Bride Wonders If It Was 'Hypocritical' To Bring Her 11-Month-Old Daughter To Her Child-Free Wedding
"Your wedding, your rules."
AS project | Shutterstock In recent years, child-free weddings have become increasingly popular. The appeal is easy to understand — no crying, screaming children present on one of the most important days of your life.
One bride and groom decided this was the kind of wedding they wanted. The only child they allowed on their special day was their own infant daughter.
The bride questioned if it was 'hypocritical' to bring her 11-month-old daughter to her child-free wedding.
“So my husband and I just recently got married,” the bride wrote in a Reddit post. “We spent almost a year planning the perfect wedding."
“One of our first rules that we decided was that it was a no-kid wedding,” she explained. “We wanted an environment where we wouldn’t have to worry about children running around, getting into things, crying, etc.” She added that her invitation very clearly stated that children under 14 were not allowed.
“We did, however, decide that we wanted to bring our daughter (11 months), and I wanted to hold her during the reception and photo taking," the bride wrote. A family friend would then drive their child home, wait for the babysitter, and return to the wedding.
“Before we settled on that friend, we asked a few people,” she continued. “One of the people we asked was my husband’s close friend, Darren’s, wife Jessica." She declined because she didn’t want to drive and the couple found someone else.
However, asking Jessica for help turned out to be a huge mistake.
“On the day of our wedding, after we told everyone several times about the no kids rule, she showed up with her four-year-old,” the Redditor shared. “I was obviously taken aback, but I went to ask her about it.”
Jessica’s response was an interesting one. “She told me that ‘since I was bringing my kid, it was OK if she took hers,’” the bride recounted. “Honestly, I was furious.”
Mykola Komarovskyy | Shutterstock
“I tried to stay calm and tell her that this is a child-free wedding and she can’t let her kid run around, but if she took her kid home she was welcome to come back,” she stated. “She started yelling at me about how since I had a kid it wasn’t fair that she couldn’t have hers.”
Making matters worse, the boy was not well-behaved. He climbed on things at the venue and "ran wild," despite the bride's insistence that Jessica and her son leave.
“Eventually, her husband Darren convinced her to get her kid and leave, but it ruined the whole first part of my wedding," she admitted.
The decision of whether or not to allow children — and whose children — is up to the bride and groom.
Dallas-based wedding planner Sarah Wintersteen told Glamour that she does not think weddings are the place for children. “Kids should not be at the wedding,” she insisted, adding that up to 60% of her clients feel the same way.
While Wisconsin wedding planner Meredith Bartel didn’t take such a hard line on the issue, she did make a very important point: “Frankly it’s about what the couple wants.”
One Reddit commenter agreed, saying, “Your wedding, your rules.”
Ultimately, the decision of whether or not to go child-free is up to the couple getting married. And, if they wanted to have their young daughter at their child-free wedding, then that was up to them as well.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.