Venue Limitations - How to say “no Kids” Politely?

Address the envelopes only to the parents and have the rsvp cards say “we have reserved x seats in your honor”. Just make sure your “no kids under 12” rule doesn’t split up families. I wouldn’t be okay with someone inviting one of my children and not the other to a family event.

Address the invitation to the people invited (so John Smith, Jane Smith, and John Smith Jr. instead of the Smith Family) and also put "we have reserved x seats in your honor" on the RSVP. I would also caution against making the 12 year old distinction. Do any of your guests have children that fall in both categories? Let's say they have an 11 year old and 13 year old. They can bring 1 and not the other? Honestly, it would be best to just have the cut-off be 18 or 21. When you do cut-offs at other ages, it tends to cause more problems then its worth.

We put: "While we adore our many nieces, nephews and godchildren, we have decided to keep our wedding and reception an adults-only event."

Also, we put the exact names of who is invited on the RSVP card/virtual invite. For our wedding website, we listed the exact names of those invited. Someone can only RSVP for those listed in the drop-down menu for their household.

We landed on this after quickly realizing that for our 75-person guest list, those relatives and friends had 20+ kids between ages 3 - high school, NOT counting the kids and teens from our church's youth ministry who have adopted us!

We are doing online RSVPs. there will be a short blurb saying "Please remember we can only accommodate guests listed on the RSVP, thank you for your cooperation"

The online rsvp will list each person individually. If they get a plus one, it will say "guest, leave name in comments below" rather than a name.

lastly, we have an FAQ page that has the question "Can I bring children/additional guests?" with the answer of "Unfortunately we can not accommodate any additional guests, including children or infants, that are not listed on your invitation/rsvp. Thank you for understanding! If you have any concerns, please reach out to the couple."

We had a no children wedding/reception. We did word of mouth plus on the RSVPs we had “Adult Only Wedding/Reception.”

View Quoted Comment As far as I can tell, I only know 2 children that are 12+ and they’re separate families and only child. I picked 12 specifically because that’s how old one my bridesmaids children are. But, I love the “We have reserved x seats in your honor!”

I like the “We have reserved x seats in your honor” and listing the exact names on the list. I also like the FAQs about kids so I’ll definitely do that. Online RSVP definitely seems to be the way to go to limit! Thank you!

View Quoted Comment Love this idea! I think this is definitely the way to go instead of specifying the age. I can always use the excuse of the venue

There isn’t a way to tactfully say that because it does come across that you are playing favorites unless you have a cut off of no one under 18 and no infants. Beyond that, you list invited names on the envelope and reply card. That tells them who is invited and tells you who sent the card because not everyone writes their names down.

View Quoted Comment I agree! I will just specify names on the RSVP. I like the idea of doing an online RSVP (instead of a written/mailed one), where the drop down names are those I specifically invited. If that person is allowed a +1, then that’s an option available to them and they can type the name of the +1. Then, that way I don’t have to specify no kids… it’s just the invited guests. They also set up an FAQ about inviting others (including kids/infants/toddlers etc) and saying that “Because of the limitations of the venue, we can only allow those we’ve invited” or something along those lines.

We put "Adult Only Celebration" on our invites (and rsvps) and to keep numbers down we have "we have reserved two seats in your honir" on the rsvps as well

I put Adult Only on my invitations. I did get one or two people asking if they could bring their kids and mentioned that we could not accommodate anymore seating. I did understand that I would have some people not show up because of this.