KD wrote:

Question is, is this the norm for weddings? When I got married this
didn't even cross my mind, and I confess it didn't even occur to me
that DS wouldn't be welcome when we got the invite. I always thought
that weddings were a family celebration, and families do include
children. I can't see us spending all this cash to go, when the most
important member of my family isn't welcome.


Depends on the wedding. We specifically asked if our daughter was
invited to one wedding while she was still nursing, and the answer was
no children, so we declined to attend (and I had to make my husband
call to ask, too, he'd been asuming the baby WOULD be invited!). These
were friends of ours, and not family (and we were the first in our peer
group to have any kids o four own, which may have influenced their
attitude). While it's not the decision I would have made, it was their
wedding, and they were free to include or exclude children as they felt
necessary.

We've also been to a number of family weddings to which children WERE
invited. The way it's typically handled (in our experience) is that a
babysitter or two are hired to cope with the very small ones in the
bridal suite once the bridal party is done with the changing and the
kids are too tired to stay at the party, with the parents splitting the
sitting fees. This may or may not be possible for everyone depending on
the scale of the wedding and exactly how many children we're talking
about.

At any rate, the no-kids-allowed wedding is by no means a rare creature
around here. Most of the time, if the kids are invited, the invitation
will have everyone's names on it. If it isn't, we ask and then decide
if we're going from there.