Wedding Invitations

Concerned about Wedding Etiquette, a reader asks how a couple can indicate that children are not to attend their wedding, without being obstinate about it.

“There are a lot of children in our extended families and as much as we love them, we really want our wedding to be a formal event and having children there, we feel would spoil the mood,” they write. “How can we indicate that children are not invited?”

Here’s the answer.

If the children’s names are not included on the envelope of the wedding invitations, the recipients should know that the children are not invited. It seems a bit cruel to include “No children please” as corner copy. The best thing you can do is to simply talk to those family members and just tell them that you would love to include the children but because of expenses (or whatever reason) has prevented you from doing to.

What some couples have done is title their reception card, “Adult Reception.” It is not totally proper but should get the job done.

If the children are not invited to the reception, logistically it would be difficult to get them somewhere else after the ceremony and get back to the reception, so in most cases your guests with children would make other arrangements for childcare.

If you don’t mind having the children at the ceremony but want an adult reception, you could arrange for the use of a room and hire a babysitter to care for the children during the reception. You of course would have to provide meals for them as well, so you would incur more expense trying to please everybody. You really are better off just talking with the families involved.