Have you ever been invited to a wedding where no children were allowed?
Of course you have… but what has been the reason behind it?
Is it because they scream and shout? It’ll cost more money? They don’t want kids falling asleep on tables at the end of the night?
One mum has made a post on Mumsnet saying that while she doesn’t mind women asking for no children to attend, she does have a problem when they phrase it as ‘we want to give you a break!‘.
She wrote:
“Not a thread about whether weddings should be childfree or not, I totally appreciate that it’s down to each individual couple to plan their day exactly as they want it, but the WAY this is put in the invite.
“Over the last couple of months I’ve had invites saying things along the lines of ‘no children because we think you’ll have more fun’ or ‘we want you to be able to let your hair down and relax’, like it’s a big favour to me not to invite my children.
“Don’t get me wrong, things are fun without kids they’ll still be there when we get home at the end of the night and will need looking after the next day so there’s only so much hair you can let down! I wish people would just say ‘we’ve decided we aren’t inviting children’ and leave it at that rather than making it seem like a virtuous act.”
Many mums replied to the post, with one saying that brides without children don’t realise that they’re doing nobody a favour. The user wrote:
“By all means, don’t invite children. But don’t make out it’s for my benefit! If your invitation says no children, I’d be working out how to best politely decline anyway so I don’t have to be away from them.”
While another said that those kinds of messages have just become the norm now.
“I think it’s just become the standard, rather coy way in which this is phrased on wedding invitations, like those poems about giving money as a present. No one actually expects you to think they’re doing you a favour by not inviting your kids any more than they expect you to arrange for a horse-drawn landau to bring you home because the invitation says ‘Carriages at midnight.’
“‘Carriages at midnight’ means ‘book your taxis for 12’. ‘No children because we want you to let your hair down’ means ‘We’re not inviting your offspring because it would quadruple the cost of the wedding’.”
