Kids at weddings

It seems I have the opposite problem to those of you who don't want children at weddings!

We have included all the small people in our wedding and therefore in our numbers. Our wedding seems to have sparked a baby boom and there will be 4 under 1's, 2 2 year olds and another 4 over 3's. The children over 3 count as half a person in our numbers and we have a minimum of 85 people to the day so we have got our guestlist together including those children over 3 and have made sure we have exactly 85 people.

Having spoken to MIL at the weekend, it seems OH cousin has told her she won't be bringing her 2 children (who will be 2 and 5) to the day but didn't bother mentioning it to me! I have no problem with that whatsoever, but it now means I am half a person short for the min numbers (meaning a surcharge of £295 at the venue, although I am sure I can get around that by making another child a bit older!) and also now have two goodie bags ready for children that won't be there! D'oh!

It just struck me as ironic bearing in mind those of you having unwanted children thrust upon them that I will have welcome children not there!

Pointless post really!

That is a shame especially as you wanted them there. 

Cannot believe the surcharge but hopefully you can sort that out.

I have a 6 year old you can borrow free of charge

That surcharge is a bit steep for 1 person!!

Quite funny though, lots of people keep asking to bring kids to our wedding, would you like some of them!?

I would be made up if I was you! Sounds bad coming from a mother and teacher but I want as few children as possible- I dont want them sliding all over the dance floor. Even my best friend isnt allowed to bring her children (nor is BM)  family children only (ive  even hinted to my sister she try and palm off her youngest two). I woke up in a cold sweet last night thinking of the evening guest list and realising that I have a few friends that will even try to bring their kiddies along to that -argggghHHH! I am not running a glorified babysitting service!

Now I wasn't offering free places you know...

There's no way I could say 'no children' at the wedding. My nieces are my flower girls aged 7, 5, 3 and 2 and my sister will have a 3 month old baby then too! OH's other cousins baby will only be 2 months old and my god daughter will be almost 1 so having a few more along makes no difference to me! And I wouldn't want to say no either - I love kids and so does OH.

You don't want to know how many children will be there in the evening then! Having just checked the guestlist, it seems there will be roughly another 15 in the evening ranging from 11 ish downwards!

RaeF:

Now I wasn't offering free places you know...

There's no way I could say 'no children' at the wedding. My nieces are my flower girls aged 7, 5, 3 and 2 and my sister will have a 3 month old baby then too! OH's other cousins baby will only be 2 months old and my god daughter will be almost 1 so having a few more along makes no difference to me! And I wouldn't want to say no either - I love kids and so does OH.

You don't want to know how many children will be there in the evening then! Having just checked the guestlist, it seems there will be roughly another 15 in the evening ranging from 11 ish downwards!

What RaeF said.

There was no way I could of said  'no children' at our wedding and to be honest we would not of wanted to. 

Funny how it works though. You ask children to the wedding and parents decide they want a day off - you don't invite them and parents decide they cannot be without them.

Hiya, We are having 14 children at our wedding (two of which are ours) they range between babies right up to teenagers, they are all family, cousins, neices and nephews etc and we totally want the kids to be there. Couldnt imagine it without them. They will be supervised and we know their parents will sort them out if they play up! On the plus side, if you have kids at the wedding, you have an excuse to hire a bouncy castle........................!!!!!

I'm having neices and nephews at my wedding ceremony and breakfast (11 in total) they vary in ages from 8 months to 8 years. This includes my 2 boys age 2 and 6 i couldn't not invite them i'm quite close to my brothers and sisters and can't imagine the kids not there. For the other guests that do have kids and aren't invited to the day we're going to tell them there more than welcome at the evening reception. I think a wedding is a family thing although if you don't have kids yourself its obviously quite different me coming from a big family of 3 sisters and four brothers it can't be helped.

I was a bit diappointed when 2 kids (ages 3 and 5) were collected by their aunt and taken home right after the meal as I hardly got to see them. One was our flowergirl but then I saw her for all of 5 mins throughout the whole day. The parents just wanted to be able to really relax and enjoy the night which I do totally understand.

That's crap they didn't even think to tell you they wouldn't be coming.

PurrfectGems:

That's crap they didn't even think to tell you they wouldn't be coming.

Yeah, that's the bit that's getting me, and the ironic things bearing in mind a lot of others peoples stances! To tell MIL but not think to mention it to either me or OH, even though we were all in the same room for about 5 hours celebrating another cousins engagement! I sat talking to her on her own for about 20 minutes!

That'll teach me for being too organised - I have place cards, they're on the table plan  (though that isn't finalised/printed) and they have personalised goody bags!

my friend had the same problem 2 people cancelled a week before the wedding and 3 people didn't show up on the day (how rude!), she also had a "minimum numbers policy"  we managed to fill the two places we knew would be spare with work collegues (its a free day out after all!) but with the other three places that were spare on our table we just played dumb when the waiters came to serve the dinner, nothing got mentioned again and they didn't get charged for not having enough people because the hotel boss never knew!

If only we were in your situation!!

We originally had no problems with people bringing kids as our flower girls are OH's 2 nieces and my nephew is our pageboy. Only then did we work out that if everyone we knew bought their children along we would have 26!!!

I am not against kids at all but at our engagement party the other week, there were 15 children and although MOST of them are well behaved usually, they bought out the worst in each other and ran riot! Add another 11 to that and I think we could have some problems on our hands!

Also, we have a huge lake at our venue so that poses a health and safety issue for the parents to deal with.

At our engagement party all parents had left by 9:30..... with parents to 26 children, we would have a lot of early leavers at our wedding!

Sorry for crashing your thread with my own children issues!

Think it is terrible that they didnt tell you they were not bringing children as thei names was on the invite. If she couldnt bring her husband with her for whatever reason, I doubt she would keep that quiet?! Funny how people are about children.... like you say, if they are invited they want to leave them at home, if you dont invite them then it is the worse thing ever!!

Ahh Charlied, I am of the same ilk as you. Teacher (not mum though) and auntie to what seems like 1000's of nieces and nephews and really did not want any children at the wedding....but the n & n's had to come but nobody else's children are allowed. I too do not want to see children sliding cross the dancefloor a la Peter Kay!!  

We would've loved more children at our wedding but we just don't have the space for them - there would be 70 adults and 30 children if they all came! Yep, almost all of our friends have children now!

So it's just close family unfortunately, which comes in at 7 kids, including our 2. We have said children can come to the evening reception but I'm guessing the parents will just get babysitters in (most of the children are pre-school age so would be going to bed when the evening reception starts!).

I am having my two son's 2 and 7 (My mum is taking care of them for us and is also booking a room at the hotel), my younger brother 7 (again with my mum), MOH 2 son's 5 and 8 (her mum is coming at 7pm to pick them up and take them to her house) and BM son 7(her and her hubby are booking a room and her dad is picking him up after work) an OH younger sister 8 (he only gets to see her once a year so really wants her there) and that is it!

I have stated to all other guests that the only children there are the wedding party! Used the excuse you won't be able to relax properly if your running around checking on the kids all the time etc... (not really an excuse is it lol) anytime I have been invited to a wedding I have not took my children even thou we were told we were more than welcome to do so. So far (touching wood as I type this lol people have been quite understanding about it and are looking forward to a "night out") The only person to moan about it is OH's step mum surprise surprise!!!

I think it is each to their own really some love to be surrounded by children and others don't! At the end of the day as long as you are happy what does it really matter?

x