What is the sweetest and nicest way to respond to the question "Are kids invited to your wedding?"

"Our wedding will be an adults only event. We hope that you two can still join us!"

"F#$@^&#&ck no!"

Just kidding. Sunshine nailed it.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"We love all of the children in our life, but due to space, we simply couldn't invite all of them! We hope you'll still be able to come to the wedding though! I'd love to see the kids again, are you doing anything______ " Thats how I'll be responding. I'm sure I'll have lots of play dates with all the kids in my life leading up to the wedding.

We also said what Sunshine suggested, but we also offered to help them find a sitter if the question came from a close family member or friend.

Sunshine's response is definitely straight forward about it. If you want to blame it on something you could also include the "unfortunately due to space and budget restrictions, we can only accommodate adults" line, too.

Honestly, even if you had put the "we reserved 2 seats in your honor," you would probably still get questions. People want to bring their kids.

The way to word it depends on why you are requesting no children at your wedding? Are you looking for an intimate event with close friends and family? Are you on a budget and can't accommodate the extra heads? Does your venue not have room? All of that will effect wording, but this is what we are saying:

"We wish guests could bring their children, but our venue simply doesn't have the room for everyone to do so. We hope you can still join us."

Be aware that some parents might offer to pay for their kid's seat or meal so they can attend. You might need to say something like, "I'm sorry. But if we made that exception for one person, it wouldn't be fair to the other guests" or "we couldn't make that exception for everyone. We hope you can still join us."

Sunshine all the way! Keep it short and sweet, I wouldn't go into the space and restrictions shpeal unless the point is pushed.

I can vouch that putting "We have reserved __ seats in your honor" still causes confusion when it comes to kids. We are allowing kids to attend and assigned them seats (for example a couple with a child would be told they have 3 seats). You would think that would indicate to the couple that they can bring their child but nope, still had many questions about it. Most assumed that kids would not be given a "seat" since they don't get an adult plate. Which tells me that if you address is as "Mr. and Mrs. so and so" they would really have no idea if they can bring their kid or not and might assume they can bring their child.

You definitely don't need to explain why. It's your event, you decide who is invited. Keep it simple and straight forward. Once you start using budget (or venue, or blah blah) as an excuse, then they start offering to pay for their kids meals, etc. etc.

We wrote seats reserved to help avoid confusion but if they get confused we are just going to say what sunshine said

I don't get what's with all these people wanting to bring their kids to weddings...

Kids do not want to come to the wedding, and they'll make that very clear about 10 minutes in. Just say no.

Sunshine nailed it!

My mom also was against the "reserving x number of seats in your honor" statement...she said she'd never seen it before and it confused her so we'd have a bunch of confused guests (and she said people know not to bring their kids to a wedding...I don't agree with her on that though!)

Blame it on limited space lol

and yeah I like Sunshines answer

I went with "unfortunately we are only able to accommodate adults. We hope you and the husband can make it!" and this person's response was (it was instantaneous since it's facebook) "I will speak to the husband and see what he says." WTF.....I don't understand why people can't separate from their kids for one night! I'm actually happy though because FH & I were really considering cutting these 2 since we haven't spoken to them since we sent them a save the date almost a year ago. The only reason they got a save the date at all was because we saw them just a week or so before we sent them. We regretted sending them one ever since.

Should I respond to her response? I hate making people mad at me.

*RANT* - It's like people have no identity outside of their children. So what you can't bring your kid with you for ONE NIGHT. I know for a fact that they know people who can babysit FOR FREE. I don't get it. When I have kids I will be sooo looking forward to getting a night off to party.

Sometimes people don't get it and assume their kid is invited, so I made it very clear I do not want them there. I put we "request this be an adults only event" and on the rsvp card, i put: __ seats have been reserved in your honor. I'm not taking any chances with someone bringing their screaming child and ruining my ceremony/reception!! I didn't care if it was rude. It's MY day not theirs!

Does anyone have any suggestions for only inviting children in the family and not kids who are non-family?

@FutureMrsG I wouldn't reply. Did you?

@Jennifer "With the exception of family, our wedding will be an adults only event. We hope that you two can still join us!"

Right after that she said something else so I just addressed that and then said something about we'd love to see them and they have plenty of time to let us know. She said something about getting a babysitter was super tough which is complete BS because we sent them the save the date months and months ago at which point they could have started looking for babysitters or ask whoever normally watches their kid. I mean - I know she is a SAHM, but they have to have at least a few people who can watch their kid. They can't be with her 100% of the time. Plus I happen to know she has tons of friends with kids. It's just BS. Some people need to hide behind their kid or just have THAT bad separation anxiety. It's their choice. I won't be hurt if they don't come.

I don't give a shit if it's nice or not. I tell people that it's not happening. :-) our wedding is at a brewery tho so I can just use the "guests have to be 21 and up" excuse.