Top 3 Factors to Consider with Having Kids Attend your Wedding
Wedding planning can be incredibly tough because of the outside opinions and desires that you may or may not have anticipated having to deal with. When wedding planning, figuring out your guest list is one on the ongoing struggles that you will have to manage. Determining whether or not that you want to invite kids to your wedding is a really tough decision for some people, so here are some of the things that factor into your wedding with or without children attending your wedding day.
The Cost
While catering may be slightly less expensive for children meals, there still is an expense to having children attend your wedding day. There is still a need for rentals like chairs, plates, and glasses that you’ll have adding up with each child that attends your wedding. Each wedding guest generally costs about $100 per person with all of the factors considered, so you will have to anticipate at least $50-75 per child that you plan to invite added onto your catering bill, venue bill, florist bill, and some other vendors as well. This will also depend on your “child age cutoff”. Many caterers say that ages 10 and under are deemed children, but it’s important to know this for if they would qualify for a children’s meal.
2. The Potential for “Error”
Children can be fun, but they are rather unpredictable. Kids cry, scream, run, and laugh. Some people are okay with the funny things that kids do, while others may find it to be annoying or non-ideal for a wedding. When considering having children attending your wedding, you kind of have to be okay with the potential for things to not go the way you planned. Parents may find these things funny or cute to an extent, so you can’t always expect these things to get rectified in a way that you would want. If you are inviting children and you are nervous about this, you can try asking the parents to have a plan when dealing with these things, but you can’t always guarantee that they will be able to attend to them in the way you desire.
3. The Babysitting (or guests that can’t get sitters)
If you are considering not allowing children to attend your wedding day, there will be some parents that are excited to leave their kids at home and some that will be unable or unwilling to find babysitters for your wedding day. In this case, those parents will likely decline your wedding invite. If it’s more important for those parents to attend your wedding, you may have to consider having the children attend as well if this will potentially be a problem. They may actually say they’d prefer a sitter as well!
When weighing your options on if you want to add children to your wedding guest list, there are tons of other factors to consider as well. Some may think that it will make people happy to allow their kids, or rather angry that their kids aren’t invited, at their wedding and assume the costs to avoid drama. Some people don’t care what everyone has to say about it and just don’t want to deal with the outside “potential for errors”. There will definitely have to be some pros and cons listed when you’re deciding and to know what is best. Commonly today, more and more couples are opting to not have children attend their wedding or only having direct family, such as nieces or nephews, being the only children allowed to attend. Make sure that you are making a decision that you are happy with and that you won’t end up regretting either way!
If you’re unsure if you want to have children attend your wedding, click here to tell me about what you’re thinking for your wedding day! I would love to help you figure out what is best for you.
