Why don't you want kids at your wedding?

1. We didn't want them on the dancefloor. 2. Our tables are tables of 10 and our venue is giving us a certain amount of tables (for free) since that's the max they have. We have enough people for them and if we added kids we would need an extra table to fit people which meant we would have to get rentals. 3. We didn't want crying and screaming and running around of kids. While some of our friends are good at parenting the kids in public, a certain family isn't and their kids would do exactly that. The boy screams bloody murder if his mother puts him down, has stripped down to his diapers in formal events while the parents said it was cute, and the daughter breaks into a song and dance literally every single time we're out in public. We can't invite some kids and not the others.

Those were our primary reasons.

This is going to sound bad but my DH and I just don't particularly care for kids and don't believe that a wedding where virtually everyone will be drinking is a place for them. Also every time I've been to a wedding where kids where present they either broke something, where obnoxious, or drove all the adults off the dance floor - usually we left early because of the kids. We didn't have any kids involved in the wedding party and only 2 where there because they are immediate family.

We didn't include kids because our wedding was at a historic home and the coordinator did not want children touching anything so rather than worrying about that on my wedding... I decided to just make it adults only.

I did have 2 flower girls but they weren't at the reception long. Honestly it was a great decision but of course you will receive declines because of it.

I am having kids at my wedding because there are about 4 in the whole guest list anyway. However if you do not want kids there that is reasonable. Parents wont have as much fun chasing after their children. Have you considered hiring a sitter for the evening to watch the kids at your home or a nearby family member's home? That way they can have their kids within reach without being within actual reach. I would offer to pay for the service personally but that is also your call.

My decision was basically for my budget & yes I have a feeling that my reception will get a little crazy later into the night. We are only having children that are immediate family (most are in the wedding). It was hard making that decision because we didn't mind some of our close friends' older children coming, but felt like it was all or nothing to be fair. If we allowed all it would have easily added 40 to 50 to our guest list. So it's none other than close immediate family.

I have considered the sitter option, but our venue is a vineyard in the middle of nowhere and there really isn't anywhere for anyone to watch the kids.

Frankly I don't want to pay $XXX a head for a child who wants to eat chicken fingers and throw my ddcorations across the room

To keep our guest list under control, we cut the list at our cousins. That being said, we allowed a few exceptions - the cousins that have to travel (don't live within driving distance) are having their children included. HOWEVER, it is only the minors that are being included.

My cousin and her husband from TN are invited with their son, as he is 5 years old and would have to be pulled out of school to attend.

My cousin and her husband from FL are invited with their son, as he is 13 years old and would have to be pulled out of school to attend.

My other cousin and her husband (also from FL) are not invited with their son, as he is no longer in school and would not have to be pulled out to attend.

All of our local cousins (live within 1 hour of the venue) were not invited with their children, as between the two of us we have 27-31 people in the next generation (more, if you include my cousins grandchildren, as some of their kids have already married and/or started families of their own).

ETA: Including the out-of-town cousins kids, we will have six or seven kids attending our wedding and reception. Two of them are in the wedding, two of them are traveling cousins, and the other two are children of close friends.

Tulip hit the head on the nail! 1. numbers 2. I want my wedding to be classy and adult not family fun. I want adults to dance and drink and talk. Not have the dance floor taken over by children or parents having to entertain their kids all night. That being said we are having about 8 children attend. 1 is special needs and his parents can't easily leave him with a sitter so he and his sister are invited and then my FHs nieces and nephews. 2 of the 8 are in the bridal party as FG and RB.

Good point - what the heck do I feed them? Certainly not the 60 bucks a person meal the adults receive???

I'm from a large Irish family so there were always kids. Everywhere. At every occasion. In my family we always had kid-friendly weddings. I remember going to a few of my cousins' weddings when I was a kid. When my brothers got married my son and all of my nieces and nephews were there. In some cases they danced and I don't recall that ever being an issue. They had fun and didn't cause a commotion.

ETA: When I say "Kid-friendly" I don't mean there were special accommodations made for kids. Kids that were part of the family were simply included as guests.

My venue offers children's meals so we're not paying the same rate for them.

The only kids we have at our wedding are in our BP and also FHs siblings kids.

Aside from them, we just decided that for spacing and budget reasons having kids at our wedding wouldn't work for us. It would have easily added 10-15 more people to our guest list which we really couldn't handle.

I think that if your cousins are traveling 7 hours for your wedding and its not an issue of cost or spacing it would be nice to invite them unless you are really against it. Also just to keep in mind, if other people have been told they cant bring their kids it might cause an issue there.

Would it be possible for you facilitate Babysitting options for them? Maybe if your parents are willing to cover the cost for them to be at the wedding they would be willing to help out with a babysitting option instead so that you can still have the Adult Only wedding you want?

The kids that will be there will be in the wedding. We don't want kids running around thinking the dance floor is a playground. Because there are a lot of kids in our families that will also add to the cost that we're trying to keep low.

Honestly mine was primarily a financial reason. My venue did not make any exceptions in pricing for children and it would have driven the price up drastically if I allowed kids. Secondly, I love kids and otherwise have no problem with them but I feel like weddings are an adult event.

Some caterers have a half-price or so child option but often that is still not worth it.

I DID have kids and I'm so happy I did! There are a lot of kids in our extended family and I never considered not having them there. You don't have to order the expensive meal for them. Most caterers will have kids meal options that are a lot cheaper. All the kids at my wedding (between 2- to 30) behaved well, danced, played with each other and had a great time. I'm so glad I didn't exclude them.

Budget was big for us too because yes we would have had to pay the same per head for any child over 3 that we do for adults - this is how all venues/catering companies I know of work.

All of these reasons are completely valid, but the bottom line is if you don't want them, you don't have to explain it to anyone.

I don't think the vibe we're going for is child friendly. We're having a formal wedding. Also, we considered the costs. If everyone on the guest list brought their kids, we'd be inviting about 15 kids. I'd rather not pay for anymore ppl. If my parents were paying for children, I probably would consider it in your case.

As for my own reasoning I'm not a big fan of kids in general but there are some parents I trust to handle their children and some I absolutely do not. My biggest concern with kids is acting up during the ceremony and other important moments. So I'm inviting some people as families and some people by adult name only. It's probably considered rude but on this particular issue I really don't care.