Bride Wonders If She Is Wrong For Charging Parents Who Brought Their Rowdy Kids To Her Child-Free Wedding
A bride and groom made guests who brought their kids to the childfree wedding face consequences.
IVASHstudio / Shutterstock.com Kids can be loud, rambunctious and rowdy — that’s just in their nature. For this and other reasons, many engaged couples opt to have child-free wedding receptions. However, not all parents agree with that rule. While most that are against it choose not to attend the wedding, one family decided to just ignore it altogether and bring their kids anyway.
A bride and groom decided to charge parents who brought their kids to the child-free wedding.
The bride took to Reddit to explain the situation, noting that while planning and preparing for the wedding, they found the venue they wanted was far too small and expensive to include kids from either side of the family.
“The kids are generally good, so the main issue was cost,” she revealed in the post. “Our venue charges age 2+ the same as adults, which is $250pp (including tax/tip). It would double the cost and our venue wasn't big enough for all the kids.”
In fact, wedding website Zola found that couples can expect to spend an average of $29,000 for their wedding, as wedding venues charge per plate — no matter the guest's age. In order to save money, many couples decide to make the receptions child-free. While many couples leave it up to parents to find childcare, this couple was nice enough to set up a generous compromise where kids would be allowed to go to the rehearsal dinner but would have to stay with hired babysitters that the bride and groom would hire for the actual ceremony and reception. And for the most part, everyone agreed.
“On the wedding day, 3 couples showed up with their kids, a total of 9 kids,” she wrote. “My husband was more upset than I was because these folks were on his side.”
After a small scene during the wedding ceremony, they agreed the kids could stay for the reception so long as they didn’t cause trouble and the parents would pay per child the price that the venue requested. However, the night never turns out the way you want it to — the kids wreaked havoc, leading the couple to ask the family to leave before cutting the cake.
After the wedding, the bride and groom sent a letter reminding the parents that they agreed to pay for the children.
The parents of the "rowdy" kids refused to pay for the uninvited kids.
“Two couples paid and were apologetic, and even said now they understood why we couldn't include the kids,” she wrote. “Of course, the couple with the 2 rowdy kids refused to pay because we asked them to leave before cake... seriously.”
They burned the bridge of their friendship, got a nasty call, clapped back with “they should be lucky I didn't send the dry cleaning bill for the dress,” and refused to let them visit — which most people on Reddit agreed with.
“NTA. Stand your ground. You went above and beyond to accommodate guests with children, and they imposed,” wrote one user in response.
Many people agreed with the fact that the couple was incredibly gracious for even agreeing to compromises for people with kids in the first place, making the parents' actions even more disgraceful.
“It was pretty darn clear what the restrictions were, and they proved the point on why you had those restrictions in place,” one person said.
Real friends and family should recognize that they were being far too selfish to even consider bringing their kids after already being told they couldn’t, but to not even apologize and pay after agreeing to do so? Those aren’t real friends.
Isaac Serna-Diez is a writer who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.