No children under age....?

No that’s not ok. 7 as a cutoff makes no sense. What does a 7 year old do well that a 6 year old doesn’t? Or even a 5 year old? You can’t invite two kids in the family (unless they’re in the wedding or your only nieces/nephews) and exclude other family member’s kids. Personally, I would never attend a DW that my children weren’t invited to because we’d be utilizing vacation money and PTO to go.

I think it's likely to make people feel hurt. First of all, if you have any families with kids both over and under the cutoff, you create an issue there. Even if not, people will wonder because there's really no magical differentiation between a kid plus or minus a year on your age limit.

People generally invite in circles, not by age cutoff unless it's the legal drinking age in your jurisdiction.

I just noticed the DW bit- assume that people with children will not come to a DW unless their kids are invited. Especially if they're little; what are they supposed to do with them? Especially if most of their usual sitters are attending the wedding. I wouldn't leave my son overnight with people I didn't know well.

We're having a DW with no kids invited outside of our own immediate cousins, who are almost all teenagers. We couldn't justify some people being able to bring kids and some couldn't, so we just said none! So on the STDs we explicitly addressed to Mr. & Mrs. so-and-so, and RSVP we're going to list how many seats they have available, just to reinforce this.

I have a cutoff of 18 year old. The only exceptions are people who are coming from far away (my aunt is coming with my 14 year old cousin across country, and my dad's cousin is coming with their kids - 10, 15, and 18 - from Italy). Most everyone else who has small children are local and can find babysitters for a night or two.

What I did was make it clear on the RSVP page on my website who was invited. So anyone who was invited can RSVP and anyone who wasn't would not be listed on the page. I also put an FAQ page on my website with one saying that it's 18+ only.

Hope this helps! I am not having a DW wedding but we do have people coming from very far away, thousands of miles really.

I don't think you can make two exceptions without hurting feelings. I would do no kids at all.

To be honest, I think that only inviting two kids, while excluding everyone else's is inviting hurt feelings from your guests.

The only exception to that in my opinion is if those two kids were your own or a part of the wedding party. I would just make it an adult-only wedding.

I should clarify that my thinking here is that the two children I want to invite are children I've spent meaningful time with and one of them may be the ring bearer, whereas the others I have not met, let alone spent any significant time with. I've had to make tough decisions about which adult family/friends to invite or not invite, it seems like children should not be much different - there are some I feel close to and wish to invite and others I do not. Especially taking into consideration the 75-person capacity. I'm trying to find the best way, if there is one, to invite some children and not others. I understand that might seem hurtful for those whose children aren't invited, which is why I thought the age cutoff might help make it more palatable.

It's totally acceptable to have just kids in the wedding party, so if you can make one the ring bearer and the other a junior GM or BM (depending on the sex of the child)? Are these the only children in your family? If yes, you can just say we are inviting all of the children in our family, but not all of the children who aren't related to us. We are doing nieces and nephews only, but not any of my cousins' kids or friends' kids and my guests have been understanding of that. You don't really need to have an age limit if you can say something like only kids of immediate family or just kids in the wedding party.

Another thing to think about...those two kids are going to be bored stiff at a wedding with a bunch of adults and no one else to play/dance with.

We're doing a cutoff too, but I'm talking to the parents privately first so they understand. I'm not sure how we're going to word it on the invites, but by that time everyone who has babies will already know. We're doing it more as a reminder. I would chat with your guests who have small kids that you don't want there first. Explain it to them and I'm sure they'll be understanding.

View Quoted Comment There isn't a good way to do this unless you include them in the bridal party. If I was a parent I would be so annoyed that so-and-so brought their kids but I had to travel across the country and pay someone to watch them for the weekend. It's just not fair to those guests. Not everyone is going to know that you have spent meaningful time with them and even if they do, they still wouldn't be wrong to be annoyed. The proper way to do this is have adults only (18 or 21+) or to invite in circles (bridal party only, immediate family, all family) otherwise you are going to end up with hurt feelings.

I know some people don't invite children to the wedding unless they are part of the wedding ceremony. Unfortunately, you cannot please everyone and feelings will be hurt. My fiancé and I are only inviting guests 21+. Anyone under that age is not invited. We reduced the guest list by at least 25 people by having a minimum age requirement. I know those in their pre-teens and teens will be upset and the parents of the children under 12 will be upset their children are not invited due to finding babysitters.