Image from Kristen Booth Photography submitted exclusively to the Mountainside Bride

Hubs and I have a mid-afternoon, Southern picnic style wedding. Kids were welcome. But I’ve gotten a few emails recently from some of you brides who don’t want kids at your wedding. They can be expensive, as your head count goes up at your reception, or if you need to get child care so mom and dad can tie one on. They are also high maintenance, often requiring kid-friendly activities to keep them entertained.

So if you want to have a grown-ups-only wedding, but don’t know how to tell people, Sara, from Burnetts Boards, who had a wedding without children, is on the blog today with some tips for making the decision and sticking to your guns with friends and family.

From Sara:

Engaged couples generally fall into two categories: those who can’t imagine their wedding without a sweet little flower girl sprinkling rose petals down the aisle while a mischievous ring bearer greedily eyes the cake – and those who can.

Deciding not to invite small children to your wedding can turn into a touchy subject among your family and friends. Some couples just can’t seem to cut the umbilical cord for a night. The first thing you need to do after deciding not to invite the children of your friends and family to your wedding is to set an age limit. For instance, if your main reason for not wanting the little ones around is to avoid screaming and crying during your vows or bad behavior during the reception then decide on an age you think most children can control themselves and anyone under that age, don’t invite. How do you do this?

Plan A: Don’t Include Children’s Names

Don’t include their name(s) on the invitation. Wedding etiquette dictates that unless there is a +1 spot on the invitation, then anyone whose name is not on it is not invited. If you already know that there are going to be some confused phone calls and questions about the kids then include the contact information for trusted babysitters with your invitation or on your wedding website. This should get the point across without any further clarification needed.

You must, however, be prepared for those friends and family members who are going to call you up or pull you aside next time they see you to question you about your no children decision. These are the ones who take it as a personal insult that their children were not invited to your wedding. When you tell them that you’re worried about a child screaming during the ceremony, or in the middle of your commemorative speech to a loved one who wouldn’t be there they are going to insist that their little boy or girl will be on their best behavior. When someone starts doing this to you it’s time to initiate plan B.

Plan B: Blame the Budget

Plan B is simply this: pull him or her aside whenever you see them next (or drop an email or respond to their phone call) and tell them that your budget simply doesn’t allow it. Whether this is true or not shouldn’t matter since no one in their right mind is going to argue with you about how you are spending your money at your wedding.

Explain to them that at $100 dollars a head (or insert a number of your choice) for catering and all the other things that come with it like chairs and table rentals, that if all the children in both families were invited you simply couldn’t afford to have everyone else there. And you can’t allow exceptions for their children because that wouldn’t be fair to all the other families with children.

If someone does start to argue with you about your wedding budget and that an extra however many dollars it will cost for the children is ‘nothing’ – then offer to let them cover the extra expenditures since you can’t afford it.

Plan C: Enlist the Help of Sympathetic Family Members

If Aunt Lindsey refuses to talk to you because you didn’t invite your cousins and their brood of children then Aunt Lindsey probably needs to see a therapist. (just kidding) but if this is the case, enlist a family member (mother or father) to talk to Aunt Lindsey for you. Aunt Lindsey will eventually get over it.

Another Super Stealth Tactic: The Late Evening Wedding

Evening and late night cocktail receptions certainly help. But again with the uber attached parents this could still be a problem no matter how you word your invitations. These are the kinds of parents who ONLY talk about their children…who make it seem like their diapers contain pure gold and their toddler is the most advanced child on this planet and will surely grow up to cure AIDS and solve the Middle East peace problems. I’m sure we all know a few of them or have family members like that. My own wedding was an example of this. Sunset to late night, high-end, swanky hotel drinks before and after… I didn’t think it would be an issue. I thought parents would welcome the night off from parenting but alas, not so. The only thing that saved the peace was using the budget as an excuse and EVEN THEN we had one parent remark afterwards that if we “had struck a course from our meal then the kids could have come” … I’m not even joking. That was said.

Sara is the publisher and editor of Burnetts Boards, a wedding blog dedicated to inspiration boards, styled shoots, and fabulous fashion. Please check out her blog and leave a comment. (And tell her Christie send you :-)

P.S. If you’re a bride and you need help styling your wedding, Sarah creates custom boards at her readers’ requests.