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I think it's a great excuse to hire a babysitter and have a fun, dress-up date night!

We had no kids at our wedding because that was what we wanted. Boy did we have a battle! That was the most stressful part of our wedding. We have a LO now and if we got invited to a wedding that said no kids, I would be a-ok with it, only because we went through such a hassle. I don't mind going out and having fun with just DH at a wedding without LO, that way we can enjoy ourselves a little more

I think every bride should have the day they want, but I think it is more than fair to decline for this reason. I hate the backlash that sorrounds people that don't want to attend a wedding because it is childfree.

Especially when you are a working parent, you might not want to take lose one of your "family days" to go to a wedding. I also dislike the "every parent I know is happy for a night away from their kids" statement, while it maybe true it really depends on who is getting married if I want to use the rare occassion we have a babysitter on a wedding.

ETA; I hope I don't come off as anti- childfree weddings. I am not at all. I am anti judge a person for declining though, which I think happens a lot in this discussion. I have been to both styles of weddings and have had a good time.

We had no kids at our wedding too. It was described as "adult reception" on the invitation. Now as a mom, I would see it as a night off and lots of fun.

While perhaps a bold statement on the bottom of the invitation wasn't the best format to include that information, I think the decision to have children running around a wedding is one that every couple is entitled to make.
I love kids. My husband's family is full of them. But hell if I wanted 25 children under the age of 7 running around my very elegant, very upscale wedding venue. It was not a child friendly event. I also didn't have room in my budget for all of those kids to eat $25 chicken fingers. We had maybe one person complain, but they got over it and had a fabulous time (they were the last couple off the dance floor). So, the bride probably likes kids just fine, but doesn't want/can't afford to have them at her wedding. Also, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect your friends to get babysitters for an event with such advanced notice as a wedding.
We made exceptions for new babies, as I wasn't about to tell a new mommy to leave her baby at home.
So, just because a bride's vision for her wedding doesn't jive with your vision for a wonderful wedding day is no reason to get offended, or anticipate that her friends or family are offended either. For all you know, those adults are looking forward to a child-free evening. Weddings are perfect for it- hello, free dinner/drinks/entertainment!
Try not to let it bother you

We had a ginormous Middle Eastern/Greek wedding (500+ guests besides us) and the occupancy max in the hall was 530? I think. Furthermore, we only had chairs and seating for that many because the hall only gives you seating for the # of plates you request. So, basically, anyone who wasn't invited wouldn't get a seat.
So, I don't remember the wording, because the invites were written by the invitation people, but we basically said something like...No kids unless they are in a stroller or car seat. It wasn't written on the invite but, on the RSVP card as well as our wedding webpage.
I did make personal phone calls to my direct family members and close girlfriend and told them that I *obviously* made an exception for their kiddos. And I addressed an invite accordingly for those who I did not make an exception for.
It was really nice because everyone had a fun, adult time. Half the people who I made exceptions for and half the people with infant children didn't even end up bringing their kids because our wedding was very late and very "adult" so kids wouldn't have had fun anyways.

It would never offend me...but I might not go only because it might be kind of tough to find a sitter (especially if it were an out of town wedding!)

Hard to imagine bringing the whole family to a wedding these days! I would rather just go by myself, or have Bee go... then the other parent can stay home with the kids.

As for child free itself, I think it depends on how old you are. If you're young, then I don't think it's a big deal to go for a child free wedding. If you're older and you know both me and my wife, saying "child free" says (to me), "please don't come to my wedding."

I would be a little put off by the wording, but understand that there are certain situations where my kids are not always welcome. TBH, I always factor in my own expenses when deciding on a gift, so I'd probably just be a little less generous if I had to hire a sitter, and a little more generous if they were accommodating to my kids. That said, for now, my kids are too young for us to leave for that long and into the evening hours without them. So if they couldn't come, we wouldn't go.

We didn't invite children to our reception. We didn't invite too many people with children so when they asked, we said they were invited to the ceremony but not the reception. Family kids were invited.

We were 24 at the time but we handled it pretty delicately. The few parents that were invited (since we were so young we didn't have many friends who were parents!) came and left early.

I've received a few invitations with reception inserts that say "adults only please"... but "NO CHILDREN" in bold at the bottom of the invitation itself? tack-a-licious. Just makes it seem like she hates children.

I don't mind finding a sitter for an adult only wedding. I also don't mind skipping a far away wedding that's adults only. If it's a close friend I'll get a grandma to babysit so we can go away for the weekend. Luckily the hot wedding season is over for us (at one point we were going to 7 a year!) so we haven't had to deal with this much.

That being said, we just received an invitation to a wedding that welcomes children (our kids' names were on the invitation!) and I'm so excited!!! The ceremony and reception are in a hotel and everything starts at 4, so we'll be bringing the kids and leaving after dinner probably.

We had a no-kid wedding. I think we handled it by just addressing the invite to the adults. If people had questions, we just explained that it wasn't in our budget. We only had one person not come. We provided as babysitter for one out of town couple, and another out of town couple brought her mom along to babysit at the hotel. We did make exceptions for hand-held infants, though, as we had many friends with brand new babies. And we were 31/33 years old, so tons of our guests already had one if not multiple kids. But hardly anyone complained!

ETA: @Mr Bee, I don't get why someone would assume someone didn't want you there just because they didn't want your kids there. I asked my cousin to do a reading at our ceremony, so I clearly wanted her there. But she declined, and wouldn't even leave her kids at home with her husband. I was really hurt, but felt I had to stand my ground, otherwise...you invite one person's kids, suddenly, you've opened up s can of worms.

My wedding was more of a party & less formal/traditional, so we had lots of children. I loved being surrounded by the laughter and smiles of children on such a happy day. To me, there's nothing better than kiddo giggles and silliness.

That being said, I don't mind when others prefer a childless wedding. It's their day. They put their time, money, and energy into making it a special day for them, and if for them that means no kids... okay. If I can find a babysitter, great! If not, I just won't go. But, I don't find it offensive or off-putting at all. I think an occasional adults-only night is fun!

I don't think it's a problem, for me it was important to have our nieces there, but if we were invited to an adults only I wouldn't be offended at all. I do think that it's important to some how mark it on invites, writing it on the invite might not always get the point across!

We had a "no children" wedding, although we chose to be specific with names on invitations rather than putting a "No Children Allowed" statement. It wasn't a huge deal for most of our guests. Having been on the wedding planning side, I won't think twice now about future invitations to weddings where it's adults only.

@honeybear: lol at "leave your spawn at home!!!!"

@Rainbow Sprinkles: Yup, they were the only kids allowed.

@Rainbow Sprinkles: no flower girl or ring bearer either. It was 18 and up all around.

We didn't invite kids to our wedding either and didn't note it on the invitations. However, we didn't have many friends or family members who had little ones so it wasn't really an issue. I think it's a personal choice but could've been worded differently.

Also wanted to add.... We have a wedding coming up in June that my daughter is not invited too. The groom is a good friend of my husband and hubs is in the wedding party. This will be an extremely inconvenient weekend for me. I have to pay for flights and hotels. I need to coordinate babysitting with family that lives in the area for both the wedding and the rehearsal (a Thursday and Friday night). I need to make sure I have enough pumped milk despite the fact that we have to fly there and I won't have access o my freezer stash. It will be stressful all around. But this guy was best man at our wedding and we wouldn't miss his big day for the world. And I don't expect the bride and groom to have kids at their wedding just to accommodate us.