How To Tell Your Wedding Guests That Children Aren't Invited

Planning a wedding involves many decisions, and one of the trickiest can be telling your guests that their children are not invited.

Whatever your reasons for choosing a child-free wedding, you probably want to avoid hurting anyone's feelings or causing confusion.

Make it CLEAR

Your wedding invitation is the first place guests look for details. Spell it out for them! You could use any of these phrases:

• “Adults only, please”

• “We love your little ones, but this wedding is for grown-ups only”

• “Book your babysitter! We're excited to party with you at our adults only wedding."

• “Adult celebration – thank you for understanding”

  
  

You don't have to explain why (unless you want to). Child-free weddings are very common, so you aren't the first to do it.

But some of our friends have tiny babies...

If some friends or family have brand new babies and they need to bring them along as they are breastfeeding...you might worry that other parents will get the hump when they see someone else's child at a 'child free' wedding.

"That's not fair. How come they were allowed to bring their children, but we had to book a babysitter?"

In this case, your invitations could say: 'Aside from a small number of babes in arms, our wedding will be an adults only event.'

One of my previous couples did this and it worked really well.

It's your day

Including the words 'child free' and 'adults only' on your invitation is key. If you get pushback from a wedding guest about this, then be firm but kind.

This one day is about you...you do not have to change it to suit other people.

Most parents will be excited to let their hair down and have a night off from the kids, anyway.

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Katie McCall | Award-winning wedding celebrant | Upbeat, inclusive ceremonies for free-spirited folk | Manchester, UK and beyond