Hi, I’m wondering if anyone has any good ideas on how to say on the...

I'm having the same issue. We don't want kids at the wedding either but two of my sisters are coming from Australia with their toddlers and so they have to come. It's awkward and I have yet to come up with a solution. Sorry I'm not helpful! Hope some one comes up with a solution for you! :) x

Just say only children allowed are your nieces/nephews an bridal party children that’s what I have done . We just said the invitation was forthe person whose names were on the invitations only xxx

If those are the only family Children just say due to numbers we are only having close families children. X

We had immediate family members children at ours. So our 3 children, my great nephew and our 2 nephews and neice on my husbands side. You don't have to explain yourself to anyone. You don't even need to say no children. You just put the names on the invite of who is invited. If the kids aren't named they aren't invited x if people are likely to get offended they will no.matter how you do it x

In order to keep numbers to a minimum, we can only invite a small number of children. We also thought you might like a day off!

We just put on ours
‘Respectfully this is an adults only celebration’ .
We still have our daughter and my nephew going, that’s it. People will understand and be glad for the night off!!

I was blunt, unfortunately children outside of the bridal party aren’t invited to the day but are welcome to attend the evening reception x

We would love to give all our guests the opportunity to let their hair down and have a good time without having to worry about little eyes and ears so we politely request no children.

Although we do love all of your little cherubs we would request that our wedding remain adults only. So book a sitter and dust off those dancing shoes!

I addressed the invitation to the invited only.

We had our own families children at our wedding and put on the rsvp part of our invites at the bottom 'so that parents can relax and enjoy the day our wedding will be adults only'

I put the below on my invites when I sent them out x
In order to allow all guest including parents, a day and evening of relaxation we have chosen for our wedding day to be an adult-only occasion. We hope this advance notice means you are still able to share our big day and enjoy having a little time off xx

We are just telling people, ive told all my friends and most of them are relieved. Just family now lol. I'm only having my 3 and my 2 nephews. As we are limited to 80 people otherwise it's another 240 quid. Xx

We are only having our 2 boys, my niece (bridesmaid) and my 2 flower girls. I’ve told people that I’m not inviting kids as most parents would prefer to relax and enjoy the day without having to worry about their kids. Xx

We sent out little inserts for those with kids in our save the dates -could be done with invites it said something along the lines of we want all of our guests to enjoy the day so we have decided that our wedding will be for adults only we hope that you will still be able to share and enjoy our celebrations.
We did have 1 child who came all the way from Australia but she was an absolute sweetheart. Everyone else loved the idea of being able to enjoy a weddng without having to be on high alert for breakage and mischeif :)

Ive just had children in the day and on evening reception i put no further children

We have just nicely said that it’s children in immediate family- not because we don’t want other children there, it’s just there is that many it would turn into a children’s party rather than a wedding and we are limited to numbers. Everyone has been brilliant and most guests have said they prefer a day and night without their munchkins

Make the 11 year old a bridesmaid/flower girl and make the toddler a page boy. I can't see anyone expecting anything other than an 8 week old to be with it's mum. That way you can say that children not in the bridal party or over 6 months will not be invited which seems a lot more reasonable.

Most of our friends and family are excited by the prospect of having a day without the kids!

We had the verse about it being an adult only occasion. The majority of people were happy with this. We had one child who was part of the wedding party. No one questioned us about it x

We're only having my kids an h2b's nieces at ours, kids make things expensive an I dont think you can relax an really enjoy yourself if you have to worry about what kids are up to x

We have the problem of this for the evening if everyone’s kids came with them the numbers would bump up dramatically. So for the evening invites I’m sending out a note so there’s no comfusion even if I do write it out to the invitees only “we thought we’d let you know as soon as possible that due to numbers and the capacity of the venue , we will not be able to extend the invite to children who are not part of the daytime wedding party to the evening reception. We thank you for your understanding.”

Only children who will be at ours are our grandchildren who will be at whole day, evening reception is adults only,

We’ve put it on our wedding website but also made sure we had that discussion with people so they understood our reasons (limited space)... I don’t think you can make it lighthearted, just be frank with people, they’d appreciate that more 🙂

Not much use im afraid but I would definitely put it on the,invite one thing I learnt from our wedding, just because you only put certain names on the invite doesn't mean people wont turn up with other "guests" in toe

Same here, we are having a few select kids and that’s it! We have just been honest with everyone and said names invitees only due to number restrictions! Everyone we have spoken to has been more than happy to get a sitter and have a night off! Xx

We had the same issue. A lot of people I spoke to said that actually not having children at weddings allows them to have a day away so they can let their hair down. I appreciate that not all our guests might feel this way though, so when we let people know the date of the wedding we told them then. That way they have 12 months to sort child care arrangements which seems reasonable!

Just write the names of the adults on the invite and avoid phrases like ''and family''. Word will soon get round that it's adults only,and it's fine to make exceptions for children in the bridal party or babes in arms

We spoke to our guests with kids in person or on the phone and explained that we couldnt allow some and not others to bring kids and rather than miss people being there that we really wanted to spend the day with we decided it would be adults only .. we also said that its a chance for them to have a bit of a break and have fub .. plus its unfair to expect little ones to be quiet for a whole ceremony .. x

We used the below on our invites when we sent them out ...
In order to allow all guest including parents, a day and evening of relaxation we have chosen for our wedding day to be an adult-only occasion. We hope this advance notice means you are still able to share our big day and enjoy having a little time off xx

I’m going to be literally naming he family members who are invited. Luckily all the children (at the moment) are very close family so having them in the wedding party

We only had the children who were part of the bridal party during the day and others in the evening. Just write it to the adults invited and make sure the RSVP only has their names on it as well and people will realise it’s no children

My invites will say something along the lines of "Unfortunately due to limited numbers we hope you appreciate that children and plus ones are only invited if named on this invite"

Or

Due to venue limitations...
...only children from the wedding party ...

I googled it and got a few good phrases to work with.

I've been invited to my friends weddings and they had family children and their own attend but asked that we didn't bring our own which I was completely ok with it gets to expensive to have everyone's children attend and I enjoyed a night away without mine, most people will understand so I wouldn't stress about it

We put: "We would love to give all our guests the opportunity to let their hair down and have a good time without having to worry about little eyes and ears so we politely request no children."

I truly never understand these posts. If I received an invite and my kids names were not on it then I would (rightly) assume they were not invited. Why is that difficult for anyone to understand? When sending out my invites it never crossed my mind to do otherwise. I sent them to those who were invited, my friends kids were not invited and I didn’t put their names on the invitations. No one questioned it-no one arrived with their children. Simple.

Ps. Your wedding. Your rules.

It caused friction at my dad's wedding as my brother and myself were there and his new wife's niece but then my dad's sister was told her kids weren't welcome but they were my dad's nieces and nephew but weren't invited

we said, unfortunately we will only be able to host our neices and nephews, so grab yourself a baby sitter and put on your dancing shoes

We put an info card with invite and had a poem on it saying no children except family & wedding party

We put an info card with invite and had a poem on it saying no children except family & wedding party

I would automatically assume that it was a adult only invite, it’s different if it was your own wedding and your nieces and nephews (family) had to go etc but if you were inviting your friends then I would assume that their kids weren’t allowed to go xx

I found this on the internet it might help

We ours we put something along the lines of ' unfortunately due to numbers we can only invite children in our immediate family '

We just saying to people date and that they will get an invite but that we want to give them time to get a babysitter that way they know that no kids invited without any awkwardness xx

I let them know beforehand that we were restricted on numbers then in the invite just put the adult names

Hi - are there absolutely no children going to the wedding? (No exceptions?)

I got married in 2013 and we then had a 13mo daughter, 16mo godson, 3mo nephew and 3yo close friend's son. In total 4 "children" attended the wedding and another 3 that were in their teens.

I wrote on the invites the names of hose invited and contacted those with children to explain that we would only cater for children who have been specifically invited.

This was risky but all but 1 of my cousins was fine; she had an 18yo and 13yo at the time.... so I selfishly figured (plus the fact her mum and dad had already declined the invite) that this wouldn't be an issue as either her 18yo or my auntie and uncle could look after her 13yo.

Children were £90 extra (son included in our numbers and we were charged £90 per child for their food).

I flat refused to spend over £1000 on extra children at the wedding.

My cousin and I fell out (briefly) but I don't think I was being unkind or unreasonable. I haven't seen her children for more than 10yrs and I didn't think they would want to come

We said
due to number issues only people named are invited, sorry for any inconvenience but we hope you take this opportunity to let your hair down and fully enjoy the day with us.

We only had our kids my maid of honours kids and nieces and nephews, (8 in total)

We have children coming to the day but not the evening (as most as little and I thought would already be in bed) and we just put the names of the children in the invites for those in the day and not for the evening. Most people will check if their child’s name isn’t on the invite if they are unsure

We were the same - we didn’t want any children which was fine when we booked everything, but by the wedding day there were 3 babies and a toddler! It was actually fine and lovely to have them there on the day

We are the same with only close family bringing kids. We have also gone one further and not invited friends other halves. (Would have pushed our numbers to nearly 150!). We both spoke to all friends and explained the situation, that we really wanted them there and they have all been really supportive and understanding.

We wrote a nice little poem on ours that you’re welcome to have if you want it

We put on the save the dates it is an adult only event.

We spoke to our guests before hand and the majority were happy for the opportunity to have a baby free day/night! Also only put the parents names on invites... I know I'd only beinf my kids if they were named or it said and family x

Unfortunately if your friend has an 8 week old baby I am sure they will be unlikely to come if they can't bring the baby, especially if breast feeding.

Sorry but I really don’t get the no children thing. They are family too are they not. Not starting an argument would just like to understand

We are only having family children who are all part of the wedding -the friends I have spoken to are happy to leave the kids at home so they can let their hair down - just write on the invite the adults names should make it clear on the invite

We put on ours day invites that due to number restrictions at our venue, only children who are named on the invitation are invited to the day. We left it off the evening invites x

My sis in law didn’t want children there but many of us had small babies and were staying at the wedding venue for the weekend so she had a ‘crèche’ set up in one of the hotel rooms with an agency nanny there to supervise the kids (if you can’t afford this maybe offer this as an option and the cost can be split between the parents) then those who needed to feed babies etc could just pop out to the room when needed. It was a stress free way of not having to leave children with sitters at home expressing milk etc

We put a note on the end saying
If your child is invited they need to leave by 9pm

And if the child was invited they were named.. Only because nieces and nephews etc x

We are not having kids, I'm just only putting adults names in invites and just saying in conversation no kids. Most of my friends don't want there kids anyways and want a night out.
We are having my own and my brothers little girl that's it 1 year old 3 & 4.

I would say your friend will want her 8 weeks old.
My friend got married when hers was 3 months old, I had baby at same time and ended up taking her with us. Tho my dad picked her up for the evening so we only had her with us in the day.

Book a babysitter, we're getting married!

We have written on the invite that only family children will be accommodated for as we would like our day to be an adult only occassion.

We've just added a little note on additional info in the invite. Apologising that only immediate family children will be attending the wedding.

We said:

‘In order to allow all our guests a day of relaxation, we have chosen for our wedding to be an adult only occasion’
We hope this advance notice means you will still be able to share our big day!

We're not inviting children and are being specific on names on the invites to just the adults. We are also telling people that it's no children when we see them except our 4 nieces and nephews.