Adults Only: Bride Wants a Child-Free Wedding After a Fiasco at Her Sister’s Special Day

Some kids are adorable and unbelievably well-mannered, others are more exasperating than Dennis the Menace.

If you can’t instruct your kids to behave properly, it’s best not to bring them to a wedding.

Yes, child-free weddings are a controversial issue that continues to divide people’s opinions. Some are in favor of it, while there are other people who find it unfriendly and even insulting.

Of course, every bride and groom want their special day to be perfect. But with young children around — crying, running, demanding attention, and complaining out of boredom — you can expect the sweetness of a wedding to get mixed with notes of sourness.

After experiencing a kid-related fiasco at her sister’s wedding, this young woman was determined to have a child-free wedding — but she didn’t expect the bitter backlash that she would receive.

This Original Poster with the username u/AdCharacter3921 published her story on Reddit’s r/AmItheA–hole forum, starting it with the following details: “My sister got married last summer. She had a very elegant and beautiful wedding and reception planned. It was child-free. She sent a gracious note to everyone who sent their regrets and thanked them for understanding her desires for her wedding and respecting them enough to RSVP in the negative. She also invited them to a party later that summer at her home if they wanted to take pictures with her and her wedding party in their fancy clothes. I thought it was well handled and classy.”

But, contrary to expectations, after the best-laid plan, there were people who didn’t understand the meaning of a “child-free” wedding and brought their kids. One of these kids engaged in a screaming opera while the ceremony was going on, while another was obsessed with a cupcake, which led to the wedding cake falling on the floor. Well, almost, since the father of the bride was able to catch it in time. But the lowest tier was marked with a handprint, and there were cupcakes strewn all over.

Now, it’s OP’s turn to tie the knot with the man she loves. This time, she was strict about having a child-free wedding and decided not to invite the four families who had brought their unruly kids to her sister’s wedding.

OP continued to relate in her post, “We did not invite these families to our wedding. We have a Facebook group for the wedding for people to share pictures and memories that we might put in the wedding video. They found out about the group and posted to my personal page about being excluded and asking why we are not inviting them. I messaged them privately and asked them to take down their posts and explained that my wedding was smaller and I wasn’t having as many guests as my sister. They went public again and bitched about me excluding them for no good reason. So I posted the receipts. I posted a video my cousin sent me of the kid crying during the ceremony and the parents doing nothing. The video of the kid freaking out because he had to share trout for supper. The before and after pictures of the wedding cake table. And I also asked if they knew in advance that they were not supposed to bring their kids to the wedding. Then everyone started piling on to them. I guess there was a lot of stuff I missed. Including one of them changing a kid on the table with the guest book because the closest bathroom did not have a baby station.”

The result? These parents called OP an a-hole for humiliating them for having kids and their wish to be part of family occasions. OP tried to explain the reasons for rules and why she had to exclude them. Her uncle, who was not able to attend the event but found out about his daughter’s misbehavior during her sister’s wedding, offered to pay for the cake that got ruined.

Now, OP feels lost as to whether she has been a jerk for excluding several of their family relatives from her wedding.

The judgment of the AITA community? NTA. They understand OP’s reasons perfectly. As for those relatives who couldn’t accept that they don’t practice good parenting, it’s a wake-up call. A child who grows up without discipline, without knowing what’s right and wrong, is bound to become a burden and curse to his parents and society.