town relatives that we are not inviting their children and will leave it up to them to find childcare as they are adults and know how to care for their children accordingly. I know that in past weddings, my cousin has attended and his wife stayed with the kids. Same with local cousins. If they decide to travel with their kids, that is up to them to find appropriate care. If I was traveling to a wedding that my kids were not invited to we would find a trusted sitter at home for a few days or have one parent stay home.

I'm not even having the FG and RB stay after they walk up to the alter and get a few pictures (I had to put my foot down to FH to even allow them to have that job because him and his family are so against having kids at a wedding). I'm offering child care for everyone during the whole event because I didn't want those who couldn't find a sitter or from OOT to not be able to come if they wanted. If they get a sitter, great. If not, they can choose to attend and have their kids stay with the child care I'm hiring or not attend. It's an extra cost, but I think it's worth it.

All of my family and friends are coming from out of state, 9 hours away, so I’m inviting their whole families since most people wouldn’t come without their kids especially since they’ll most likely be here for a few days. I’m not inviting local guests children because I don’t want a bunch of kids running around lol and it’ll be much easier for the local guests to get a sitter for 4-5 hours.

I definitely don’t agree with inviting kids needing to be all or nothing. It’s truly the personal preference of you and your future husband. Our venue is it necessarily large enough for us to include everybody we would ideally like to invite, so of course cuts have to be made. We decided that we were only going to invite kids that were an important part of both of our lives. This includes immediate family and some very close family friends. Basically the kids we couldn’t imagine our day without. I know there are going to be a few others that might have hurt feelings, but at the end of the day it’s our decision and we have to do what we feel is best for us.