For my daughter’s recent wedding we invited+1’s if:
My favorite cousin did this and left out D, who was 9 at the time. Wedding was 6 hours from home, my parents were invited and ILs live 5 hours away in the opposite direction. We didn’t go (nowhere to leave D) and she hasn’t spoken to me since. We included all family members when we got married because we didn’t want anyone to feel left out and we wanted to celebrate with our families. She created a barrier, we couldn’t see a way around it, and she is mad at me. Bitter? Yup.
That is unfortunate. Our family members and friends with children understood completely. No one was offended…and in our families, everyone with kids came (and some from quite a distance). They made arrangements with friends for their kids to spend a couple of days with. I know that isn’t possible for everyone to do, but that’s what our family members did.
I’m sorry that family member is not talking to you…that’s ridiculous!
It was very common place to not have children at evening weddings when I got married. I can’t imagine anyone being offended that their children weren’t invited, or that someone couldn’t attend due to child care issues.
Our son’s wedding in May is also no kids. A niece who will be 2 weeks shy of 18 is the only exception. The guest list is primarily their friends. Doesn’t seem uncommon at all to have no kids. Our wedding even decades ago was no kids.
It’s really amazing to me that someone would hold a grudge that you did not attend their wedding.
I have told this story before: D’s wedding was planned and the date set when one of H’s nieces announced that she would no longer be attending the wedding because she was asked to be in another wedding on the same day (this was after D’s date was set). I was annoyed (for a bit) but kept my mouth shut. So glad I did! When FIL died a few months before the wedding, that niece was the person who spent time with S (who was very upset) and helped him through. So she may have missed a family wedding, but she was sure there when we really needed her.
Goodness. I can see that someone might choose to exclude kids from their wedding/ reception, but to shut someone off because they couldn’t attend because of child care issues (long distance at that) seems harsh. Seems like if they had close family or friends with childen they could arrange a sitter/kids room or at the very least offer a list of local vetted sitters.
Thinking back to when I got married and attended a lot of friends’ weddings, “no kids” weddings generally meant “no little kids,” which could mean different things to different brides & grooms, but probably didn’t exclude teenagers. The “no guests under age 18” is not something I had heard of until my cousin got married last month. I told my uncle well in advance that we wouldn’t be able to attend because we’re 3,000 miles away and the date coincided with our kids going back to school/college, but I did kind of chuckle at the idea that my 19 year old son was officially invited while my 16 year old daughter was not. I realize people need to draw the line somewhere, but 18-20 year olds can’t legally drink, and I was honestly not familiar with that particular age cutoff for wedding guests.
I only made 2 requests. My DIL wanted an evening wedding, but just found Sunday nights ( not that much research was done). I asked that they change the date to not fall on the Marathon weekend, when prices went high and no cars allowed in their area. I also requested they invite my 2 cousins with children, all over 13. I doubted any kids would come, as school the next day.
Sure enough, only one cousin came, without her family. None of the other family came. However, that cousin told me how terrific that her whole family was invited. Had wedding been Saturday night or Sunday afternoon, they would have come. There were maybe 12 family members from my side. The other 150 guests were brides side or friends. Oh yes, several babies were there
D2 received save the date and the wedding invitation to a destination wedding. The wedding was moved due to COVID, but she was still notified of the new date. She already sent a nice gift, booked a hotel, but when she called her friend, she was told she didn’t make the cut after they decided to have a smaller wedding. D2 was trying to be understanding, but then saw on social media that a lot of friends she knew were invited. They were childhood friends and I also got him a real job, which made the marriage possible (story in itself). They are not friends any more.
The couple usually has enough to do already without worrying about other people’s child care issues. If you can’t make it, just politely decline and wish the couple well.
Right, but in the post I was replying to:
“We didn’t go (nowhere to leave D) and she hasn’t spoken to me since. “
I’m just saying, if it’s that important for you to have your friends/relatives at your wedding, maybe consider the reasons they might not be able to attend before you cut them out of your life.
FWIW, when my D was planning her wedding, they had family/friends with young kids and were planning on some kind of arrangements for kids. I didn’t think that was an unusual idea.
We offered to have babysitters at the hotel for anyone who needed to bring children with them. Everyone declined the offer….and found someone for their kids to stay with at their homes. Some of our guests with kids flew to the wedding and some drove long distances. They decided not to bring kids who were going to be staying in a hotel room.
We were not cutting these people out of our lives.
Right. And for people coming from out of town, it may not be enough to just have a babysitter somewhere during the wedding. There are sometimes other events involved -welcome parties, rehearsal dinners, etc. It can get complicated. I missed a college roommate’s wedding years ago that was out of town, it was an adult event, and I had very recently had a baby. No problem. We declined, sent a nice gift and there were no hard feelings either way .
I’m not disagreeing with you. I was just responding to the poster whose cousin never spoke to them again, after they declined an invitation to a wedding where they couldn’t manage child care.
I was actually responding to @thumper1 's post .
The good thing about save the dates these days is that it gives people time to plan- do I want to go,can I afford it, can I figure out child care, pet care, work or school issues, is it easier for one person to just stay home and take care of things, other obligations, etc.
I’ll be honest, H and I rarely left our kids. Our choice but OUR CHOICE. We did turn down a couple of wedding invites (not critical family ones) because kids were not invited. That’s fine for couples to make that choice - I support it if that’s what they want. But they also need to not judge us for making the choice not to attend because we would be uncomfortable leaving our kids.
Also no way would we have ever left our kids with “arranged child care” or random child care people they did not know. I know we are probably in the minority with these choices but we never regretted limiting our social occasions in favor of our kids.
I was so glad a good friend of mine from my gap year invited me to her CT wedding even though I was living in Germany. It happened to coincide with a planned trip to my parents and I was more than happy to attend. (And I would have been happy to send a gift if I couldn’t make it.) Oh and by the way, I attended without my husband, and knew almost no one else there and had a great time. I don’t know why people think they need +1’s.
I get that different cultures have different traditions and expectations, but IMO you should invite who you want. My son’s Zoom 2020 Covid wedding had parents and siblings, no aunts, uncles or cousins. He may have a bigger party some day. Or not. My brother got married and had baby sitters at the reception local. Small fry got whisked away when they got cranky, sometimes the parents had to disappear too. They wanted everyone there, even if it wasn’t picture perfect.
In high school a friend once talked me into babysitting a toddler cousin in a hotel room while his parents attended a local wedding (or maybe it was a Bar Mitzvah). This was long before cell phones etc. In retrospect, I’m surprised the parents trusted me and also surprised I was gutsy enough to say yes. It turned out to be a challenging but really well paid gig.
My other story is about uncle’s wedding. Kids from both sides attended wedding and then were dropped off a some relatives house before reception, with my oldest cousins in charge. The plan made sense, but nobody though “what will they eat?”. My cousin hunted down food in the kitchen and made us all bread and butter sandwiches.
When we got married we had a family only wedding. I just didn’t want a huge to do. It still ended up being pretty big because it included cousins and tons of little nieces and nephews running around. It never occurred to me to not invite the children and I’m so glad we did invite them. Got a great photo of them with their great grandmother. Probably the last photo of her with all her great grands.
Later on down the road we had a big party with all our friends.
As to the original question, yes I would invite all the aunts and uncles. If they don’t want to come that’s fine, but at least they won’t have been excluded.