Planning, organizing and hosting a wedding is stressful enough but when you get children involved it makes things a lot trickier as you need to think about how to entertain the children as well as make sure they are safe. But do not worry because in this article we are going to tell you the pros and cons of organizing a wedding without children as well as how to organize a wedding without children without offending any of your guests.
How to organize a wedding without children? Organizing a wedding without children can be very easy for the couple, but much more complicated for the guests who are parents. If you want to organize a wedding without children, it should be carefully thought out, and if you are determined, you must notify the guests of this fact as soon as possible.
Where the problems arise is if, for example, you are organizing your wedding abroad as many couples now tend to do in more picturesque holiday destinations such as the Caribbean or Greece. This will mean that the guests that have children will need to leave their kids with someone else for at least a couple of days which will make things even more difficult.
So you have two choices in this situation, you can be strict with your no children wedding rules which may mean that some of the parents will just not be able to attend or alternatively you can let parents attend that are not able to find anyone to care for their kids however it may make other the parents unhappy who have had to leave their own children behind at home. As you can see there are a lot of intricate things that you need to do, however, the most important one is laying out the rules as soon as possible and enforcing them.
We hoped that we helped briefly answer your question above about how to set up weddings without children. If you would like extra tips and other information then feel free to read down further below.
More tips on how to organize the perfect wedding without children
To follow up on the information provided above, if you are looking to create a perfect wedding without kids a good option may be to hire a few babysitters or children’s nannies in order to care for all the children at a venue somewhere close by to where the wedding is taking place. This will allow parents to still bring their kids and keep a fairly close eye on them but it will also prevent the kids from attending the actual wedding ceremony and messing about.
Hiring an entertainer at the separated venue where the kids will be kept is also something you need to start organizing as soon as possible. Types of children’s entertainers may include magicians, clowns, Disney princesses as well as other entertainers aimed at toddlers and babies. You can also request all parents to bring their children’s favorite toys to the event which can potentially save you a lot of money on hiring entertainers but it may also mean that the kids will quickly lose interest and become bored causing them to potentially get involved in trouble.
Reasons why you may not want children at your wedding
If you are still not convinced that you should make sure to avoid making a wedding with children in attendance we will raise a few reasons for your attention below. The first reason that you need to take into consideration is that by inviting children it will drive up the cost of your wedding as even though children may eat less food they will still count as a guest which can increase the prices by a lot if there is a fixed fee per individual guest.
Another reason is bad as it sounds is that it can make the wedding less enjoyable as there will be screaming and crying kids at your wedding which will ruin the experience for everyone involved. Young children do not understand the significance of a wedding ceremony so they will not be quiet and it is not their fault but the responsibility of the adults responsible for the kids and also for the organization of the wedding.
Related to the point above, if children attend your guests are forced to double up as babysitters which just ruins the whole experience for everyone involved especially if they did not come with any kids of their own.
Kids are also much more likely to create a mess in the most creative and original ways possible, this will result in increased clean up bills after your wedding has finished, The cost can also increase dramatically if the mess created by the children attending your wedding ends up permanently staining, for example, the walls and furniture.
Furthermore, when you invite parents with kids to the premises of your wedding you now have to bore responsibility for the safety of the children and if the children get injured in any way due to mismanagement or incompetency that parents will look to you for answers as children are not mature and knowledgeable like most adults to know what to do and what not to do.
Finally, a wedding is a joyous affair, meaning that there will be a lot of adults there drinking and having fun. This means that it may not be an appropriate setting for young children to be around drunk adults as they will receive less care and attention from the adults that will be under the influence of alcohol. Moreover, it will reduce the fun parents of those kids can have as they will not be able to drink and socialize since they will have to be caring for their kids. So, therefore, it may be a very good solution to hire babysitter and child entertainers to look after the kids in another part of the building where your wedding is taking place.
Can I enforce age limits instead of banning all children?
Another good solution instead of banning all children from your wedding is setting an age limit, a child in the majority of countries is someone under the age of 18 so it has a very broad definition. We would recommend that you set the age limit at minimum 13 if not higher as 13-year-olds are generally mature enough to realize the scope and importance of a wedding.
Plus 13-year-olds do not need someone hires to look after them or entertain them, in the 21st-century majority of children 13 and older have access to smartphones that can store addictive and engaging video games to bide their time on. Additionally, there are a lot of handheld consoles available such as the Nintendo Switch that allows kids to play more in-depth video games easily anywhere.
The 13-year-old age limit is just an example, it may be more suitable to set the age limit lower to allow kids to come that are still too young to be left home alone as for example 13-year-olds can in most cases be left home alone in their rooms watching Youtube or playing video games. But a 10-year-old legally in most countries cannot be left at home alone without any guardians over the age of 18.
Moreover, you need to consider how late into the night your wedding ceremony and wedding after-party will go. As children generally go much earlier to sleep especially if they have school the very next day or need to complete homework before their school week starts.
If you decide to set an age limit whatever it may be, you will need to lay down the rules early in advance before your wedding takes place and stick to your rules without altering them for anyone as you cannot, for example, allow a parent to bring their 12-year-old to your wedding and then refuse another parent to bring their 12-year old to your wedding.
How to tell kindly tell guests that no children are allowed?
Notoriously a lot of parents are known for being unhappy when people host no kids weddings, so it is good to be prepared to kindly notify them if you are planning to have a wedding without any children.
The first step you should take when notifying them is sending out your invitations, which you can do in the traditional way by sending postcards or letters through the mail to your guest’s address. Alternatively, you can also send them email postcards through their email or also social media. You should not include a lot of information in your postcard in order not to overwhelm the reader however you need to mention clearly either in the title or as the main heading that this is for example ‘an adult only wedding’ which will lay out the rules pretty clearly to the parents.
If you are going to add any exceptions to your no children rule then it is recommended that you also make them clear in your invitation in order not to upset any parents who find out that they didn’t bring their kids while other parents did.
You should not be scared of annoying a few people by not letting them take their children to your wedding as first of all they should be pleased that they were invited to your wedding in the first place as well as if they really want to come to your special day, finding someone to babysit their child for a few hours will not be a massive sacrifice.
Are there any reasons why I should allow children to come to my wedding?
There are some exceptions that you could possibly make in certain situations to allow children to be brought by their parents to your wedding. The first one is if your wedding is going to be hosted in an open green space during springtime or the hot summer months where the children can freely run around and have fun. This is a great way to keep the children entertained at an extremely low cost as all you have to do is give the kids some toys such as a ball to kick around as well as provide them with some snacks. This, however, will not work for very young children under the age of 5, so for them, you will need to hire a babysitter if you do not want them present during your wedding ceremony.
If you know that one of your guests is a brand new mother that has just recently given birth it may be a good reason for an exception as it is generally recommended that brand new babies stay with their parents for the first couple of months after they have been born so they can be breastfed for example.
Moreover, if you have a few guests that are traveling long distances in order to attend your wedding it may be a good idea to allow them to take their children with them so the parents can have a peace of mind that their children are safe since if any accidents happen while the parents are hundreds or even thousands of miles away attending your wedding they will not be able to respond in time.
Besides this, another plausible reason is if you just cannot be bothered with finding alternatives for the parents with children or you cannot afford the costs for the care of the children without breaking the bank. There may, for example, be issues with finding suitable recreational activities and babysitters for the children so in some cases it may better to allow children to come and be cared for in a separate part of the building where the wedding is taking place.
It is important that when you do make exceptions for certain guests to bring their children you do it for good reason in order not to upset or even offend your other guests. For example, you should not accept certain children to your wedding because you know they are better behaved than the children of other parents as this will just cause tensions.
Header Photo © Simon Rae / Unsplash
