Goin’ To The Chapel: Should You Invite Children Or Keep It Adult-Only?

Thus far in the Mental Health Notes Goin’ to the Chapel series, Molly McDonald has offered tips on how to stay within a wedding budget and keep a wedding guest list practical, all while avoiding becoming overstressed.

Today, Molly takes the wedding guest list theme a bit further and addresses the issue of children as wedding guests.

Should you invited them? If so, what kinds of preparations should you make for them? And, how can you politely tell parents who are invited that their children are not?

Read on for Molly’s answers!

Some people love to have children at their weddings, and that’s great! However, not everyone feels comfortable having very young wedding guests. Some ladies have nightmares of munchkins running up to you with cake-covered hands aimed towards your lovely dress you’ve been looking forward to wearing your whole life!

If you do want to invite children, consider hiring a babysitter for the event. Make sure it is someone you trust with children, and it might mean hiring two if there will be numerous small ones.

If you don’t want to invite children, and you either don’t want or can’t afford to hire a babysitter, there are still appropriate ways to address the issue with your guests. When you’re casually talking to someone you’ve invited that has children who are not of a wedding-appropriate age and you fear they might be considering bringing them, you can politely say, “I’ve decided not to hire a sitter for the wedding. Anyone I trust with children is invited to the ceremony. Just a heads up so you can be thinking about who could sit for you that day.” Something casual, comfortable, and making it sound like you are doing them a favor by telling them in advance. In reality, you are doing them a favor! Now they can plan ahead for it.

Check back in tomorrow when we address perhaps the most stressful kinds of wedding guest of all – the exes, their new significant others, etc. – you know, those guests you really hoped wouldn’t attend!

Molly McDonald is a freelance designer helping people get patents on their concepts while also patenting her own. Medical products are her personal favorites because she finds them most rewarding. Molly graduated with a Bachelor’s of Industrial Design with a minor in business and, when she’s not designing and patenting, she’s enjoying photography and studio art! For more, visit Molly McDonald Design.

Image source and credit.

Interested in being involved in another Mental Health Notes series? I’m accepting applications for This Is Why I ROCK!