No-kids policy

Stand firm on your decision and don’t back down. This is your event, and the guest list is yours to decide. If your in-laws want to give this girl a party, they can host one for her; but by no means are they entitled to hijack your wedding.
You politely explained to him why children were not invited, so I wouldn’t even bring the issue up again. I would just leave it as it is, that no children are invited. If it is brought up by them again, I would I have your fiancé handle it. The general rule for familial arguments is that “blood handles blood”. So if they bring it up again, your fiancé needs to shut it down immediately, and make it clear that this topic is not open for discussion.
I’m so sorry you are getting pushback about things that are not anyone else’s business. You guys are perfectly entitled to have a child free wedding- which is quite normal these days!

"We'll miss them at the wedding then". Stand your ground. If the person can't come because their child isn't invited, that's not your problem.

What Sarah said plus “We are having an adult only wedding”.

Do not give in. Your fiancé's brother should not be getting mad about who you invite to YOUR wedding. If you give in on this one all of your other guests with kids will be upset that an exception was made for this child but not for theirs. If you and your fiancé were close to this kid and wanted to involve her in the ceremony it might be a different conversation.

View Quoted Comment Thank you for the advice. My fiancé is away on business and I am the one planning everything. I spoke to my fiancé last night and he actually got upset with me for making a big deal about this. He said to just invite the kids (now there are three kids that are friends of the family that have to be invite). He did not understand the repercussions of not inviting everyone else’s kids as well. He told me to call people and tell them their kids are invited. This is a disaster. There could potentially be 50 kids at the wedding.

View Quoted Comment With all due respect to your fiancé, that is ridiculous. He already agreed to the no kids policy. Kids do not need to be invited to every event, and parents need to understand that. So if these people have friends that invite them out for cocktails, do they throw a fit that they cannot bring their child to the bar?? What about when they go to amusement parks and there are signs that children must be a certain age or height to get on a ride- do they throw a tantrum that their child is not included?? They are perfectly entitled to not attend if their child cannot come, but they are absolutely NOT entitled to throw a fit and demand you change your guest list.

View Quoted Comment Thank you for the validation. I just wanted to make sure I was not overreacting to this situation. Who cares if his brother is upset about my guest list! If they are truly good family friends they will show up if their daughter is not invited.

View Quoted Comment Exactly! Some parents are just so entitled when it comes to their children. I’m sure they don’t realize them insisting on their child attending would cost you hundreds, maybe even thousands, more because you would have to accommodate everybody else’s children also. Not to mention, having 50 kids will seriously change the vibe and dynamic of your wedding. If this is a close family friend, they should be understanding. And if they feel they cannot attend without their child, that is perfectly fine. They can check “not attending” on the RSVP.

Stand firm. We have the same rule with the exception of the children in our wedding party everyone else is over the age of 18 at least going to the wedding.

We have the same thought of no kids. I added to our invitations a line- "To give our guests the opportunity to celebrate without little eyes and ears, we politely request NO CHILDREN". If people don't come because of your request for no children then they don't come. You can't stress over so-and-so may not come if this other person can't bring their kid.

I understand what you mean we unfortunately let a few but we did too say no children. But we had to specify on the ages no babies or toddlers only kids 10 and older because they wont have a babysitter and that they would better behaved. And wont have to worry about breakage or crying during the ceremony and reception. So I hope that they understand why you and your FH have set this rule. But her begin 13yrs old I'm sure that she knows how to behave

Stand firm with your decision. You need to get your FI on board with this though. You're correct, inviting only some kids after their parents whined the loudest isn't going to sit well with the other guests with kids. "We can't accommodate kids at our wedding" is enough to say. Don't give any reasons or argument because then people will try and "solve" the problem by offering money etc.

Stand firm. Set and maintain boundaries with consequences. If you decided that you are not allowing children, then you don’t make exceptions. That includes babies who are the most disruptive group among children. At the same time, if you allow flower girls and/or your own children in attendance, it does offend others who had to find their own childcare because favorites are being played. If you choose to not invite children, which is valid, you have to accept that there will be declines and be firm with your decision.


Don’t tell parents that you are doing them a favor with a night off because not everyone views parenting as a burden. However at the same time, it’s considered impolite to specifically say “no children” or have arbitrary age cut offs so a 5 year old well behaved child has to stay home while an unhinged 14 year old is allowed to attend, and makes things even more difficult on parents. As far as invites, just list invited adults only by name on the envelope and contact them immediately to nip it in the bud when they rsvp for their uninvited child.

As an aside, there was a very heated debate this morning on Twitter on this topic where there was no middle ground or compromise between the sides. The couple is either “heartless” for not considering children to be welcome as joining of families, while the flip side said that couples can choose what works for them as long as no favorites/loopholes are played and the couple needs to accept declines of those unwilling or unable to attend due to no childcare.

Stick to your no kids policy. The only kids in my wedding are those involved in the wedding which is a total of four kids. Two of my fiancé and I nieces and then my two Godsons. There’s so much liability involved with having so many kids around and parents can’t enjoy the day. It’s a lot. No kids is best, especially when trying to stick to a budget.

Stand your ground, It is your (and fiance's) day... which means it is your choice. We had something similar happen, and we decided just to say politely that we hope it will not keep them from our day. Weddings are not for kids, in my opinion, and people need to respect that. We did choose to include all kids at my bridal shower, and my fiance had a family bachelor party with kids (before his friend's party that night). That allowed all kids to feel included and family seemed to like it. Your wedding, your choice, and stick to that. We do have our three nieces and nephew at our wedding. That is not playing favorites because we are extremely close with them. We couldn't have imagined our day without them. If your husband isn't even close with this 13-year-old, it's fine!

We did 18 and up for everyone invited because we have over 40 kids in our extended family...that was not realistic for our budget, and we would have had to remove many important people to have all kids included. It worked for us, it may not work for you.

This is very manipulative on their part - offer on site babysitting if they are so pressed about not travelling w o their child

I think it's absolutely absurd that people think they should be entitled to certain things at your wedding and that you may have to invite this person to make this and that person happy. I think it's your day and you invite or allow whoever you want. I think unless other people are paying, they should not have a say.

Stand your ground. They are a guest, not paying to host the event. If you and your fiancé do not want to invite children, do not let children attend. You are right in the idea that if one is allowed, they’re all allowed

We are having a similar issue! Our invitations clearly specify “due to the limited number of seating this is an adults only event” as well as “we have x amount of seats reserved in your honor” and yet we still have been getting “can I bring this person” or “if I can’t bring this person I can’t come”. We had a 2 year engagement so there was plenty of time for arraignments to be made, since we made it known very early on it was a kid free event. It’s super frustrating but stick to your guns 🤗

Definitely stick to your guns. You and your fiancé both agreed from the outset that you weren't going to invite kids, you planned your wedding with that in mind, and you already ordered and prepared your invitations for the guests you selected (and not their kids). If you "only" invite the 3 family friend kids because they're the ones throwing the biggest tantrums, the parents of the other 50 kids are going to feel slighted, which will lead to all kinds of drama. If you invite all 50 kids, that's thousands (if not tens of thousands) of dollars extra for dinners, rentals, etc., not to mention the added liability.