Well we did our no-kind-but-mine wedding a few weeks ago!
I won't lie, it was incredibly stressful for DP and I at times but everyone loved DD and she made me so proud with her behaviour, she was playful and a delight! However, there were a few close-calls (caught her with her hands on th (as yet uncut) weeding cake more than once!) and i had to stick to her like glue. She walked with the maid of honour down the aisle but then DP took her out for most of the ceremony because she was chatting loudly about the decorations and such! She's just a bit too young to understand that she has to be peaceful. LOL. During the speeches the wedding organiser took her out to play with the table staff, who were sitting having a drink and waiting to break the room down for the ceilidh once the speeches were finished and they all played with her.
The favours were jars of old-fashioned (from a 30-year-old's childhood) sweets and she ate about a jar all by herself by the time everyone had given her some. BUt i decided i was going to go with the flow and let myself be surprised. She had a good glug of the toast champagne, masses of sweets, 2 glasses of OJ and generally had a great time. She didn't eat much of her meal, all the smoked salmon and prawns were devoured, but the steak she chewed and then put back on her plate (it was kinf of tough!), but she ate all her carrots and the chocolate torte she loved but couldn't finish!
All in all i was told by everyone how beautiful, well-mannered and well-behaved she was, but i have to admit that to me it felt quite stressful setting her up to be this way (not beautiful, she's that anyway, but her mood was definitely down to my handling of her from the day before onwards!). If we couldn't have taken her i couldn't have gone, but i would probably have had more fun myself if we hadn't taken her, iykwim.
Overall i don't know that i'd ever even want a wedding, but if i did i would definitely set it up so that missing people wouldn't cost us too much (i.e. buffet-style food) and kids would be able to have a good day without their parents having to button them down for the whole day.
I'm not sure what I would do if DP and I ever got married which we have vowed not to LOL so this is entirely hypothetical.
I think my view would be that it would have to be all or nothing. I would either choose somewhere totally child-friendly maybe like Werribee Mansion and organise for the kids to go around the zoo for an hour to break it up a bit, or hire a huge reception centre and turn a breakout room into a mini creche for people to use as and when they needed to.
Or make it very sophisticated (for me) and just make it adult only.
It would also depend very much on the family situation and who we were inviting. If people were coming long distances and that meant that they would have to organise babysitting for the night, or more to the point, would not see their kids for a night, then I would feel very sad about that and that would influence my decision.
But I wouldn't be at all upset right now if DD wasn't invited to a wedding. Infact, we have been invited to a wedding in a few weeks time and DD isn't invited. That is fine by me because it would be exhausting to take her and I really wouldn't enjoy myself inbetween policing her. Nor has DSD15 been invited - and that's fine too. Really, it's the couple's day and they should be able to have whatever they want.
Our wedding was pretty much child free. We were very young and the first of our friends to marry so there were no friends children to worry about. DH's niece and nephew were invited as they are imediate family, and my baby cousin too (FF but still only a small baby and 120km from home) but her brothers stayed with their grandparents. It was a day wedding so they were home that evening as normal.
The biggest upset was that we didnt invite cousins. We had 92guests +the 3children with only the immediate family and aunts/uncles. All the rest of the cousins were primary school aged at least or adult, many of them already had their own children. If we had invited them all it would have doubled the guest list. One of DH aunties didnt come because her children and their children werent coming but everyone else was very understanding. In fact we had sooooo many compliments, that it was the nicest, most relaxed wedding they had been to.
The toddler neice/nephew made a total pain of themselves the whole day as it was hot and boring for them so they spent a lot of time being walked around outside by their dad and my baby cousin didnt make a peep.
We have been to two weddings since having DD. She was invited to one at 11months and not BF anymore as there were 2 other babies coming. It was quite easy entertaining her and she loved being passed around but we did leave early. The other she wasnt invited to and that was a major PITA as it was 130km from home, 40km from my parents who were babysitting and when we got there we found half the babies were there and half were not. They were also cousins babies just like we were so I dont know if there were mixed messages or maybe if we had asked, she could have come.
I think people have very strong feelings about this topic and often take offence when it surely is not intended to be that way. If someone loves and wants you at their wedding they are surely not likely to deliberately NOt invite your child just be be nasty and upsetting to you. It is for some other reason, maybe not to your thinking but then it is THEIR wedding.
She's just a bit too young to understand that she has to be peaceful. LOL. During the speeches the wedding organiser took her out to play with the table staff, who were sitting having a drink and waiting to break the room down for the ceilidh once the speeches were finished and they all played with her.
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