Children?

It's apparently a tricky issue for some couples, whether to invite children to the wedding. But not for us! I love children (and can't wait for my own -- wait, did I just write that on the internet?), and can't imagine a wedding without them. Plus, it would just seem rude to invite all your family and friends from across the country but not invite their children. Yes, my dear friend Mary from North Carolina (not a real person), I'd love for you and your husband to come, but please leave your 1-year-old at home, would you? WTF? If I got invited to a wedding like that, I wouldn't come. And for my family, weddings are the few chances we have to all get together, so it's a mini-family reunion as well. You'd invite your cousin's kids to a family reunion, right?

The New York Times had a recent article discussing this topic. I haven't interviewed caterers yet, but I can certainly imagine that if your reception dinner was costing $150 a head and your caterer wouldn't provide a kiddie portion/price, I'd be peeved as well. But so far, I've found that every wedding tradition and problem (sometimes the traditions ARE the problems, it seems) has a solution. Kid cries during your ceremony? Consider it good luck!* (I have to credit Weddingbee's Miss Jasmine for that one.) The only time I've balked at the number of children we're having was when I looked at one reception facility that required you to use their alcohol provider (already a no-deal for us) and would only let you have an open bar if fewer than 10% of your guests were under 21. Otherwise, you had to have a consumption bar. Unfortunately, there are a few young adults who will just barely not be 21 come the wedding, so we would have 11-12% of our guests underage, and a consumption bar is going to be much more expensive, with our guests, than an open bar would be. Thank goodness we need to provide our own alcohol so that venue was nixed anyway!

Plus, I have a completely adorable niece-to-be who is going to be a whopping 2-and-a-half years old by the time the wedding comes around, so we have a flower girl! There's another whole line of "controversy" surrounding the appropriate age of a flower girl, as well. Is 2 too young? What is she won't perform? Um, excuse me, she's not a circus monkey. She's a 2-year-old. You bribe her to walk down the aisle, and if she doesn't, no big deal. The day does not depend on the flower girl throwing petals. She'll still look damn cute in her dress no matter what!

And speaking of dresses, here are some adorable Easter dresses I saw at Macy's after the wedding show last weekend. The girls' section was conveniently next to the home store. They would make perfect flower girl dresses, especially since I'm seriously considering not dressing our flower girl up as a mini-bride in all-white.

You can see the rest of the pictures I took here.

If I were just slightly older and didn't feel a nagging need for bridesmaids, and knew a few more small children, I would consider doing what is apparently a growing European trend (according to some magazine I read at some point) and just have a ton of flower girls. How cute would that be! You can dress 7 girls under the age of 10 alike and it's considered adorable, whereas dressing 7 girls age 20-28 alike is just embarrassing.

The only question we have yet to address is how much to accommodate the kiddies? Provide a babysitter? Have a separate kids' table? These are questions that will be answered along the way, I'm sure. All I know for now is that I couldn't imagine a wedding without children, so for us at least, it's not a dilemma at all.

*Did you see the two cat/wedding superstitions? "The prudent bride will feed the cat before leaving for the church. Such an act will ensure her happiness." Um, that should be more like, any prudent cat owner will feed the cat before leaving the house, to ensure her own happiness. And, do you think I can make Moxie or Mojo sneeze the day of? That's a trick I need to work on!

**I do not intend to offend any brides that are anti-children. It's your wedding, you do what you want. This is my wedding, and these are my opinions.