Kids invitation etiquette

I think your moms idea is the best with the number of seats reserved on the RSVP card. Also to address the invitations to the people invited. "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" vs "Smith Family".

I am doing the exact same thing with my wedding - only family kids aka our nieces and nephews, who are flower girls and ring bearers. Hannah is definitely right with the inner envelope rule and that is what we are doing. I am not sure if you have a wedding website, but if you do, there is usually an FAQ page and one of the FAQs we put was "Are our kids invited?" We answered by saying that only our flower girls and ring bearers would be in attendance and that we want our wedding to be everyone's "night off." I think when you phrase it that way, people will take the hint.

I agree with what your mom said, but I would expect your friends to be upset when they get to your wedding and see that others have brought their children. I can tell you my brother-in-law and his wife drove 10+ hours for my sister-in-law's wedding. His wife and their four children didn't attend because my sister-in-law said no children. My brother-in-law got to the wedding and my sister-in-law allowed her sister to bring her children. My brother-in-law was so upset and still talks about it to this day.

I'm doing exactly what your mom suggested. All the RSVPs will say "we have reserved _ seats in your honor." This also helps clarify whether a plus one or travel companion (for older relatives) is invited.

My sister-in-law's reasoning was that her sister's fiance had died about two weeks prior to my sister-in-law's wedding and her sister was also supposed to be getting married soon and she didn't want to make things more difficult on her sister by not allowing her children at the wedding. I will say that I still think allowing some children, but not others could still anger your guests. I think children are either all or none kind of thing with the exception of children in the wedding party and babies.

Don't know if you saw, but my sister-in-law didn't want to upset her sister. Her sister was supposed to get married like a week before my sister-in-law, but her fiance passed away about a month before the wedding. He was a recovering drug addict and something happened that made him use and he overdosed and passed away. She knew it would be difficult on her sister already to attend a wedding so she didn't want to make it even more difficult. While I totally understand that it is a difficult decision to make, I don't think guests will necessarily be very understanding if you say x's children can come, but y's can't.

I definitely understand your dilemma. My husband's uncle has shared custody of his two sons with his ex-wife. Per their custody agreement, his uncle sees the boys every other weekend. His ex-wife has taken him to court before for asking to switch weekends so he wasn't able to attend our wedding because he had the boys that weekend. I felt terrible that he couldn't attend, but we also couldn't have included children without going over budget. We tried to see if someone could watch the boys for the evening, but his uncle wasn't comfortable with that because he only sees them twice a month. Our wedding was at a hotel so a lot of my husband's family stayed the night before the wedding at the hotel so his uncle stopped by the night before for drinks with everyone so it was nice that he was still included in some way. He only lives like an hour from the venue so I was glad he could stop by. My husband and I will also potentially have a similar issue next year. His best friend just announced that he postponed his wedding until Oct. 2021. His best friend lives across the country from us. My husband and I are currently trying to conceive and hope to have a baby by Oct. 2021. If that's the case, I wouldn't be able to attend because his best friend has made it an adults only wedding which is totally understand. I would definitely be bummed not to be able to attend, but I also wouldn't be comfortable leaving my baby at home while I'm across the country especially because I plan on breast feeding and the baby would need me. My mom said she would fly with us to California so I could attend the wedding if we have a baby, but I'm not sure how my husband would feel about that. Is there someone that could watch the children that your family trusts?

Thanks! I definitely think it would be hard for them to find a sitter for a week, but couldn't they just have someone watch the children while they attend the wedding rather than the entire time?