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I wouldn't be offended but I would probably decline the invite. Luckily we've never been invited to a no kids wedding so we've never had to deal with this. At the ripe old age of 2.5 DD has already attended 5 weddings (and has another one in August!). I don't think adult only weddings are very common in this area.

I agree that the wording was fairly rude/tacky, but I wouldn't begrudge people who had a children free wedding.

The only kids at our wedding were my cousins (the youngest was 11/12 at the time) and my 4 flower girls. Other than that, we just addressed the envelope to the people that were invited
i.e.: Mr. and Mrs. Bee OR The Bee Family etc.

We paid $150 a head at our upscale wedding venue, so we decided to make it "adults only" in order to make sure we could ave the most important people in our lives there. It was like $45 for children, (yes, chicken fingers or something), but it was added cost that we felt was unnecessary. We wanted our wedding to be a party, and honestly, it wasn't a place for children.

I also have a friend who was a BM in an outdoor wedding. Her husband was seated with their 3-yr old. As soon as their 3yrold saw my friend walking down the aisle, she screamed bloody murder. Her husband took her away but bc they were outdoor, there was nowhere to go far enough away. And my friend had the keys to their car with her things so the husband couldn't get in their car. She said her daughter cried the entire wedding and even though her husband was far away, you could still here her and my friend still feels like her daughter ruined the wedding. Since we got married on a rooftop overlooking the beach outside, her story sealed the deal on our Adults Only wedding! You never know how small kids are going to act and it's just not worth it!

I never really understood why parents would want to bring their children to someone else's wedding, TBH...I got pushback when word got out we were having no kids and I was like, Why wouldn't you just get a babysitter for a few hours???? Now that I have a LO, I still feel the same way, so Iwon't think twice about getting an invite that excludes my daughter!

I'm not at all offended by adults-only weddings. When I invite friends, I don't invite their parents or their siblings, so I guess I already don't consider weddings something only whole, intact families should attend. Especially when the children are too young to understand what a wedding is or to appreciate the importance of the occasion.

I was worried about kids making noises/crying during the ceremony, but I don't mind kids at a reception. Luckily, even though a couple of my friends have kids (and I invited the kids), they all got babysitters so the only kids we had there were our flower girls/ring bearers who were all VERY well behaved.

Luckily for me, all my friends are pretty active in their social lives, so they get sitters on a regular basis (regular meaning a few times a month at least), so they have no problem getting a sitter for a wedding they know about months in advance.

Stating "no children" or "adult's only" is just as tacky as putting registry info on the invite IMO. However, if parents continue to assume it's okay to bring their children even when they have not been invited (child's name is not listed on the invite), then I guess couple's will have to spell it out for people.

Weddings come in all shapes and sizes and not all of them are appropriate for children. Couple's should not be pressured to host a child-friendly wedding just because there are alot of kids in the family. One of DH's friend's practically had to pick her mouth up from the floor when I told her we did not plan on having kids at our wedding, which meant none of his God-children (one being hers) was going to participate in the wedding or attend. It's a couple's choice and it's not meant to offend.

I'd never bring my child to a wedding, anyways, so I obviously don't care if you choose not to invite him. That said, we had kids at our outdoor morning wedding because we were up for whatever and it wasn't costing us a whole lot more, but we both just prefer to attend alone.

@Mrs. Jacks: this. We had a majorly kid friendly wedding. I wen had a song that I danced with only the children present.

We had no kids at our wedding- on our invitation it said "Adult reception". I know there were a few people offended (my sister in law being one of them) but we decied (DH and I) that we wanted our parent friends and family to have a night off and to be able to enjoy themselves. The people that didnt feel comforatble with this maybe didnt come- but that was a choice we made.
I have to say we got a Save the Date for a wedding this Sept where we will have our LO and it was Adult only. I was kinda bummed about it (as i wanted to show him off) but then i was excited a bout a designated night out with my husband.
I see both sides alot better now!

@Jennimac: so fun! We hired a sitter with tons of activities for kids so that parents could have an adult beverage or two!

We had a child-free wedding. The way we handled the invitation was addressing the envelopes to only the adults, and having a "fill-in-the-blank" (by us) on the RSVP card that stated "we have reserved ___ seats in your honor." We felt that was clear enough, if somebody had 2 children and we stated that they only had 2 seats reserved for them rather than 4. And we did have people not come specifically because their children weren't invited.

It wasn't that we didn't want children there, and I think it's a shame that people automatically assume that's the case -- that it must be because we didn't want children crying during the ceremony, or running around, or touching our expensive decorations. Not the case at all. I couldn't care less about any of those things, and I think kids at weddings are great. In fact, much of our bridal party have children. It wasn't that we didn't want to include them. The reason we couldn't accommodate children was because our venue, due to our budget, held 80 max, and if every friend and family member we had invited had come and brought their children, that would have been 30 children. That meant 30 other friends and family members that we would not have been able to invite, and due to parental requests and other circumstances, we just couldn't cut our guest list that much. So the easiest thing to do was to just make it clear that we couldn't spare the space for kids.

As for the wording on your friend's invitation, totally tacky. An invitation is just that -- an invitation, not a place to exclude. I think it's more out of laziness than anything -- there are obviously ways around it (nobody was even one iota confused by the way we handled it and the only person who brought their child was a groomsman and his wife who were traveling from New York, where they had no family, and they had a 6-month-old daughter) and your friend chose not to explore any options. That's unfortunate, and I don't blame people for assuming there's an anti-child sentiment in a case like that. But that's not always the fact.

FWIW, we didn't have any flower girl or ring bearers, either. We aren't close enough with any children to where we needed to include those roles (both only children, I'm not close to my cousins with kids, etc.). That being said, if we did have roles like that, we would not have excluded other children. I think that you either invite children, or you don't. It's unfair to allow some and not others imo.

I find it hilarious how controversial this topic is. Whomever said that an invitation is just that and not a summons put it perfectly. No one is forcing you to be anywhere, so life is choices and we will do what we will do.
I think people do need to remember that just because your wedding was child friendly does not mean you are better than anyone else. The comments re this are getting a little high-horsey....
To follow up, we had a flower girl, my niece. She was 3 at the time and too young to walk down alone, but I didn't want to miss out on having her in my wedding. her + 4 infants were in attendance, it was great

I think weddings are a great excuse for a date night! I particularly like an evening with good food, boos, close friends, all under romantic lightning. That's the kind of wedding I like attending.

I've been to an informal wedding, with children, and I have to say, even now that I have a LO, I much, much prefer the adult only evening!

@Pink Champagne: agreed! My wedding was child-free, mainly because a) our venue only held 85 people, and b) there weren't really any kids in our circle at the time. We didn't specify it on the invites, just addressed them to Mr. & Mrs. So and So. I'm always surprised when people are offended (in either instance - kids invited or not) because other peoples' weddings are not about you. Just my two cents.

My wedding was an adult reception. I wrote "Adult Reception at X pm." I think there were a few friends with kids that did not come to my wedding. Maybe it was because of the adult reception?? I did feel a little guilty about it.
It was a great wedding, though. I could have included kids but money was tight and didn't want to pay for kid's menu. If I had the money, yeah, I would have loved to have little kiddos on the dance floor. It would have been fun.

Oh, I did not have a ring bearer or a flower girl. I didn't think it was fair to have them at an adult reception. There was an 8 year old cousin that came to my wedding. Oops. I didn't realize she was that young. I thought she was older. I might have pissed some people off. I swear I had no idea she was that young.

@Mrs. Train: I agree that I'd way rather it be stated clearly if kids are not invited. I think the "addressing it to just the couple" thing is too subtle for a lot of people- had I not gotten pretty into wedding planning for my own recently, I don't necessarily think that I'd automatically read that as "no kids."

I was sad that we didn't have MORE kids at our wedding- none of our friends had kids at that point, and the few family members or colleagues that did mainly chose not to bring them. Our ring bearer ruled the dance floor, though, and it was hilarious. I was sad that no one in our circle had a little girl we could rope into being a flower girl A close friend of mine recently married a guy with a million nieces and nephews, and instead of any other wedding party attendants, they just had all 6 nieces under age 12 or so be flower girls, and it was awesome- made for the best photos ever!

Like others, I'm cool with adults-only weddings with the understanding that it may be prohibitive. I'd generally rather leave LO at home, but we have a limited list of people I'd leave him with, and if they're not available, I'm not coming. I do think it's a little odd when people having destination weddings request no kids- I'm not cool with leaving LO with a random sitter at the destination, and my options for overnight care if I don't bring him are especially limited, so I do kind of see that as an indication that I wasn't really expected to come in the first place.

I wouldn't go. I think it's quite rude.