Wording help-no children but getting married at a family friendly resort

[Jamie5280]

I have found some similar threads, but it still didn't help too much with how to word our website and/or invitations.

 

Here's my dilemma and I am sure I am going to get flack for this, but here it goes...

 

I am pretty much the last one of my friends to get married, therefore almost everyone single one of my friends has 1-3 kids already (not including our extended families, i.e. cousin's kids, etc...).  I have 2 nephews and 1 niece and FI has 1 niece.  We really want them at our wedding so, that is why we chose a "Family Friendly" resort.  Obviously, this would not be an issue had we just chosen an Adult Only resort.

 

As we were going through our guest list, if everyone came that we invited and brought their kids, there would be 25+ kids there (NO JOKE) that's extended family and our friends.  As most of you know, you usually have to pay per head or table or whatever and it's not cheap. First off, we don't think we can afford to have 25 extra people there, even if they are kids, granted I know they are not as expensive in some cases, but still...2nd....We do not necessarily want 25 kids to come to our wedding, that would almost outnumber the adults!

 

It's sounds ridiculous and I know we should just pay the consequences of having it at a family friendly resort, but my plan was to put somewhere on our website and our invitations that the wedding is adults only.  I do not have a problem with children and love my nieces and nephews hence the family friendly resort and couldn't imagine not having them there, but I never pictured my wedding with sooooo many kids there.  Even with the people that i think are "for sures", there would still be 15 kids there..... 

 

I have told some people that we aren't having kids except immediate family, and of course they are saying I'm not coming or I wouldn't bring them anyways.  But others are saying what a great family trip it's going to be....I feel terrible to an extent, but they all had adults only (destination and home weddings)  I know, I am going to get a lot "well, we are not going" but it is what it is.  My FI, especially is pretty set/stern on not having any other kids there.  So, I want to phrase it as graciously/nicely as possible.....But I know it's pretty tricky!

 

Please Help!!

 

Thanks in advance!!!

 

 

[JayKay]

Its a tricky spot to be in and I'm glad im not in your shoes.  I imagine you will probably have a few people not come to your wedding due to the kids not being able to come to the wedding.  One of my close friends recently was married in Mexico and like you she didn't want kids at the wedding, but they were more then welcome to come for the trip.  What they did was hired some babysitters to take care of the kids and do activities with the kids for the ceremony and the dinner but after that kids were allowed.  I guess its an option. 

[Jamie5280]

We understand people saying they can't go because of it.

 

I have no idea what I am going to do or say.  I may just put it as simply as the wedding/reception is Adults only. 

 

I am afraid if I don't say anything we will have 25 kids there....But my hope is that people want an adult getaway, but it sounds like most of my friends want to bring their kids.

[jmastr05]

I think an easy and discreet way to exclude the children is to be specific and crafty about how you address the envelopes. I do not have many friends or family with kids. So in cases where kids were involved, I chose to invite them. I would use "The Smith Family" as the recipient when addressing the envelope. So, conversely, you could use "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," which indicates the couple and no one else.

 

The pitfalls to this are

1. Lots of people throw out the envelope and don't remember how it was addressed. I had many people call me or my mom to ask if the whole family was invited because they lost/threw away the outer envelope.
2. People may just ask to bring their kids anyway. We did not invite people to our AHR with guests. But many asked us if they could bring a guest, or just did it without asking!

 

So you may want to do this AND something else or do this and have a plan B for when the questions start coming.

 

JayKay brought up a good point about kids coming to the resort, but not the wedding festivities. If you specifically ask people not to bring kids to the wedding-related events, maybe you can soften the blow by recommending the resort's babysitting/daycare/kids club facilities. (I am assuming that a family-friendly resort would have a program like this). Even thought kids were welcome to my welcome dinner and wedding, one of my friends enrolled his daughter in a session of the resort's kids club just to have some alone time with his wife.

 

My last thought on this topic is an idea that a friend of mine gave me. He considered coming to my DW, but ultimately did not. When it was still a possibility, he mentioned to me that he wanted to make a family vacation out of the experience by bringing his in-laws. Then the in-laws would babysit the night of the wedding (even though their daughter was invited, they weren't keen on bringing her to the actual wedding and reception). He had done this for another wedding that we attended together (out-of-state for us, but not a DW), and it worked really well!

[Melissa727]

We are not having any children at the DW and only my FI 2 nieces (our flower girls) at the AHR. The DW wasn't so hard cause that is only immediate family and his sister couldn't afford the kids to come too. The AHR was a little more difficult. My FI's mom is the youngest of 9 and his dad is the oldest of 6. If we invited kids we would have 300 people invites mor than half of which would be kids. We addresses the invites to Mr and Mrs only but still had people respond that they were bringing there children. I ended up having to send polite emails explaining due to fianancial constraints yada yada yada we will be unable to have the kids as well. If the emails didn't get a response I had to have FI's mom make a phone call. Our AHR isn't until Nov. 19 so we will see if people show up with kids!

[Jamie5280]

Thanks for your help ladies.

 

I am still at a loss as to what to say....But I have to figure it out soon.  I don't think there is babysitting services from what I can remember.  But I talked to FI and he is still dead set on telling everyone that we are only having our nieces and nephews at the wedding and not other children....He just can't justify paying for so many children, especially since we are footing the bill.  It would have been so much easier if we didn't want our nieces and nephews there.  I sometimes wish we could have just done an Adults Only.

[AmberW]

I think I can help. On your reply card you simply do this: "2 Seats have been reserved in your honour. Please RSVP by blah blah blah"

 

That way it's very clear without explicitly saying "NO KIDS!". I'm a certified wedding planner, and this is what we were taught to tell brides with this issue. Good luck!

[jello]

I am in a similar position to you; most of our friends got married a few years ago and now have small kids.  I know this is not what you want to hear, but honestly, if I was your friend and you told me not to bring my kids to a family-friendly resort AND I showed up and saw kids (your nieces and nephews) at the wedding, I'd be pretty annoyed.  As you said, it'd be different if you were doing it at an adults-only, but I don't think people will understand why you chose a family-friendly resort if you don't want them to bring their families.

 

You don't have to make the kids part of your wedding celebration.  Is there any way you can negotiate with your resort to set up a separate room nearby for the kids?  Serve them sandwiches at $5 a head; kids don't need or want gourmet food.  Ask the parents to bring some DVDs to keep the kids entertained.  It can be really cheap to feed and entertain kids!

[bride81]

this is a nice eay of saying it!  sometimes less is more

Originally Posted by AmberW 

I think I can help. On your reply card you simply do this: "2 Seats have been reserved in your honour. Please RSVP by blah blah blah"

 

That way it's very clear without explicitly saying "NO KIDS!". I'm a certified wedding planner, and this is what we were taught to tell brides with this issue. Good luck!

 

[sbg75]

I agree that AmberW has suggested a very simple and eloquent way to say this - although I suspect you will still get calls from people asking "exactly what does that mean?"!!