How to Nail Your Wedding Invitation Wording | Wedding Q&A

Well, hello lovely humans and welcome to Engage, a wedding planning podcast for the modern day couple. I'm your host, Jamie Wolfer and I truly believe that wedding planning does not need to be complicated or time consuming. I kind of picture these episodes like jumping on a quick phone call with your wedding planner. You get your answers and you go on your merry way. Because sometimes not all of us have an hour to dedicate to listening to super long podcasts or super long intros. So without further ado, let's just jump right on into it. Today's episode is going to admittedly be a little bit all over the place. You see, every single month I sit down with the people over in the Master Plan course and answer your questions in Lifetime. So if you find yourself struggling and really need to sit down and speak with a real life wedding planner, I would love to be a part of your wedding planning journey. Join us over in the Master Plan today to get your questions answered. Until then, take a listen. So we're having a pretty large wedding, around 220 people. We both have large families. My mom and dad have five siblings each and my fiance's dad has eight. My fiance is also in the military and is inviting many of those friends as well. The issue we're running into is that we only want to invite children we have a relationship with. We have a few kids in the wedding party. We also have close friends and relatives who kids were really close to whose kids we are really close to and can't imagine not having them at our wedding. However, I'm not close to my dad's side of the family at all and I've never met any of their kids. My fiance has also never met his military's friend's children. Is it rude to invite some children and not the rest? We also would like to request that children under five not attend the ceremony. Last year we were at a wedding and there was a toddler who screamed throughout the entire ceremony. We're having a videographer record our ceremony, so I don't want to take the chance of having screaming toddlers. The room we're getting married in is just one large room, so if a child starts crying, there's nowhere to go other than outside. I've asked so many people if we're being rude and too strict about kids at the wedding and everyone has told us we're not and that it's our wedding, we can do what we want. I love kids, but I'm also a teacher and not inviting children goes against my natural instinct. But honestly I'm worried we'll be over capacity if we invite every single child. Okay, so we've got a couple things that we're unpacking here. One, do we have to everyone's children? And two, is it okay that we say no to children under five? All right. Everyone's children. No, you do not have to. Especially if we're talking 220 people. If I received an invitation and I'm a co worker of someone, I do not assume that my children are going to be invited. That would be weird. Okay, that would be weird. Where the kids, no kids thing gets a little bit dicey is when it comes specifically to more immediate family members where you're like, I picked my favorite niece and nephew, but I don't want the other ones to attend, especially if, you know, they're more rowdy. And so I don't really want them there. And then things, feelings get hurt. When we're talking about extended family members, not necessary. When we're talking about co workers. Absolutely not. You are completely off the hook when it comes to inviting those kids. So it sounds like that boundary sounds real clear. And I'm with you on this one. As far as the requesting no kids under five, that I understand your concern. I have only ever been to one wedding where a child was crying during the ceremony. I get where you're coming from. I think you might lose out on some family members and friends if you have that rule. Because, like, for me, I have a one year old who is nursing, and so if it's children under five are not allowed to attend, then I would kind of think, okay, do I want to get ready just to go to the second part? Again, just the mental process of some people trying to play devil's advocate here a little bit. So if you're comfortable losing everyone with a child under the age of five for the ceremony, potentially for the rest of the event, then that's something to consider. Now you have a horrific memory of a child screaming throughout the entire ceremony and parents doing absolutely nothing about it. There are some things that we can do to hedge this. We can have friends and family members that are in the crowd prepared to help escort that family member out or that person out with the child. But if you're like, absolutely not, you have the full freedom to say no children under five, as long as emotionally you're okay with whatever ramifications might come with that of people maybe just not even attending or a mom just being like, I'm just going to stay home. You go, honey, it's totally fine. Like it just doesn't make sense to get the kid ready for the late part of the evening, you know, where it's easier to attend the earlier part and then duck out early. So food for thought. Let me know Tara, if you have follow up questions because I realized that that's a little bit to unpack and that might not be the news or the exact response that you're wanting to hear. So I'd love to chat through that with you if you'd like to talk about it further. Sitting here listening to a podcast is all fine and dandy, right? But sometimes you need an actual person to be asking some of these questions to and you may be sitting there going, you know what, Jamie? Actually, yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. I would love to be able to ask you these questions. Guess what? You need to join the Master plan. You've heard me talk about it, but do you know why I love it so much? You get over 10 lessons that walk you through planning your wedding with videos and spreadsheets and other detailed resources along the way. Join me and my virtual clients over in the Master Plan and get all your wedding planning questions answered. Literally thousands of couples have gone on this journey with me and I'd love for you to be next. Check it out@wolferenco.com tmp that's wolferandco.com tmp Listen, wedding budgets suck. They're just like the actual worst. And the hardest part for me is that weddings are not cookie cutter. They're not one size fits all. And I think it's important to make sure that you're budgeting according to your priorities. Build a budget that works with your vision and you'll be on the path to planning a wedding that you really want. So if you want my recommendations for making your perfect budget for you and your partner, head on over to wedding priorities.com how can we communicate to guests that we are only inviting children from immediate family and some we are close to an extended family? It's best Is it best to specifically name each person on the invite? I also know some people coming have very young babies, probably breastfeeding and not walking yet and we are okay with them bringing them? I honestly would say that unless you were hyper aware of someone whose feelings will be hurt. Here's I think that it's all in the the name that you put on the invitation. So for example, if it says the Wolfer family, I would assume that you are inviting myself, my husband and all four of my children. If it says Mr. And Mrs. Elias Wolfer, then I would assume that it's myself and my husband or Elias and Jamie Wolfer. It's just the two of us that tells me that my children are not invited. Now in a situation like this, I would probably call the couple and be like, hey, so I know it's just for us, baby. Okay? Not okay. Some people might not call. Some people might. Some people might assume, hey, if they are attached to me and I'm their source of food, then they have to come. So you might not get a phone call on that one. But I don't think you necessarily need to communicate that to all of your guests. You put up these etiquette safeholds of whose name are you putting on the outside of the invitation on the envelope and then RSVPs, you're going to keep that a little bit locked down, a little bit more strict. If you are sending out an RSVP card, you want to say two seats have been reserved in your honor, right? We are letting you know there are only two people. So I've now told you on the outside the names of the people and told you how many seats you get. That's it broski. Now if you get some. Sometimes I've heard of people like crossing out the amount of seats and writing more and it's a matter of contacting them and following up with that conversation later. But it's not necessarily assumed that you have to over Claire with clarify with everyone in the beginning. Another way that you can do that is if you're RSVPing online, you can limit the amount of RSVP's they add on there. If they have to type in their names or whatever and if they type in a child's name or not someone's name of who you're inviting, you can call them up and say, hey, that's when you can have this conversation. But etiquette wise, as long as you've told them who is invited on the front of the envelope and how many seats they have, that should be enough to communicate that if you'd like to contact the very specific people that are you think might be nursing or whatnot or have small children, then you can have a conversation with them. Another great way that you can really go into depth or in depth on this is if you want to add any additional information on your website. Because if I am a breastfeeding mom and I'm like, oh shoot, I don't know if that means. I don't know if that means us, like us and baby I would go check their website first. Now of course, this is what I do to like take that with a grain of salt. Some people might not think to do that, but it does help to have that information on your website. Michelle asked. My small 50 person wedding is quickly approaching and most of our guests have already been contacted by phone due to the fact that we needed early commitments on bed and breakfast rooms. Cute. We still want to send out official invites, but the thought of including an RSVP section seems a bit redundant. What are some creative ways around the whole mail in RSVP method? I honestly would make it punny. I'd be like, we assume you're coming because you already said yes, but if not, click here or like, if not go to our website or if not, call us. I do something like that because I think most people would find it funny. You know, if you are struggling with wedding planning and you have questions and you just need someone to listen and to chat with, come join us in the Master Plan community over at the Master Plan Wedding. I would love to have you in there. Thanks so much for listening. If you haven't done so already, subscribe, jump on over to wherever you're listening to this podcast and leave a five star review so we can let the podcast people know that Jamie knows what she's talking about sometimes. And until next time, bye guys.