I'm Glad I *Didn't* Ban Kids From My Wedding
My husband and I never intended to have a "kid-friendly" wedding. We planned our wedding in wine country, where hotels are pricy and dinner is even pricier - and getting married in your 40s means that adding "bring the kids!" to the invite can easily quadruple the guest list.
Don't get me wrong, we adore kids; we have two kids (my now step-kids). Legos and crayons and Just Dance marathons are part of our everyday life – and we talked a lot about this being our big day as a family, when we'd finally become official and I would make vows to my new husband and his children.
But still, it was a wedding. I didn't grow up scrap-booking my Plaza Hotel wedding in a giant tulle beaded gown, we loved our Pintest-esque venue, with twinkle lights and rustic outdoor tables and a funky indoor studio for cocktails and dancing. We loved that it was casual yet breathtaking, we loved that it came with a full bar (we come from two big Irish families, so…yeah). At no point did we picture any of it overrun by a wild gang of kids.
We knew we'd have our kids, who were in the wedding, and their three immediate cousins, but that was it. And, frankly, we figured they would all be bored and happy to get swept off to PS4-land right after dinner, you know, due to the lack of other kids to play with.
And then - as it tends to, especially when you have kids - life happened.
Several families traveling from the east coast decided to bring their kids along and make it an extended family vacation. That was fine, we had sitter recommendations at the ready and no one expected anything more. Then two of the cousins weren't coming, so we invited the kids' best friends, who are basically family. No biggie, still just five kids out of a list of 150 invited guests.
Then the declines started coming in – college friends decided to come solo, leaving husbands or wives home with their kids so they could enjoy the weekend, family members couldn't quite swing the flight and hotel costs, and other people just had other commitments (we gave as much notice as we could, but it definitely wasn't a full year). By the time we had to provide final headcount, just two weeks before the wedding,we'd dipped below not just our original number (which was expected), but even slightly below our guarantee to the venue.
So we talked it out: We had the seats, the kids' meals were less pricey than the adult meals so, and we had already opened up the guest list to some unrelated kids. Why make everyone pay for sitters and worry about their children all night? In the final stages of wedding planning, our ratio went from 5 kids out of 150 to 14 kids out of 95.
And just like that, our "no kids allowed" wedding became kid-friendly - because kids we loved were there.
It definitely changed a few things. We had to look up ideas to keep kids entertained at a fancier dinner, we had to coordinate kid's meal options with the venue, and we debated the pros and cons of an "all kids" table (we decided against, lest it turn into full-on Lord of the Flies situation). The day before the wedding, instead of stuffing elegant party favor bags, my mom and I stuffed kiddie bags full of crayons, coloring pages, stickers, glow sticks, disposable cameras, and an "I Spy" game listing out all the pictures we wanted them to capture.
And just like that, our "no kids allowed" wedding became kid-friendly - because kids we loved were there. And honestly, it made the day that much better. The kids all bonded the way only kids bored at a grown-up event can do, and it added a whole other energy to the day. And, between welcoming and toasting and dancing and photos, my husband and I really had far less time than we wanted to make sure our kids were OK and having fun and not bored or upset, so I'm incredibly grateful that they had a whole pack of friends and relatives to run wild with.
One of my favorite memories of the entire night was when, while we were walking out to the dinner, just as we were introduced as husband and wife, the kids all turned into paparazzi, yelling "Kiss! Kiss!" "Wait, I missed it, do it again!" (One of the items on the I Spy list was a photo of the bride and groom kissing). We have some great photos of all the kids with their cameras out, and us laughing as we kissed again and again so that every kid could get their shot.
The kids had a blast, the adults got to drink and dance and enjoy the night, and every one of us had to step up our dance game to keep up with the under-14 set. In the end, it just felt more…us to have the kids bring their special brand of barely controlled chaos. That's the life and the family I married into, and I'm so glad that we got to share it with all of our loved ones.
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