Please help me out....after drawing up a first draft of the guest list (to workout roughly how much this is going to cost!) we were surprised to see we had sooo many children on the list.
Our venue has a max capacity of 90 guests for the sit down meal, and we were struggling to cut our list down to 90 people, so we have made the decision to invite children of the immediate families only, that way it is 'fair' to all our guests.
We now have the ideal guest list, which we are very happy with....but the problem of telling some people that their children are not included. Hopefully they will understand, as after all they are our friends, but i need some ideas of how to word this without sounding rude! It simply is a case of limited numbers, and nothing at all personal to them, or their children.
Do i put a note in their invites? if so....saying what? Do i just put the actual names of the adults we wish to invite and hope they dont bring the brood along too? arrgghhh!
has anyone else done this? were people understanding?
Thank you so much, any comments or suggestions would be most welcomed. xxx
CommentAuthorhlaraine1
i will be watching this thread with interest as we have the same problem
CommentAuthorJilly17
This is a hard one!
We have decided to treat inviting children as inviting adults, as in if they are in our lives and we like them they are invited! H2b has 2 girls and I have 6 lovely god children who I adore and am very close to. I dont want to make them all FG/PB but we want them there. If we invited all oour guests children we would be adding 45 to our guest list!
So, if you want the children of your immediate family there I would firstly put the individual names of guests on the invitation such as Mr & Mrs Smith, then in your information I would state 'we are very sorry but due to limited numbers children other than those of immediate family are not invited' It should save some awkward conversations!
We are still not sure what we are doing! ha ha
CommentAuthorKinkyemo
Maybe something along the lines of
'Due to the numbers being tight we politely ask with regret that you do not bring children along'
CommentAuthormadison_uk
'Much as we would like to invite all the children of our friends, it is only possible to accommodate the children of close family' you could add onto the end 'sorry for any inconvenience caused' but i would list the people you want to attend that way they will know for sure
Oooh am liking it Madison! Do you think i can say we are only accommodating the children that we like? ha ha h Only kidding! I would in theory only have to white lie about one little girl and say we are only inviting Godchildren ....hmmm ..is a minefield!
CommentAuthormadison_uk
we've got 17 kids coming to ours if they get too bad there's always the cliff lol, though were on a beach so maybe they can make sand castles lol
CommentAuthorJilly17
That sounds lovely Madison, where aer you getting married?
CommentAuthorRachie :D
I have done exactly what jennabel has done along with telling people to their face - to be honest no one has had a.problem with it or at least not one I know of
9th June 2012 when two worlds collide
The Crazy Cat Lady and the Transformer Man!
CommentAuthorloubylou
we are only having family children too (15 in total) otherwise the children would nearly out number the adults lol we have told a lot face to face and just put the adults names in the invites. i have 1 friend who hasnt quite grasped the idea as she has mentioned a couple of times that her son is excited coz we get married on his 10th birthday, she has 3 children. i will have to say something again i think lol x
21st October 2011 will be the best day of my life!!!
CommentAuthorlala "mod" bunni
we are only having the children of immediate family ....which makes 3 ( and if we could get away with out having them we would) we are stateing that ours is an adult only wedding
I was having a similar problem with how to tell people I don't really want children there but four of my very close friends have just had babies and they would all need to travel and stay over night so I think it is unfair for me to ask them to be seperated from their children for one or two nights. I have therefore changed my stance on this as it is only four and I would rather the adults could still come (although some may want to find a babysitter out of choice). One solution I thought when I was going to have no children is to put somewhere on the invite "We look forward to seeing the two of you there" or something to that effect where you specifically invite just the adults. If they then get in touch with you about it you can explain and most people will understand
CommentAuthorMrshewart2b
we used:-
Due to being very limited on numbers, we unfortunately can only invite the children of our immediate families. We hope you understand and are still able to celebrate with us on our Big Day.
CommentAuthorUnknown
we had exact same problem. we just put adult only ceremony/reception and everyone has been fine!
CommentAuthorGazza 122
THANK YOU! all so much for all your replies!
there are some really great ideas there, i think i will only put the names of the people invited on the invites, then on the RSVP reply card, will have the space to state how many of the invited party will be attending, then for good measure, pop a seperate slip in the invite explaining why kids are not included. once again , thank you all for your kind help xxx
CommentAuthorsarahuttley2b-[keera
we had a simular problem as our ceremony holds 60 people and reception 200 so we needed to cut our 200 guestlist down for ceremony,easiest way to do that was thru children as they d just be bored anyway.i just spoke to individual people and explained there was limited room and the children would be bored but were more than welcome to join us later at the evening reception.everyone was really understanding and fine with it.my friend did say she was glad id spoke to her and explained rather than just writing it on the invite tho.xx
i sarah louise duncan do take thee daniel paul uttley to be
my AWFULL wedded husband!!!!!!!!!!!!!lol
my heart is overwellmed with the love i feel for him,
my life,my love,my soulmate...forever.xxx
CommentAuthormadison_uk
@jilly17 were getting married in newquay overlooking porth beach, unless i change it to lustyglaze beach lol keep changing my mind waiting on figures from the 2nd venue
CommentAuthorlala "mod" bunni
Mr lala wanted to put ......
"it our wedding and tbh we just dont want your snotty kids there"
I hope 'our lot' will be as understanding as your friends :) I will speak to them aswell, like you said your friend was pleased you did, you know some people though, take it as given that their kids are automatically included, does'nt matter that the last time we saw their children was over a year ago! and if they were asked who we were....they probably wouldnt even know! and like you said, they would probably be bored aswell!
CommentAuthormadison_uk
@ lalabunni that will work lol, might not have any friends after though lmao
CommentAuthorGazza 122
lol lalabunni!
i thought about it! heheheeh!
CommentAuthor~ஜ~Tiggs Daltry~ஜ~
i had to deal with this at my wedding,we made sure the invites were clearly marked so it stated if children were also invited of not,we didnt have any problems ,however if people do ask (and they shouldnt considering its your wedding not theirs) just say that due to the venue size you had to prioritise.but the key is to mark your invites so it says AND CHILDREN if you want them there,hope this makes sense
CommentAuthorsarahuttley2b-[keera
yeah,tho they shouldnt they do,i have kids and have been invited to loads of weddings were my kids werent invited.and to me it makes sense,luckily my 2 are well behaved but not everyones are.the only time iv took offence is if they v been like we dont want a bunch of little bratz running around spoiling our day so we just dont want them there,my kids arent bratz,some kids arent and some like mine have manners and know how to behave,but when u av limited numbers kids are the easy choice[iv done it myself],if they dont understand after uv explained it thats there problem.xx
i sarah louise duncan do take thee daniel paul uttley to be
my AWFULL wedded husband!!!!!!!!!!!!!lol
my heart is overwellmed with the love i feel for him,
my life,my love,my soulmate...forever.xxx
CommentAuthorGazza 122
i will defo make sure i have stated clearly who is invited on my invitations. thanks xx i to have 2 children who will be pageboy and bridesmaid, so its not the whole children thing i dont like,i adore children, i also work with them and know some are definatetly better behaved than others lol!
i dont blame you for taking offence having your kids spoken about like they are a 'bunch of bratz' i would be a bit peeved at that too! x
I have been invited to weddings both with and without my kids, and didn't think anything of it, well actually i enjoyed not having my kids there so i didnt have to worry so much about what they were up to (and i could have a few drinks!) :P
CommentAuthormelvis
quite simply im not inviting children however there are unavoidable situations such as h2b niece and nephew who are involved in wedding party and may be leaving in the evening.... aand my couisins baby as she is coming from scotland and so wouldnt be able to leave the baby for a whole weekend... apart from that i am not inviting any other children at all. x
Cant wait to be Mrs Melissa Mooney!!!
Hes The Man Of My Dreams
Kos 2013!
CommentAuthorsarahuttley2b-[keera
thats it most parents will be glad that way its not them just making the decision not to bring them and like you said they can relax and av a few drinks.xx
i sarah louise duncan do take thee daniel paul uttley to be
my AWFULL wedded husband!!!!!!!!!!!!!lol
my heart is overwellmed with the love i feel for him,
my life,my love,my soulmate...forever.xxx
CommentAuthorMrsSaraParry!
i'm so glad we've dodged this one! We only have a handful of children in our family, and only 3 of them are under the age of 10! I've got all the children from one family (3 - adams cousins) as my bridesmaids and we're simply not inviting any more! lol. All the others are over 16 and can look after themselves for the day as far as we're concerned :o)
CommentAuthorpam
hey i am in the same situation and my mum said just put the adults names on invites and if anyone askes just to say numbers are tight, and to be honest you shouldnt worry about them just bringing the kids because the way i see it only the named guests on the invites should be attending, if you have more space at nite why not say they are more than welcome to come along at nite but the numbers are tight for day guests and if they r true friends they will understand. xxx
CommentAuthorGazza 122
Bump :) xxx
CommentAuthorElle23
ah thank you! Dont feel quite the grumpy mare anymore! Think 6 kids is plenty May have to extend to 8 due to where that family lives and like others have mentioned, unreasonable to ask them to come and stay over for a night or two and leave the kids
Many Thanks x
To be wed on our 10 year anniversary! 23.08.2013
CommentAuthorFutureMrsClarke
You ladies are sooo much sweeter than me! Id be tempted to put 'Please remeber this is my wedding and NOT a creche!' God, Im mean! lol
Oh im having kids at mine, we both have WAY too many nieces and nephews not to!
CommentAuthorcally
We are only having our two girls who are 19 and 15 and bridesmaids, three nephews and five nieces as the only children as there is too many cousins with a min of two children each for us to invite them the parents are very understanding and to be honest think they are looking forward to a night of peace lol x
It's great to say i get married this year September 1st 2012
CommentAuthorfairy-cakes
were doing a split.... we only have space for 50 guests in the day so were having adults only, then have about 200 for the evening inc kids. regarding the invites we were struggling but think were going to send the parents their day/night invite and the kids their own invite just for the evening. where possible were speaking to all our guests/parents before the invites go out explaining the situation to them so they dont hype the kids up about something their not going too well in advance. so far everyones been understanding and in theory so they should if they love us enough to be part of our most special day... like cally said above, some have even said that they arent going to bring them in the evening just because their excited about some peace xx
CommentAuthormrs-anni-oc
we had it printed on our invites due to limited space the invite is for named guests only everyone i spoke to about not having children there were grateful to have a "night off" lol
CommentAuthorSweetchilli
This is what we are putting on our invites, To allow all guest's to relax and enjoy themselves, we have chosen for our wedding day to be adults only.
CommentAuthorSimmo
I've just counted up and out of our 100 people coming to our daytime wedding 38 of them are under 18!!! Yikes!
I knew we had a lot of children but this number is huge, it's nearly half! However I CANNOT ask our friends and family not to bring their children, I know it will offend them and as we won our wedding and all our friends helped us it's nigh on impossible to say actually leave your children at home.
Ahhh well, fingers crossed it doesn't turn out to be a complete children's tea party :-(
I'm a bit down about it actually.
CommentAuthorfairy-cakes
wow 38! that is a lot... ours works for us because theres only bout 15 at most... i keep seeing all these things for children entertainers for weddings if thats any use? also we had a birthday party at home in summer and had a bouncy castle. was ment for the adults but the kids were on it all night and kept them out of trouble (even though was cold)... embrace it instead of getting you down, look for the fun and positive bits that could come from your mini guests being there.... good luck xx
CommentAuthorsam73
We decided we didnt want children coming so in the invites we just wrote the names of the people invited, this was fine and only a cousin i have not seen in years kicked up a fuss, so we said no it was just for him and his wife, he was having none of it so he is not coming to the wedding, at the end of the day i am not fussed, i have not seen him for about 10 years, we dont get xmas or bday cards from him and he never calls so i was like well whatever. We decided to stick to our guns and you need to do that if people begin calling you.
CommentAuthorJennaLouise
Lovin this post. I have copy and pasted some wording into my 'notes' ;-)
