AITA or the HYPOCRITE Bride + Child-Free Weddings?! | Wedding Planner REACTS

Well, hello lovely humans. Welcome back to my channel and for another rousing round of Am I the A Hole? Child Free Wedding Edition. Hi, my name is Jaime Wolfer. I'm your online wedding planner. In today's video, we're going to be discussing child free weddings and doesn't make you an a hole for having one Reddit style, because that makes things a whole lot more fun, doesn't it? So without further ado, let's just jump right on into it. Am I the a hole for pointing out hypocritical rules at my sister's wedding? Reddit says you are the a hole. My sister got married one week ago. I have a son, four months old who is the only grandchild on my side of the family. Everyone loves him and he loves his aunt. During early wedding planning, my sister suggested that she wanted to have a kid free wedding, but I didn't think she was serious as it was so early on. Then when the invitations came out, I saw on the FAQ page that it was in fact a kid free wedding. I talked to her mother about it and how I was shocked, but she stayed neutral and I didn't talk to anyone else about it. Now I'm not one to start fights, so I obliged and found a babysitter. I was a bit upset, but I tried to still be supportive. The wedding day comes and my fiance and I take our seat seats and wait for the ceremony to start. While waiting, I see my cousin sit behind us with her three year old daughter. I was shocked. It was made very clear to everyone about the no kid rule, so I was sure my family who adores my sister would tell my cousin something. Instead, everyone said hi to them and talked about how cute the child was. I was appalled and knew my sister would be upset. At the reception I went up to my mom and asked her what she thought of my cousin bringing her child. My mom said that it didn't matter that much and that we should all just let it go, but I was furious. How is this for at all? At what point? During the wedding my cousin, sister and I went to go take a photo at the photo booth area. After the photo I turned to my cousin and jokingly said, I guess kid free wedding means different things to different people. Oh, that's massive aggressive. My cousin was shocked and looked at my sister and my sister told me to knock it off and that everything was fine. I told her why should I? I followed the rules and left my son at home. My sister told me to calm down and I told her I was calm, just confused, I guess. We drew attention from some of the other guests and my mother came over and pulled me aside. She told me to stop causing a scene, and I said, I'm not causing a scene, but simply asking why different rules apply to different people. My sister came over and told me to stop and that I was ruining her special day. I couldn't believe it. My fiance and I left because I could not stand to be in the same room as my sister. Then ever since the wedding, my mom has been telling me to apologize. I keep telling her that my sister should apologize to me. I haven't spoke to my sister since and I don't plan on it until I get an apology. Am I the A hole? Okay, we got two edits, but before we even dive into those, woof, woof. This is one thing that we constantly bring up or like, constantly gets talked about when it comes to child free weddings is if there are exceptions to the rule, okay? Because some people are like, I just don't want all kids. There's only a few kids that I'm okay with. Or other people will say, like, we made it a child freak wedding because of this one family, okay? This one family. Their kids are a little bit much and we didn't want to have to explain that to them specifically. So we're just making it no kids except for immediate family only or whatever that happens to be. This situation's a little bit of the reverse of that, right? This is immediate family, no kids, but extended family, yes kids. So immediately my mind goes to one of two options. One, maybe this baby is not as loved as we think this baby is. Or as OP thinks this baby is, maybe this baby's a little bit louder. Maybe based off of the posts, OP didn't think that she was being that loud. But maybe, in fact, she was drawing a scene. Maybe she's just not socially aware of decibel levels. I don't know if you have anyone in your life like that. I do. I totally do. We're like, you're. You're. I'm so sorry. You're yelling. Can you not? Maybe the baby inherited that trait. I don't know. Yep. Or two, the bride and the mother. The bride didn't want to confront the cousin because maybe the cousin's a little bit surly. Maybe the cousin's a little bit difficult to take on. Maybe the cousin thinks that rules don't apply to her, you know, and that's why she showed up with her kid. I. I don't know. There are obviously circumstances that we're never going to know when we read a Reddit post, and this is clearly one of them. But what do you do when you want to have a child free wedding? One, you make sure it's well communicated on your invitation as well as your website. Two, you talk to people who you are aware may be the problem child pun very much intended. If you are worried or aware that someone might take issue with your child free wedding policy, it doesn't hurt to give them a call. My guess is you're not going to be calling hundreds and hundreds of people to let them know this information personally. My guess is it's maybe five if you really even need to go that far. So if there is concern that something like this could happen, or you have a relative or family member that might cause a stink about it, sometimes just having a conversation with them beforehand can really help to smooth things over. Another thing that couples tend to do is they tend to use wedding rules or wedding guidelines or something written on the invitation as a way to circumvent an actual conversation with somebody. And listen, I get it. Wedding planning, stressful. You don't want to have to have all these conversations with people. You just want to put a singular rule on your invitation and move on. And for some people that works. And for some people, they say that's boundaries. That's what I'm doing, I'm putting up boundaries. And for other people, they're just using it as a way to avoid having this conversation. So naturally, lots of nuance here because we're people, we're humans. That's bound to happen. I will also say though in OP's defense, if a child is under the age of one and they're not consuming anything right, no beverages, no food, their parents are providing the only source of sustenance they need through a bottle or what have you, babies under a certain age don't count for a no kids rule. So even if you have a child free wedding, that doesn't mean that you can ban bottle fed or even breastfed children from your event. Again, that may be a circumstance where a phone call is required. So if you want a truly no child event, you need to make sure that you are following up with people that may have children that are under a certain threshold, so under 12 months who are exclusively nursing and cannot be fed by anybody else and or who difficult time being away from mom and dad, you just might have to have those conversations. Putting a line or an answer to an FAQ on your website does not circumvent the need to maybe have a conversation in that scenario. So again, we don't know the baby, we don't know the op, we don't know sister, we don't know cousin, we don't know this three year old child. All we know is that they said child free and there's a kid there. And as far as perception is concerned, that's tacky, that's awkward. And frankly, at this moment I'm kind of on OP side. Except for saying it at the wedding and except for drawing so much attention to it at the wedding, I don't think it was the time or place. That's my opin personally. Clearly there were people around you that felt the same exact way because they encouraged you to drop it, to let it go, to not discuss it at this point. And I don't think that you just accidentally let it slip out when you took the photo with your cousin and your sister. I think you said it with a little bit more purpose behind it, which makes sense. Like how does that. That doesn't accidentally slip out. That's something that was said with purpose and intention when it was just the three of you as opposed to grabbing a microphone and saying it there. You know, like you chose to say it. Just luckily you chose to say it in a far more intimate environment than some might have. So good. You didn't use microphone. That's great. But let's go ahead and catch up on op's edits here, okay? And I, number one people keep saying that I should not have brought this up at the wedding, but when should I have brought it up? It seems worse to bring it up after the fact, doesn't it? Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Especially if the person hosting the party who made the rule said, hey, just let it go. Hey, just let it go. And if it bugs you so much, I think what bugs you more is that your feelings were hurt. Not that the rule wasn't followed because you would have been happy to break that rule. You would have been happy to bring your child. It sounds like you really love your kid and I think that's really sweet and I love that for you. But the host of the event, the bride's like, hey, don't worry about it. Your own mother, the mother, the bride's like, hey, don't worry about it. Everyone's being like, hey, just can you just put a pin in this and we'll discuss it later. And if it was so necessary for you to talk about it, then, yep, you brought it up and then you left. Okay, you did what you felt comfortable with. But I agree. I don't think that would have been the time or place. And I don't think bringing it up afterwards, if it hurt your feelings, I don't think bringing it up afterwards would have been a bad idea. At number two, to be clear, I originally wasn't mad at my sister. Were you sure about that right now? I mean, you're saying you're not, but I was upset at my cousin and slightly upset at my family for not saying anything when they saw the child. I didn't want a fight to happen just for them to hold her accountable. No, you wanted, you wanted, you wanted retribution, which is okay. Like I'm not gonna paint you as evil because you didn't get to have your kid there and your cousin did. You wanted your baby there. You wanted to celebrate your sister, like that's okay. But you wanted someone to stand up for you because you had to sacrifice and your cousin didn't. So you wanted a little bit. You want a little grit. In this scenario. You weren't looking for a smooth situation. I mean, you wanted her to be called out. You just didn't want to be the one to do it. However, I got upset at my sister when she got mad at me for bringing up. I feel like I deserve to let my cousin know how I really felt. And I wanted my sister's support since I followed the rules. Boom, there it is. Found it. You could have gone to your cousin to say, hey, this is supposed to be kid free and you have your kid with you. Did sister give you an exemption like, or, hey, did you know this wedding was kid free? We're actually not supposed to have kids here. We got a sitter for baby so and so. I know. So I figured I'd just let you know that's not passive aggressive. That's just going straight to the source, straight to the person being like, hey, your kid's not supposed to be here. And if they replied, then with your sister said, I could. We have an allowance. We drove in from out of town, we couldn't find a sitter. Etc. Etc. We've planned this for a really long time. Then you can take that issue to your sister and further that conversation there should you choose to. But you didn't. You triangulated it and you put your cousin on the spot and you made a passive aggressive remark of. I guess it doesn't apply to everybody. And I follow the rules. Like, I don't know your tone. I'm obviously like clearly exaggerating for the sake of a YouTube video, but you didn't handle it the way that I think probably a lot of us feel like you should have. And bear in mind you are going to the Internet asking for advice on if you were the a hole or not. And while I do get where you're coming from, I don't think the way that you handled it was appropriate. I also don't think it's appropriate for a cousin to bring a kid to a no kid wedding. No kids means no kids unless they literally can't leave their parents side. So usually a 3 year old is on some sort of solid food at that point. If they are still nursing, great more power to them, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's their only source of sustenance. So I'm leaning to where you are. I'm leaning to where you are. A little bit low, but on the a hole just a little bit. Okay, I'm sure it's not the case here, but when I hear everybody loves my kid, I assume that kid absolutely sucks to be around 20,000 upvotes. Someone says I was thinking the same thing. Oh this third commenter says I found that's usually code for I trust everyone else to watch my kid at events and I don't do any parenting way more often than not. Okay, I will actually say that we have delightful children. I love being around my kids and I actually do parent them. I think a lot of people do appreciate and enjoy being around my kids as well. So I don't necessarily think OP is completely delulu for thinking that her family loves this baby. It's the first grandbaby. Babies are squishy. Babies are fun. Like I. You know Opie might be right. I am that family member that gets to watch the kids because no one else is ever paying attention. At a birthday party this past weekend our cousin went to the store and just left her daughter and didn't say anything. Oh that drives me nuts. I don't mind really, just sometimes want to have adult interactions. Lol. Our other cousin has a nine month old and if I could get away with stealing him he would already be mine. Lol. Lots of laughing. To clarify, I have pcos so I might not be able to have kids and an unrecovering addict. I also have bipolar depression. Would never subject an innocent kid to be at risk. For those reasons they didn't ask to be here. What? Okay, that was a lot of information to share with the Internet. Sister friend, right? For Instance, my youngest is outgoing and attracts attention. Her personality is attractive, but she's bossy and mouthy and demands attention if she's not the center of attention. So yeah, people love my kid in short bursts. I love that you know your child this well too. I found that's usually the case when people say the above phrase. Okay. I can't help but wonder if it wasn't really a child free wedding. It was just Op's sunfree cousin seemed surprised by OP's comments. OP said other guests left kids at home too. Can't be sure if the cousin was shocked by what OP said or about how she said it. She was furious. So I'm not thinking it was delivered in a calm manner, especially when it gets followed up with a calm down. I am calm. Yeah, I feel like we're missing some context here. And as a professional, just for like just in un momentito. Poor favor is the fact that Op said it was on the website. She talked about it out loud with me verbally and then it was on the website. What if cousin didn't read the website? So if you truly want a kid free wedding, it's got to be listed on the invitation or on a details card that is associated with the invitation. In case you're wondering, I love kids. As you're watching this, I'm probably on maternity leave with my fifth kid. As I'm recording this, I'm pregnant with my fifth kid. I love children. I love events with children. I think they're so much fun. I actually see more issue and more problems caused by adults at weddings than I do with children at weddings. Because, you know, the adults have access to the happy juice and the kids just have access to the apple juice. But I do think that a couple can choose whether they want to have kids present or not. Whether that's because they want to play explicit music, whether that's because there are certain family members whose kids they don't want to be around or think are too loud or only fun in short bursts. Or there's a whole myriad of reasons. Or maybe they don't feel like paying $65 a head for a small child to throw a piece of chicken on the floor. Whatever the reasoning is, they're allowed to have it. I have loved child free weddings. I have loved child full weddings. I don't care. Aren't we supposed to be voting? You're the a hole op. So your kids stayed home. You could have had a few drinks and enjoyed adult time. But no, instead you choose to be mortally Offended? You don't even know how. Why? The three year was there. They asked you to let it go, but no, you had to escalate the issue. You owe everyone a huge apology. No kidding. I go places without my kids and even when kids are welcome. Why? Because not every kid is fit for every situation. And sometimes we like not having our kids around. Preach. And I love them and I also want breaks from them. In OP situation, I would have shrugged and enjoyed my kid free night. Since I already had a babysitter, I certainly wouldn't have kept nagging and picking and demanding to know why that I think she has a right to ask the question. I think context and I think timing matters. And I think this was not it. This was not it. You want an apology because you weren't special enough at her wedding. If the bride didn't want to confront the cousin, you had absolutely no business saying stuff jokingly or not. Hint you weren't joking. This is evident by the hissy fit you are still throwing. You're the A hole. Okay, I don't think it's. You have every right to be offended. I get where you're coming from. Time and place. Time and place. Her sister can have been serious about a child's reweding. Surprise. She was. OP is not one to cause fights. Surprise. She caused a fight. OP said jokingly. Surprise. She wasn't joking and was loud enough to make others very aware of that. Oh, op. Someone else gets to be rude at my sister's wedding. I demand to be the rudest person at my sister's wedding. Op. You're the A hole. When you spell it out like that, it doesn't look great. It doesn't. Doesn't look great. You're the a hole. Your poor sister already had to deal with one guest ignoring her wishes and probably decided to just let it go, focus on enjoying her wedding day. I'm guessing the last thing she wanted to deal with was confronting your rude cousin and kick out a three year old. There weren't different rules for different people. Your cousin just decided to ignore the rules or didn't see them because sometimes people don't even look at the website or read your FAQs. And your sister decided to make the best of an annoying situation. Possibly very true. Instead of being empathetic and following your sister's lead, you decided to make it about you and your feelings and made a scene. You owe your sister and mom an apology. I might be inclined to agree with them, but if you'll allow me, here's a counter perspective. Child free weddings are selfish and make me not want to attend out of principle. Change my mind. Oh, you came to the wrong place, friend, if you think that this is a safe place to share these thoughts. Okay, okay. I'm gonna try to find where this post starts, but forgive me if I'm like there's an edit that they put at the top. Can we just follow the decorum of putting the edits down below? Thank you so much. And then also paragraph breaks are Great. Okay, with two kids, a three year old and a baby who will be 11 and a half years old at the time the wedding's in question. Okay, My husband and I have been invited to four weddings so far in 2025 and two of them are child free. And honestly, I feel like it's kind of a selfish, crummy move. These are good friends of ours and I don't want to feel this way, but I feel hurt, sad and annoyed. Both weddings are ones that require a two to three hour flight followed by a one to three hour drive. They're not super far flung destination weddings, but neither are they in cities where they live, I. E. Most, if not all the guests will travel at least an hour to reach the destination. One of the people getting married says on the website they're not having children because they can't fit them in the fancy venue they wanted. I'm not sure the others reasons. Both weddings will be pretty expensive. The reasoning does not matter. The reasoning does not matter. Whatever. Whatever reason the couple picks is their reasoning. What they say is what they say. You don't have to like it though. Okay? I'm not saying you have to like it and you don't have to go, but they don't have to provide reasoning for you. Hey, weddings are all about being selfish. Are they? Are weddings about celebrating your love story with all of your favorite humans? I don't think they're all about being selfish. Okay? Everyone gets to have the wedding they want. And if inviting kids would mean a bigger venue, that's money they can't spend on other touches. Or maybe people just don't like being around kids or babies. But I feel hurt because you know, these people went through their invite list and went they have kids. They have kids. They have kids and decided okay, these folks might not come if we make it child free and that's okay with us. Oh, this is about your value in their eyes. Oh, and it also means that on this day, a day that in my mind is about celebrating and growing a New community of both people's people. They don't want my whole family there. I think you're taking this more personally than you need to be taking this. Sorry. Usually I wait to the end to add commentary, but this one's got too much. I mean, let's be real. The kids are gonna be gone and in bed by 8 to 9pm at the latest anyway. If a couple wants a day without kids, they always have that option. But this is taking the option away from us. Yep, it is. Kate. For both these weddings, we could find a way to make it work. Basically hire expensive babysitters that we don't know to watch our kids at the hotel for several hours or only one of us goes to the wedding. But I kind of don't want to. But these are good friends. What am I missing? Okay, you're missing the fact that this is serving. I am main character energy. And in this scenario, you are not the main character. And I do understand where you're coming from. I have a hard time leaving a baby under one. I exclusively breastfeed kids for at least a year, minimum, if possible. Like, I get it, I get it. My last one didn't even take a bottle. Like, it just. It's. I completely understand. And even if you don't feed a baby that way, like, I get it, it's really hard to leave a little one. But at the same time, if anyone's going to be serving main character energy on a wedding day, it's the couple getting married. And I don't think that's selfish. And I don't think weddings are about being selfish. I think it's about throwing a really cool banger of a party with your favorite humans to celebrate your favorite love story of all time. That's not about being selfish. But you allowed to make rules. Again, humans nuance. There's. There's. There's so many elements to this, so I kind of get my thoughts along the way. I don't really feel like there's more to. To add on to this one specifically. I just really want to dive in to see what these edits say. Okay. Because there's an edit immediately following this and it's hard not to read the first words already. So it says edit. This has actually already been so helpful. Honestly, it helped to just write it all down and vent and let it go. Oh, you got schooled, huh? Sorry, sorry. You might have changed your mind, but also you might not have. And then it's also helpful to hear different specific reasons why people want child free weddings and so many reminders to not take it personally. My wedding was a wonderful, chaotic, crowded, kiddo friendly DIY mess that kids left around 9 or 10 and everyone else stayed up and kept drinking and dancing until eventually a mass skinny dipping in the lake at 2am Honestly, speaking of an absolute banger of a party, yours sounds pretty fun. My favorite weddings have all been like this. I'm honestly less familiar with the types of weddings that kids would be out of place at and it's not my usual vibe. I'm also surprised it is for these friends, but they're long time childhood friends that I've seen less of since moving, so who knows. These comments are genuinely helpful and I'm sorry for using the words crummy. I'm still bummed because likely we won't be able to afford both weddings, but we'll do what we can. Wait. But if you can't afford both weddings, why are you ranting about not being able to come and not being able to bring additional people that you'd have to fly with and house and feed on this trip? I'm super glad this was an educational experience for you. I'm just really confused by what the processing I don't understand, don't understand. And then there's a final update at the top. I truly appreciate all the comments and the folks who share their own or their friends reasons for not having kids at their wedding. I've been to 30 plus weddings in the last seven years and only of those was child and only of those was child free. Never gonna know how many. Okay, but this post has helped me realize that it's more common than I thought. At the end of the day, my friends of course get to prioritize what they want to prioritize for their own wedding and I always knew that one of them is giving me a lot of pressure and guilt from maybe not being able to make it. And that's not cool, as many commenters agreed. But deciding to have a child free wedding certainly isn't crummy and it's no more selfish than any of the other decisions people make for their weddings. Selfish isn't a bad thing as far as weddings are concerned. My priority for my wedding was having my people there, so I went cheap wherever I could to max out capacity while making sure everyone still had plenty to eat and drink, etc. Maybe there were guests that wanted fancier food or more drink options at the bar and thought I was selfish for inviting them to such a big event. So thanks all and to everyone considering their own child's free wedding. Just go into it thoughtfully and intentionally and don't guilt any parents who can't make it. A weekend away is a lot and expensive and we get few of those a year. And I still love kids at weddings and my three and a half year old freaking loves them. I do appreciate a person who can have a contrite spirit after posting something like that. I do. I love that. It does feel a little bit like the reasoning shifting or maybe the real reasons finally being revealed. Like if you couldn't go just the two of you, you definitely can't go all four of you. Unless you're implying that would be an expensive babysitter to be with the kids at home. But if it's a matter of one of you going and not wanting to do that, it just sounds like you're being dealt a hand of cards that you don't really like the options for and that's okay to be like, I don't love this, I don't love this. But you did come into this saying change my mind. And then your mind was changed. So let's see what to the comment section Kids change the dynamics of a wedding in a big way. Guests are likely to leave earlier and probably won't let loose and contribute much to a party celebration vibe that a lot of couples prioritize when they are kids of friends and not family. That means there isn't going to be multiple adults the kids know to help contribute with childcare. If you were able to attend these out of town weddings with kids, what would that look like? I wonder if your travel would be worth the effort for all the sacrifices you would have to make getting there and being there. It's a tough spot for everyone. But if you aren't able to travel and leave the kids at home with someone trusted, I'd RSVP no and express your sincere regrets. The couple should understand and hopefully y' all can find another time to get together and celebrate with them. That is such a nice, kind, polite way of putting together it. Kids do change the dynamic of weddings. They do. They don't ruin it. In my opinion. Most don't. But they change the dynamic. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. And there's nothing wrong with saying I don't want that dynamic at my wedding. In the same way that some people choose dry weddings. I don't want that as an option at my wedding. And I want to give people the option of imbibing way too much. No thank you. Or why people have a black dye wedding because that's the dynamic that they want. That's the vibe, that's the atmosphere that they want to create for their wedding day. And they're allowed to do that. And also their guests are allowed to not love it. What you are missing is their weddings aren't about you and what you want. There it is. There's. There's the Reddit comment we're looking for. You're being selfish. An invitation is not an obligation. Some people with kids love the opportunity to get a sitter and enjoy a classy, expensive evening. I do. I love a good night out. And not everyone thinks it's cute when little Jimmy screams during the ceremony, then crawls under the tables at the black tie reception fair. I promise it's not a slight at you. The bride and groom understand that some people will not be able to attend and they are okay with that. It's their day. I'll be honest. I had a wedding and I did not go through the invite list saying they have kids, they have kids, they have kids. I'm sure they're not doing this to hurt you. It's their wedding, their day. We knew we wanted a child's reweding from the get go so everyone could fully enjoy themselves and also not worry about the kids. It's not a personal attack on you or anyone that who does have kids. Opie says that actually really helps. Thank you. You needed someone else outside of your person to tell you that? I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Sorry if that came off a little harsh. It's the same. I think. I truly don't think they are doing to hurt you and what others have said. It is an invite, not a summons. If you can't make it work for whatever reason, financial, childcare, whatever, if they are good friends, they will understand that the next comment says it's their day and they chose to not have kids. If you don't like it, don't go. Some weddings are not conducive to have children at them. Based on the venue, the meal, etc. There are times it is nice to have an evening without kids. Spoken like someone who has enjoyed an evening without kids. Personally, it sounds like you are prioritizing your wants over the couples wants. It's their wedding and I think that guest experience should be considered. The final experience that matters is that of the bride and groom. Also, there are other guests who would enjoy attending an event without the distraction of kids. There's no need to Apologize for an adult event only, including adults. If you are a good friend, then you should do what you can to ensure you can attend. But if it's really not possible, I don't think the couple should be upset knowing that you have more to overcome childcare than others with no children. Personally, I'm doing an adult only wedding because one, kids would be charged the same as adults and it's ridiculous to spend $200 plus for a kid. And two, my fiance and I enjoy nice, upscale adult experiences without kids. And three, frankly, we aren't big kid people. We understand that our friends family will have to find care and we are providing them ample time to do so if they don't want to or can't. We understand. It's unfortunate, but understandable. Okay, actually, Last comment. We use the no child rule because a lot of parents can't control the kids. We are also using our wedding as a night out, basically for the parents who want to let loose. It's our wedding, our party, and I'm gonna be selfish with our rules. Okay, I don't think that putting parameters up is being selfish. I think you're just putting parameters up or having boundaries and choosing who you want to invite. That's not selfish. Sorry. Not inviting kids is not selfish. Change my mind. Here's the thing. Your first and third points are fair and valid. So the first point was no kids rule because a lot of parents can't control their kids. And it's our wedding and our party and we can be selfish. But please don't try to actually use that second point with your friends. With kids, it's okay to acknowledge that you want to be selfish with your rules for your day, but own that. Don't pretend you're doing it for the parents who want to let loose. You're doing it for you. And that is more than okay and enough. Oh, interesting perspective. As someone with a child who has had to sit out a lot of friends weddings because of my kid and not having reliable childcare to watch my kid for an entire day, which is what a wedding would be in terms of childcare. It was always salt on the wound when a friend would mention they were doing it so I could let loose. It's not about me and it's certainly not for me. Mmm. Your friends with kids are going to have to pay way more for your wedding than your friends without. And that's just the wedding. That doesn't include bachelor parties, rehearsal dinners. If they're in the wedding party, engagement parties, etc. They have to pay for a sitter, pay for the food for both their child and the sitter, possibly pay for something the sitter can do with the child to keep them occupied for an extended period of time. Potentially pay for a hotel room for the sitter if it's a destination wedding, and then pay for all the other expenses that all your other guests will pay. So this isn't for them. You're not doing them a favor. And that's okay. It's your day. Just embrace that though. Okay? I I appreciate the element that that commentary brings to this conversation. I don't necessarily agree with it. I do think that people think they're giving their friends an opportunity to let loose in a lot of scenarios. At least for us. We are super fortunate to live near family. It doesn't cost me extra to have my kids watched by a family member when we go to a wedding. And even having a babysitter, that's the cost of kids. Life is more expensive with kids. Weddings are not the only case scenario where life gets a little bit more spendy because you've got more mouths to feed and more people to entertain. But also, as an aside, you don't need to buy food for them and the sitter. You can have dinner prepared ahead of time. You don't need to pay money for an activity for them to do together. If you're traveling with a sitter. Yeah, I guess that can get really expensive. But there are other choices around that. Inherently, having kids is expensive. Adding lives to your life is expensive. So it's not wedding exclusive, it's not wedding specific. It just is what it is. And so I don't necessarily agree with this commenter's full line of thinking and reasoning, because that's just life. That's just life with children and that's okay. And it's beautiful and it's messy and it's chaotic and there's always someone to talk to and there's always someone making noise. Always. But honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. And last but not least, just let's entertain a little bit of a rant, shall we? Child free wedding rant. Can I just rant for a second? Because if I don't, I'm going to go off on some family. We're in the last few days of our RSVP is being due and I'm starting to get a lot of whispers of family members asking about the child free aspect of my wedding and how serious we are about it. That tells me you probably haven't communicated that effectively enough or you just have a really, really obnoxious family. People who have already RCPDs are telling other family members they might not make it or they may have to no show. Because finding a sitter is hard, which. Okay, I get it. But we were clear from the very beginning that it's expensive to have this wedding and the cost to pay for a child's seat and dinner is equal to an adult's, so we weren't going to do that. If, you know, two months out, you're probably not going to be able to make it, why would you RSVP yes to begin with? This is why you don't require RSVPs two months in advance. Because life happens. And maybe they thought they had time to find a sitter and then they did. Didn't. That's okay. RSVPs are due a month in advance, people. A month. Not two. One. One month. Don't try to extend it. Don't try to be cute. Don't try to break the norm. Don't try to make the wedding etiquette rules. It's a month, okay? And anytime you try to require anything outside of that, it's gonna. It's gonna mess with people's brains a little bit. I know it can be really tempting to mess with the pacing, the RSV timeline on a lot of different scenarios, but if you can just adhere to it as best as possible, it exists for a reason. Good reason. I also had one family member ask several people in the wedding what they think I'd do if they just brought their child anyways or if they think I'd notice. Why are people like this plot twist? It's the bride from the first post. It's the bride whose sister got ticked and she's worried about the cousin bringing the kid anyways and is going to Reddit to just vent and like, hoping this doesn't happen. Man, could you imagine how gloriously funny that would be? I'm not funny. This is someone's life. Like their wedding and a child showed up anyways, but, like, oh man, the Lord would be so good. Yeah, I get it. I get it. I already can. Kind of feel like maybe there was some communication that didn't really happen here in a way that it should have. Again, if you want child free, it's got to be in the invitation suite. You have to put it there. Let's be really cautious about how you're addressing your invitations. Your envelopes should be really, really clear on who is invited, who that invitation is inviting now, if it's Mr. And Mrs. Smith, great. If it's the Smith family, great. What's the difference between those two? Mr. And Mrs. Smith means the couple. The Smith family means the whole household that lives there. The whole household that lives there. So if there's an adult child that doesn't live there that's also invited, they get their own invitation sent to their address. Additionally, inside of the card, whether it's a details card, an RSVP card, or on the invitation itself, you need to say that it's child free. You can come up with any sort of cue, phrasing, use any sort of fun little limerick or rhyme you see online to make yourself feel better about making this statement or to make it silly or to make it light hearted. But whatever you do, don't say it's because you want want the adults let loose. Because some people might not like that. Just kidding. You're not gonna please everybody, okay? You need to communicate it physically on paper to the people that children are not invited. So outside the invitation, inside the invitation, and additionally, as the final frontier, your wedding website, just please bear in mind there's a high, high likelihood that people are not gonna go scrounging around your wedding website even if you spent three weeks working on it. People are not gonna go looking around for details. At least a lot of people aren't. A lot of people aren't going to read large blocks of text. A lot of people aren't going to go poking around to the different pages you have. They're going to go to the RSVP selection and fill in their selection there. And that actually is the real final frontier. So I kind of. I know I said the final frontier was like on the website, but it's the RSVP section, have an RSVP protocol or an RSVP system through your wedding website or however you choose to set this up, that limits the amount of seats that are made available to them. So if an RSVP card is going out to a family, say two seats have been reserved in your honor. So here's what it looks like to invite a couple that has children to a wedding that you are going to have. Child free outside, Mr. And Mrs. Smith, address inside, no children, kid free wedding RSVP card. Two seats have been reserved in your honor. You can reply on the card or you can reply online. They go online, there's an FAQ section that says, yes, no children. Great. And then when they go to rsvp, it blocks them from being able to RSVP whomever they want in whatever number they want and whatever names they want. Because occasionally people try to sneak some different names in there, which is not okay. It's not okay. So if you don't know the person's name, like a plus one or something, you can say and guessed on the outside of the invitation, that's perfectly fine. And leave a singular option for them to insert the person's name when they RSVP. But at least you know, Mr. And Mrs. John and Jane Smith can't go in and add Johnny. You know, they can't add an additional name because you've blocked them to a total of two RSVPs with specific names. And again, this is, this sounds like a lot of work and it is, let's be fair. That's a lot of steps to take for sure. But if you were concerned about this and, or if you're having a child free wedding and you really want to ensure that you're communicating this really effectively, you do need to take all those steps. You do. Otherwise you could find yourself in a scenario like this where people are all of a sudden whispering and commenting a couple weeks before your wedding because there's a chance it wasn't spoken about clearly enough beforehand. You might have done everything right. You might have, I don't know what OP did in this scenario might have been absolutely perfect. Or, or, or, or might have been not enough communication. And now people are like, are they, how serious? How serious are they? Oh, for real, over real. Is this. Anyways, let's go to the comment section. Boundaries, my friend. Are these whispers your family members coming to you directly? Are they coming as secondhand info from someone in particular? Your fiance, mother, mother in law, in my opinion. Unless someone is coming to you directly with a concern, don't start jumping at shadow. That's actually relatively decent advice so far. I had to deal with similar whispered complaints from my in law family, recently relayed by my well intentioned but incredibly unhelpful fiance and straight up had to tell him that I don't want to hear a single word about it unless it was a real issue that needed to be addressed. If you have a problem with it, please talk to me about it. If you're just gonna gossip and whisper about it, I don't have mental energy. I'm already planning a wedding. Thank you. So unless you really want to talk to me, you can do all your whispering that you want to. Okay. I don't have space up here for anything. For anything at all, really. Thanks. Some people and even Entire families cough in laws cough. Just enjoy bitching and complaining like it's a sport. But in the end, if they've indicated they'll be there, that's all you can go on. Make it clear on the wedding website and to the people that are important to the event. And then don't spend any more emotional labor on these a hole holes. Opie says it's mixed. Some of them are coming to me directly, some are second hand. One was talking about it in group chat. They didn't realize I was in which. What the f? I think you're so right that some people just like complaining. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think there are just some people that's in their nature. Just find something to complain about. There's one person in particular that like I've met and interacted with recently where I'm like, oh, this is just. This is just you organically. Like you just find things like this to complain about. Man, that's a lot. That's a lot for your brain to experience. What's that like? Have you tried being bubbly and effervescent and talking too fast and being over caffeinated? Because I gotta tell you, it's really working out well for me. The group chat though is wild. I mean, if you're in the group chat, is it worth a passive aggressive? If anyone shows up with a child, both parent and child will be turned away at the door. With that in mind, would anyone like to text me their updated RSVP repeat? Nah, that's just playing passive aggressive with passive aggressive. That's not helping anything or anybody. Like cute. Oh, they realized. People think that if you just knew they disapproved that they just have to bring their darling child that you would change your mind. Don't do it. That was a confusing comment. Okay, what's this one say? Let's find one that makes a little more sense. I just want to say that this is wonderful life advice. If someone comes to you representing a mighty cloud of witnesses, you can give them a hearing, but you aren't obligated to act. I eventually nipped this in the bud with a few people in my life. They would come to me regularly with complaints from a lot of people. I asked for names, they sputtered, then declined to provide names. I don't doubt they had been elected to triangulate by some folks. I said, cool. Until I hear this from them in person, I'm not interested. You all have my phone number. Call or don't. Until then, I will deal with you about Your issues with me. I don't really care about some Greek chorus of Olympic complainers that stop it. I do actually love this advice. I think there's a lot of merit to this. I think that you're already trying to entertain a lot of people and make a lot of people happy and you're spending a lot of money. It's already really tumultuous and emotional. So if you're hearing whispers, if people are coming to you directly, address those directly. If people are coming to your fiance or your family members or your future in laws, say, hey, that's great, communicate on my behalf that yes, it is going to be child free. I give you my blessing to do that. Or if they want to talk to me about it, please have them call me. But I'm not going to do this. Like, I'm not going to go approach them because the he said, she said. It's honestly, it's too messy and it's a little bit juvenile for me. So I'm going to go ahead and say thank you for bringing this to my attention and then encourage you to talk to them yourself or have them come directly to me. Thanks any who knows. That's all we have for today's video. Guys, what are you doing? Are you doing child free? Are you inviting some children? Are you inviting all children? Doesn't matter. No judgment from me either way. Like, I want to show up at your wedding. Where else? If my kids are invited or not? Okay. I think your wedding's gonna be awesome. Awesome. I think it's going to be epic. In fact, once your wedding's over, if you don't send me the photos, I'm going to be really, really sad and slightly offended. I don't know if we do this for every video, but oftentimes I have, I have a link if you want to submit your wedding for me to see them. I love it. I absolutely love it. So whether it's child free or not or whatever it is, please send me pictures from your wedding. I'd love to see it. I'd love to celebrate you. And let me know, are you having kids at your wedding? Are you not having kids at your wedding? Some, etc. Let's just bolster each other up in the comments, okay? This whole wedding planning thing is hard enough as is. Let's make it as easy as possible and let's survive through this together. Okay? Okay. So while you're down there, hit the like button if you like the video and subscribe to this channel for more tips and tricks for the modern day bride. And until next week, bye, guys.