Wedding invite etiquette/dilemma

[Fishbone†]

What do you do when people respond with a count including their children when their family wasn’t invited?

We invited some “families” to our wedding, but only those who were family or very close friends and some kids from families whom I babysat for. More distant relatives, and friends whose kids don’t even know me (old high school friends, work friends, fishing friends, etc) were not included on the invites. We put Mr. & Mrs. & family on those the kids were invited to, and just Mr. & Mrs. on those that weren’t. That’s pretty common.

An old high school friend (whom I actually probably wouldn’t have invited, but that my mom thought I should because I was in her wedding, and she tries to keep in contact with me), was invited. I specifically wrote Mr. & Mrs. for a couple of reasons…. .first, because we weren’t inviting families of friends like that. Her kids wouldn’t know me from Adam… I’ve only seen them when we bump into each other at the store or wherever, and she has four kids under the age of 6, (6, 4, 3 & 11 months) that are not very well behaved. Her response came back “Mr. & Mrs. XXXX & Family, with a count of 6. Now, I’ll probably just let it go, but it really bothers me. I didn’t invite her kids, I have to pay full price ($13.95) on their plates because there is no child price, and I don’t really want her little hoodlums running around like they tend to do. There will be other children there, so I can hardly call and tell her kids weren’t invited, so I probably just have to ride it out and hope it goes better than I imagine, but don’t people know when it doesn’t say “family” it means just the adults?? The thing is, she wouldn’t have seen anyone else’s invitation, so she wouldn’t have known we were inviting kids at all…. For all she knows it’s an adult only wedding.

Just curious to hear other people’s experience and thoughts on this.

 

[kpm76]

I think if someone has the nerve to include their family when they clearly were not invited, you have to find it in yourself to be just as nervy and call her and explain that unfortunately the invitation was extended to her and her husband only. Tell her that you are limited in the number of guests you could invite and you hope she understands. If she understands, great. If not, oh well, she was rude to beign with. I would not let it go....bringing four kids under 6 to a high school friend's wedding is outrageous, especially when they were not invited! Good luck!

 

[mickeyboat]

If it was truly an adult only wedding, I would probably call her and let her know that there are no children allowed. Since it is not, I would just swallow the extra $, and live with it. I just don't think $56 is worth making a huge issue out of. I bet you won't even notice them at the wedding.

A couple of suggestions to deal with them being there. Are you sure the caterers won't offer a special kid's selection at a cheaper price? Maybe if there are a fair number of kids, they will do that for you.

How about hiring a babysitter to take care of the little ones during the ceremony, at least? How about hiring an older cousin or something to help entertain the little ones during the reception, so they don't cause too much of a disturbance?

Yes, I think your friend was rude to invite her family, but I just am not sure it is worth a big row with her.

Denae

 

[cinmell]

I think if someone has the nerve to include their family when they clearly were not invited, you have to find it in yourself to be just as nervy and call her and explain that unfortunately the invitation was extended to her and her husband only. Tell her that you are limited in the number of guests you could invite and you hope she understands. If she understands, great. If not, oh well, she was rude to beign with. I would not let it go....bringing four kids under 6 to a high school friend's wedding is outrageous, especially when they were not invited! Good luck!

I totally agree with this!!!!! WOW, to include your uninvited kids on the response is pretty rude, especially considering the young ages of the children. I would call and apologize for the misunderstanding (even though it's not your fault!) and explain that you have a head count that you must stick to and although there will be some children at the wedding, they are family. Good luck!

 

[CharmCityGirl]

I think if someone has the nerve to include their family when they clearly were not invited, you have to find it in yourself to be just as nervy and call her and explain that unfortunately the invitation was extended to her and her husband only. Tell her that you are limited in the number of guests you could invite and you hope she understands. If she understands, great. If not, oh well, she was rude to beign with. I would not let it go....bringing four kids under 6 to a high school friend's wedding is outrageous, especially when they were not invited! Good luck!

This is exactly what I was going to suggest. Just say you can't go over a certain headcount. If she was bringing one child that might be different, but four! They're practically their own table!

 

[DisneyGirl4188]

I agree with kpm76. If she was a close friend that did it I probably wouldn't say anything. However, since she is basically an acquaintance I would explain that you can't have the extra guests.

 

[wendy46001]

I think if someone has the nerve to include their family when they clearly were not invited, you have to find it in yourself to be just as nervy and call her and explain that unfortunately the invitation was extended to her and her husband only. Tell her that you are limited in the number of guests you could invite and you hope she understands. If she understands, great. If not, oh well, she was rude to beign with. I would not let it go....bringing four kids under 6 to a high school friend's wedding is outrageous, especially when they were not invited! Good luck!

I'm going to agree as well, but considering you mentioned your mother being involved I’d say let her be the bad guy....During our wedding any issues concerning the guest lists were settled by the moms….mainly due to the fact that I didn’t want the stress

 

[MareQ]

Why are some people so freaking DUMB??????????

What you do is up to you - but you CERTAINLY wouldn't be out of line to call her and let her know that there was a misunderstanding regarding her kids and that the inivtation was addressed to just her and DH. IF YOU LIKE ALTHOUGH IT'S NOT NECESSARY- you can explain that there will be children there that are very close to you, but you just don't have the budget to invite every couples children.

 

[powellrj]

I am going to give her the benefit of doubt here and just assume she wasn't being rude, she just didn't know any better.

That said, if its not an adult only wedding, how are you going to tactfully explain to her why her family wasn't included but other families were? If you call her and tell her that her kids aren't included and she comes to the wedding and sees other kids there, how are you going to explain that without you coming off as being the rude one?

I agree with the poster that suggested a babysitter. You could then not count them on the caters count and then just serve some kid friendly items for the kids.

 

[lulu71]

I think you're just going to have to suck it up. It's a shame that people are so pushy.

For my own wedding, I didn't invite any children - not even DH's niece -because I didn't want to draw the line at which children were welcome and which weren't.

 

[mickeyboat]

For my own wedding, I didn't invite any children - not even DH's niece -because I didn't want to draw the line at which children were welcome and which weren't.

Me, too - except I did invite my neices and nephews for a short time to the reception. They came with their other grandparents, after dinner, and stayed for about 30 minutes for pictures and a little dancing.

My DH's cousin brought her 6 year old uninvited daughter. She didn'teven respond that she was coming. I didn't flip out, and she was very well-behaved the entire time.

Denae

 

[Cool-Beans]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with calling her up and explaining that the children weren't invited. She's the one who made the social error.

The problem is HOW to tell her the children weren't invited. If you were having a "No Children" wedding, you could easily say that and be done with it. But you are excluding some kids while inviting others. That makes it tough.

I echo the other poster who said you should tell her that you were limited to a certain number of people and in order to be able to invite all your adult friends, you had to cut out all but the children you to whom you are closest.

And again, there isn't a thing wrong with calling and gently correcting her. You aren't breaching any rules of ettiquette there. Unless you didn't issue the invite. If the invites were issued by your parents, then they are the ones who should make the call!

 

[NEVERENOUGHWDW]

I would politely call and let her know that you weren't able to invite children in the your family so you are really sorry but this is an adult only wedding.
Also if you don't nip this in the bud people at the wedding that have kids will really get ticked off/upset that their kids were not invited.....It will put you in a tough position.

Good Luck!

 

[Beth76]

I think if someone has the nerve to include their family when they clearly were not invited, you have to find it in yourself to be just as nervy and call her and explain that unfortunately the invitation was extended to her and her husband only. Tell her that you are limited in the number of guests you could invite and you hope she understands. If she understands, great. If not, oh well, she was rude to beign with. I would not let it go....bringing four kids under 6 to a high school friend's wedding is outrageous, especially when they were not invited! Good luck!

I completely agree with this entire post. I'm guessing that she either won't be able to get a baby sitter or she's one that gets offended when her children don't get invited. If you call her and explain (and "limited amount of space" is a very valid excuse) I bet she'll have to cancel. Chances are she'll never even know there were other children invited. And just because you invite some children DOES NOT mean you have to invite all children.

 

[RUDisney]

We had space limitations at our wedding. The country club would only seat 175 people. We couldn't have allowed extras to come if they weren't invited.

I'd call her and tell her that you can't go over the number of guests you invited. If she presses you that there must be some people who responded negatively to the wedding so you'd have the extra room, explain that you invited more people than you could have because each bridal magazine said that you'll get negative replies from 10% of the invited guests and so far, you haven't even reached that yet.

Don't be surprised if she tells you she can't make it then. My DH has a cousin that told me that she includes her children on every wedding invitation (she has 2 kids) in the hopes that she won't get a call to correct her. If she's told she can't bring her kids, she won't go because she refuses to be in a position that she'd need to hire a babysitter for the kids.

 

[lulugirl]

I think if someone has the nerve to include their family when they clearly were not invited, you have to find it in yourself to be just as nervy and call her and explain that unfortunately the invitation was extended to her and her husband only. Tell her that you are limited in the number of guests you could invite and you hope she understands. If she understands, great. If not, oh well, she was rude to beign with. I would not let it go....bringing four kids under 6 to a high school friend's wedding is outrageous, especially when they were not invited! Good luck!

I absolutely agree!
Incredibly rude behavior on her part, I would not feel at all bad telling her to leave her FOUR children at home! (of course I would do so in a polite, tactful manner )

 

[famofsix]

Her response came back “Mr. & Mrs. XXXX & Family, with a count of 6. Just curious to hear other people’s experience and thoughts on this.

My take is with the way she wrote it she knew she was taking a gamble and maybe she knew you'd be non-confrontational about it. Otherwise, I think a good friend would have called to clarify if it was alright to include her children. A good friend would have arranged for childcare if you said no or a good friend would have come alone and left her DH home to care for the kids. A great friend would not even ask to impose children on a wedding they were not invited to.
I would call her up and say you received her response but there must have been a misunderstanding. I would say "it would be wonderful if you and your husband could join us on our special day but regretfully we are not in a position to accommodate all of our guests children". Then maybe I would say something about how planning a wedding is a difficult thing because of space limitations and budgets but this is how fiance' and I decided to handle the guest list. Then if she pushes more I would continue to say this is how you and your fiance' wanted to handle the guest list. I would not apologize, I would just stick to my original plan and that she misunderstood the invitation.

 

[poohluvrs]

Her response came back “Mr. & Mrs. XXXX & Family, with a count of 6. Now, I’ll probably just let it go, but it really bothers me.

The thing is, she wouldn’t have seen anyone else’s invitation, so she wouldn’t have known we were inviting kids at all…. For all she knows it’s an adult only wedding.

.

Ive never received a wedding invite where, when addressed to Mr & Mrs Blank, there is a spot allocated to write in the # attending, its either you can or can not attend. Perhaps this is what confused her?

Even if she has no way of knowing other kids were invited, she will know when she shows, so I dont think you can get out of it w/out hurting her feelings, & from your comment about being in her wedding & her making an effort in keeping contact w/you, the $14pp seems like a small price to pay to keep things kosher w/her.

Good luck w/your wedding. Choose whatever will make your day stress free.

 

[DizBelle]

Ive never received a wedding invite where, when addressed to Mr & Mrs Blank, there is a spot allocated to write in the # attending, its either you can or can not attend. Perhaps this is what confused her?

Even if she has no way of knowing other kids were invited, she will know when she shows, so I dont think you can get out of it w/out hurting her feelings, & from your comment about being in her wedding & her making an effort in keeping contact w/you, the $14pp seems like a small price to pay to keep things kosher w/her.

Good luck w/your wedding. Choose whatever will make your day stress free.

I think it is less about the money and more about the rowdiness expected from the kids. She doesn't want these children disrupting the ceremony and she shouldn't be expected to provide child care at the wedding just because these 4 are showing up. That would make the cost of allowing them to attend even more than the $14 per plate.

 

[It's A Happy Day]

I would call her up and say you received her response but there must have been a misunderstanding. I would say "it would be wonderful if you and your husband could join us on our special day but regretfully we are not in a position to accommodate all of our guests children". Then maybe I would say something about how planning a wedding is a difficult thing because of space limitations and budgets but this is how fiance' and I decided to handle the guest list. Then if she pushes more I would continue to say this is how you and your fiance' wanted to handle the guest list. I would not apologize, I would just stick to my original plan and that she misunderstood the invitation.

Perfect!