I wish more people would. I like having grown-up time, and I like to get dressed up and go dancing.
Plus, there’s nothing more vomit inducing than some toddler “dancing” to a song in the middle of the dance floor, while all the grandmas and great aunts ooo and ahhh over them, preventing the guests from having a good time dancing
Evenings weddings are no place for kids, IMO.
Is it possible to go to the recital and drop in at the reception later?
I’d prioritize the recital if I had kids.
Racellellogram, the wedding is in another state. All the family lives in this state. I am only one out of state.
To clarify, cousin and I are close. So it should be a no brainer to go to wedding but I feel so Bad about missing out on recital!
kids know you have been to recital in the past and will in the future, this year have something with other important family members. have hubby video tape the recital, make popcorn and watch as family.
Honestly, I don’t remember a damned thing about the dance recitals I did as a kid but what my mom tells me about them. Piano recitals after maybe age 9, yes.
And yes, damn it, people still “do” wedding receptions without kids. Every single body at my wedding is going to cost 50 motherfucking dollars (it’s not just food, it’s bar, service, rentals, etc.) If you think I am paying 50 bucks a head for your toddlers you are out of your motherfucking mind. What I’m doing, which is EXTREMELY generous, is providing an on-site babysitter for the under 12ishes, and they’ll get pizza.
You could actually save a lot of money by just not having guests.
(I know this is snarky. And I have seen you post in other threads where you do not seem Bridezilla-like at all. But as a sometime wedding guest in the past, I really, really, really hate this whole “you as a guest are costing me $X” attitude that crops up sometimes. It makes me feel like, you know, why don’t I just save you the money and simply not show up, and then everyone will be happier.)
As for the kids-at-receptions thing, some people want their reception to be a grownups drinking-and-dancing party, and some people want their reception to be a family celebration of their new marriage. I don’t think either group is wrong and it kind of annoys me when I hear people talking about snotty brats ruining their dancing time or how outrageous it is for people to think it’s okay for toddlers to attend a reception or whatever. Fine, don’t invite kids if that’s not what you want, but it’s not outlandish to think that children might be welcome at a wedding reception.
Sorry for the hijack. OP, since you’ve clarified that your cousin is actually close to you, I think you pretty much have to go to the wedding. Sucks that it conflicts with the recital, but there will be one next year and your kids will still have had fun dancing all year.
Go to the wedding, but have your husband record the recital. Make a fun family night out of watching the recital with your daughters when you get home from the wedding. I think that’s the best way to compromise on this.
If you are close to your cousin, this is a once in a lifetime important event for her (fingers crossed!) and I think you should go.
You could also consider the lessons this can teach your kids - that it’s the daily effort and practice that they put into their dance, and not necessarily the end result which is really important. You say yourself that you are there for them the whole year, to encourage then when it’s hard and to praise their hard work.
If that’s not enough, turn the event into a special Daddy and daughter time, where the three of you work together throughout the year to prepare to show Daddy something really special. That way they are not disappointed you won’t be there.
This. It’s vital that the kids know their recital is important to you. Sit down with them and ooh and ahhh over it to their little hearts’ content. But it’s also necessary that they know the world doesn’t revolve around them. Take a lot of pictures at the wedding too, and sit down with them to show the pictures and help them feel part of the family.
Tell them you were sad about missing the recital afterwards, when they are watching it with you, but not before. You don’t want their night to be ruined being sad for Mommy because she didn’t get to be there.
Sure, but when you make a no-kid decision about a wedding (which yours isn’t - yours is an “alternate activity for kids” wedding), you are going to have to accept that some of your guests are going to look at it from their perspective - $100 for a sitter and/or a lost day with the kids - and send their regrets. When my kids were little, we both worked, so they were in daycare all week. Giving up a weekend day for an adult only wedding (which we did - actually a whole weekend because it was on the East Coast), was kind of a big deal.
A wedding is not a royal summons.
In my life as a parent I’ve been to recitals without count. But weddings are a once-in-a-lifetime experience (hopefully). Kids need to learn that everything they do isn’t the most important thing that happens.
Skip the recital. Go to the wedding.
I voted for the recital. From my point of view, if I have kids and they’re not invited to a wedding reception, then I’m not invited either. If you want a no-kids wedding and you invite all of your childless family and friends, fine, that’s your decision, but you’ve got to decide on families as a unit.
If the kids were invited I’d say go to the wedding. Since she’s disrespecting your kids go to the recital.
50 bucks is really not a lot per plate. Don’t they usually charge you LESS for toddlers. It’s pretty much understood that they don’t eat as much as adults and they usually don’t tend to alcohol.
Don’t wedding guests usually give you a monetary gift in return?
I don’t think having an adults-only wedding disrespects kids. Frankly, weddings and receptions aren’t exactly kid-friendly. I think back to when my cousin was married and we, not knowing any better, were helping ourselves to red punch from the pretty fountain. You’d have thought someone would have mentioned that the punch was spiked - it would have kept at least 3 of us from puking on the dance floor. (I think I was all of 8 at the time, and one of the oldest kids there.)
But the punch aside, I do remember being bored. There was music and dancing, but I’d have been happier with a playground. And I expect the adults would have enjoyed themselves more if they could have visited and danced without having to keep track of us kids. But in the 60s, I don’t think such a thing would have occurred to anyone - weddings were for families.
I LOVED family weddings as a kid. My mother was two of five, my dad the first of three and then there were their cousins. Weddings meant cousins (the ones I didn’t stay close to at all), it meant dancing with my Grandpa (both now dead) and my father. It meant a pretty dress that when you twilled on the dance floor, flew out in a circle.
But our family weddings were always very kid friendly - there were lots of kids (and lots of aunts and uncles watching the kids - if the older ones wanted to chat, there was no shortage of sixteen to twenty two year olds, more interested in herding kids than chatting with their great aunts), no spiked punchbowl. They were VFW hall or church basement weddings - not hotel or country club ballroom weddings.
This is the best advice I’ve seen so far. The only additions I would make would be first to see if the dance troupe hires a professional to record their recitals (lots of them do nowadays) and to ask ahead of time if you could watch their recording with your girls some time after the recital is over, because you have been asked to be in a wedding party. The troupe should be ok with this if they know in advance.
If they DON’T record themselves, or won’t let you watch the video without paying for it (which may not bother you, but I wouldn’t) then you need to ask ahead of time if they have restrictions on other people recording the event. It’s unlikely, but they may have rules about allowing people to record or photograph. Again, if you ask in advance, you’ll know not to step on anyone’s toes about it, and if they are ok with it, they may have advice about what area is best to record from to get the best results.
Since you are close to your cousin, I say go to the wedding.
I don’t have kids in dance, but my friends do, and I know how important it is to the kids (and parents). Do the girls have a dress rehearsal, and will you be able to make it? If so, maybe treat that like you would otherwise treat the recital, or maybe make it more special in some small way since you can’t make the recital. Flowers, dinner after, something like that?
You pay by the head. Doesn’t matter what size the head is; if they’re taking up a seat we’re paying for them. ($50 doesn’t include the booze, though. Toddlers do tend to drink less vodka.)
I just bristle at the idea of “do people DO adults-only weddings anymore?” The financial part does matter, at least a bit, but in a bigger sense we want people to be able to have a grown-up night out and not worry about the kids. It’s going to be a formal evening wedding and I just don’t think the kids would be interested, honestly. And yes, it can be cute when the kids get on the floor and dance, but it can also be seriously freaking annoying when they take over the whole thing and stick their hands in the chocolate fountain (well, we aren’t having a chocolate fountain, but you know) and just aren’t necessarily having an awesome time.
We did consider just having a straight up adults only wedding and giving a list of babysitters to the out of towners, but we have young out of town parents in the wedding party.
I hate that whole “I PAID FIFTY BUCKS FOR YOU GODDAMN IT” thing also, believe you me, but when you look at the guest list and see that you’ve got I think 24 kids (some are teenagers, we haven’t marked the little ones yet) and you realize just how much money that is in aggregate, it does kind of put it in perspective.
When we got married, it was a flat charge per head for the food. Adults, toddlers, voracious teenage boys, everybody cost the same. Most of the caterers my sil talked to about her wedding next month had the same deal. (Actually, her venue doesn’t allow children under 3 at all, so it’s not really an issue what her caterer’s policy is.) Kids tend to eat less, sure, but you often have to either adjust the menu or arrange for them to have a separate meal, which is a steaming pain in the arse, so they charge the same as for adults to repay themselves for the extra hassle. Then too, kids are prone to taking a whole lot of extra food they don’t eat from a buffet, so sometimes there’s not a significant difference in how much food you have to provide for a kid versus an adult.
And the whole guests giving money thing varies wildly be location. In some places it’s nearly all money, other places it’s nearly all stuff, other places it’s a mix.
Omg, yes. I hated weddings as a kid and teenager. I was stuffed into a stupid dress I didn’t want to wear, dragged among people I barely knew and who wanted to pinch my cheeks and talk at great length about how long it had been since they’d seen me, and couldn’t even bring a book to entertain myself because that would be anti-social. Even if there were other kids my age, we couldn’t really play because we were on warning not to get our nice clothes all dirty and rumpled. And once I was a teenager, the whole reception was just a parade of elderly women patting me on the hand and telling me my day would come soon. The afternoon cake and punch in the fellowship hall ones were deadly dull, but mercifully short. The evening ones were both deadly dull and horrendously long.