“I Strictly Said No Kids”: Wedding Guest Ignores No Kids Rule, Is Offended When She’s Kicked Out

I swear you could put "child free ceremony and reception" on an invite to a wedding ceremony in a BDSM dungeon followed by a reception at a swingers club while offering complementary sex workers and cocaine to your guests prior to a celebratory pre-honeymoon orgy and people would still still show up with their kids.

I really hate these "my kid's the exception" mentality of some parents. Their wedding, THEIR RULES !!!!!! Get over it.

Childcare emergencies happen, but this guest should totally have contacted the bride, (or one of the bridesmaids, if she wanted to avoid stressing the bride) to explain, and ask for an exception. If an exception was made, the minute the kid made noise at the childfree ceremony, the mum should have taken him outside. Also, calling gives the host a chance to help find a solution. I've seen this happen from a friend-of-bridesmaid perspective, when childcare fell through at a couple of hour's notice. The mom called the MoH, and in under 15 minutes, the bridesmaids had lined up a teenager to babysit a three- or four-year-old in the Sunday School room so that the mum could attend the ceremony without the kid. The bride was paying £20K for her dream wedding, she was more than happy to pay £100 for an emergency sitter to keep it from being disrupted by a bored pre-schooler.

If you can't find a sitter, guess what? You don't get to come to the wedding. Their day, their rules. It's not about you hunny.

This guest brought two disruptive children to the wedding - her child and herself.

Each year, the entitlement epidemic just gets worse and worse.

Got invited to a child-free wedding months ago due to limited seating (with the exception of the couple's kids), and one friend in our group asked us (the invitees) if she could bring her kid. Two of my other friends also have kids their own but they're ok with leaving them for the wedding, but this other one is pushing. In the end, she didn't bring the kid and realized later at the reception how bad it would be if she brought him with her.

I understand that she doesn't want to miss the big day, but for Chrissake, if you kid can't stop crying, you are taking it home. Why put the bride AND a toddler under so much stress??

I do think blanket child-free rules for weddings are problematic when the bride and/or groom have younger siblings or kids themselves. But for guests - friends, distant cousins, colleagues - then it should be clear whether the kids are invited or excluded, just as it should be clear if the invite is for them alone or with a plus 1. In this instance, the friend either lied to the bridesmaid or was left down by the babysitter. It's possible if OP wasn't mad having seen the child whilst walking down the aisle, OP might have been less aware of the kid's squirming, but if the kid kept talking it is understandable that would have distracted during the ceremony. It comes down to the friend broke the no kids rule which resulted in the bride being distracted during the ceremony, so asking the friend to leave was fair. The friend should have left, with a message they couldn't stay because the babysitter let them down, before the ceremony started.

Depends what you think a wedding is for - if it's a family celebration of two people making a public commitment to each other, then everyone from kids to great auntie Ethel should be there. If it's about creating a once in a lifetime 'event' - basically one person getting to be a princess for the day and paying a heck of a lot for everything to be perfect, then absolutely don't invite the kids.

I mean...when I decided to have a "wedfing reception" for my 30th birthday (no ceremony or anything, just a fancy party with fancy cake and a dance floor) instead of saying "no kids," I hired an in-room sitter, made up a kids' table, and provided games and dollar store toys. My family in BOTH sides have done the same at big events since. I'm saying this not to say that the bride was wrong, but instead to point out that it's really RARE for there to be much planning for kids at an event like a wedding, and DEFINITELY none at one that says "no kids" on the invite, so your child is GOING to be a boil on everyone's bungholes because they're bored out of their minds! Why would you as a parent inflict that on YOURSELF, much less everyone else? When childcare falls through, PICK UP THE PHONE and call to say, "I can't make it because of this, so I'm calling to give you all my best and we'll get together when you have time and you can tell me all about it."