Is it Selfish to Not Invite Children to Your Wedding?

I have kids and I think who you invite to YOUR wedding is YOUR business

I was a selfish bride. These four little words popped up in every aspect of the wedding planning process, from the major to the mundane:

It’s all about me. 

The term “bridezilla” may have been tossed around a time or 600 by my nearest and dearest. I’ll own that without shame. Prior to climbing on the wedding planning crazy bus, there had been few occasions in my life where I got to be the center of attention… where everything was about me. There have been very few since, and I’m not gonna lie: I enjoyed those fleeting moments of being the bride and being queen for a day.

My husband and I planned the wedding we wanted, the way we wanted it. Okay, so that really means the way I wanted and my husband avoiding eye contact, nodding and mumbling, “whatever you say, honey… here, have some chocolate.”

Did I mention the whole bridezilla thing? 

Looking back, I know our wedding was awesome because of the people who shared it with us, but for the most part, all of the decisions were made by my husband and me.  Which means by me. 

So yesterday, I read THIS ARTICLE that is trending around the internets. I’m not above enjoying a good rant once in a while. I’m not above writing one if the urge strikes me but this? Two words came to mind when I read this: butt hurt and whiny. Okay, that’s three words. Or maybe ‘butt hurt’ should be hyphenated? Whatever.

In a nutshell, writer Chaunie Brusie seems to be a sought-after wedding guest who wants to call out brides and grooms everywhere for excluding her little darlings from their wedding festivities. Planning kid-free nuptials? That’s just selfish, she says. Hiring a sitter so she and her mister can attend a wedding sans kids costs over a hundred buckarooneys and Chaunie can have many, many date nights for that amount of cash thankyouverymuch. 

Our sitter charges $11 an hour for two kids, so yes, I feel the pocket pinch of a night out that doesn’t involve chicken nuggets. But, to judge your friends because they want a child-free wedding and slap the scarlet “S” for selfish on their chests?

I have two more words: bull and shit. 

Oh, Chaunie. I normally adopt a “to each their own” attitude when I read something on the internets that I don’t agree with, but something about your lofty, entitled attitude regarding kids and wedding invites made me want to reach through my computer screen and shove some buttercream frosting up your nose. And I mean that in the kindest way possible…because who doesn’t like buttercream?

Full disclosure: we had kids at our wedding. We got married in the afternoon and had a finger-food reception. There was no gazillion dollar per plate charge for “green beans and rubbery chicken” and although we did serve alcohol it was early and people were pretty tame, so we missed out on the “painfully drunken toasts.” If we’d have had a different kind of wedding –the cocktail hour, plated dinner, open bar, dancing ‘till dawn kind – we’d have probably made the decision to exclude children based on cost and general appropriateness.

• A couple who has invested time and money planning their wedding celebration isn’t selfish because they don’t want to fork out extra cash for extra meals that kids probably won’t eat anyway.
• They’re not selfish if they don’t want to hear kids crying during cocktail hour.
• They’re not selfish if they want to spend a gazillion dollars on fragile, artistic table decorations that grubby little paws would wreck in an instant.
• They’re not selfish because they don’t want to have to ask their fraternity brother groomsman to “keep it PG” during the toast so no one’s mommy or daddy gives them the stink eye.

The bride and groom should get to make the call on whether their wedding is kid-friendly without someone wagging her virtual finger and suggesting they’re selfish. When someone spends thousands of dollars on their wedding, the invitees don’t get to dictate the terms. You attend or you send your regrets. Your choice. You send a gift, a card, or good wishes. You choose.

To whine about the invite list of an event that you didn’t plan or pay for? That’s tacky. To call someone else out for being selfish because they want a child-free event? Well, that earns you the giant eye roll from me.

In the words of Chaunie:

“…an adult-only wedding is a painful decision-making process that includes weighing the cost of a babysitter with the most special night of your lives, which is just another weekend in ours.”

Damn. If there’s one time in your life when it’s okay to be selfish… wouldn’t that be your wedding day? Or is that just me?

In the words of me:

I love weddings. I love romance and wearing hats. I love seeing the pretty dresses, hearing the toasts (all the toasts, the heartfelt, the silly and the drunkenly inappropriate). And I love cake. Most of all, I love cake. I consider it an honor when someone chooses to share their wedding day with me. I don’t care if I’m one of 20 guests or one of 1,000. If your celebration includes my children, great. If it doesn’t, that’s okay, too. I have kids and if you don’t want to invite them to your wedding, you get no heartburn from me. That doesn’t make you selfish. Picking unflattering bridesmaids dresses so that you’ll look better in pictures? Now that might be just a little selfish. But remember those four little words: It’s all about you.

It’s wedding season, people. If someone in your life has found happiness, be happy for them and don’t stamp all over their choices. Now… did someone say buttercream?

Jill Robbins writes about adoption, motherhood and midlife on her blog, Ripped Jeans & Bifocals. She has a degree in social psychology that she uses to try and make sense out of the behavior of her husband and three children but it hasn’t really helped so far. She enjoys dry humor and has a love/hate relationship with running. Her work has been featured on Babble, Scary Mommy, In the Powder Room, and Blunt Moms. You can also find her in the December print issue of Mamalode. She willingly answers any questions that end with “and would you like wine with that?” You can follow Jill on Facebook and Twitter.