“There are a few different ways of not inviting someone to your wedding. The first is to simply leave their name off of the wedding invitation. However, children are another story and you’ll find that guests with kids will still assume they can bring them. If you still want to invite the parents you can call them and let them know you are unable financially to invite everyone you wanted to invite so you had to cut the guest list by not inviting kids in the family. Be prepared for backlash. Many parents strongly believe that weddings are family affairs and that children shouldn’t be excluded. If you’re excluding some children and not others this is definitely bound to offend someone and you could lose a friend or two in the process.

Another alternative solution might be to have an ‘adults only’ wedding, one where no children were invited. The term ‘adults only’ would be printed on your wedding invitation sending a clear message to parents, but not excluding only certain children in the process. The ‘adults only’ wedding might still garner some hostility but, you can just explain you’ve done so for financial reasons (who can really argue with that).

A final resolution to your kid dilemma would be to have a kids table at your reception. A table with crayons, coloring books and maybe even a clown would keep the kids from running around and causing trouble. Or hire a babysitter to look after the children in a different room at the reception venue. Guest with kids will likely be able to enjoy the reception without having to watch the kids and be flattered that you covered the babysitting costs for the evening.”