Little Ones at the Wedding

At the time of this writing I have personally witnessed just over 1900 wedding receptions. There is without a doubt one constant, when they are in attendance children will run in a circle, play tag, take off their shoes, run and slide on the dance floor. As a DJ, activity on the dance floor does not bother me at all, but I have seen it pop up as quite an unexpected occurrence for a bride who was not expecting it. The children do tend to become the center of attention during dinner and they are louder than the chosen background music.  

If the idea of children running and playing at your reception sounds just dandy, then this won’t be an issue for you. But if you prefer an all adult reception, the tricky part is conveying that message to the guests who have children.

I’m going to throw out a twist on this topic, one that I haven’t seen written about before. I’ve seen suggestions that tell you to add “Adults Only” to your invitations, etc. As opposed to that, I am suggesting that you may want to consider making it about the budget. You could communicate the following message to your guests.

“We have invited 125 adults. We have discovered that those 125 adults would bring 37 children at a cost to us of $55 per child, adding $2035 to our already exhausted budget and we just don’t have it, at this point we’d have to get a loan.” Also the room may not hold 125 adults and 37 children, so in order to accommodate all 37 children you'd have to un-invite some previously invited guests.

This way it’s not “We don’t want your child” it’s “We can’t afford 37 children.” Obviously you’d need to customize the number of guests and children to fit your situation and you wouldn’t want to include this in your invitation, you could actually call or email guests with children prior to sending out the invitation, so when the invitation arrives, they already know the situation.

This is once again merely advice from my experience. Activity on the dance floor is certainly welcome by the DJ at all times and I love kids! But I want you to get EXACTLY what you hope for!     

Ted  Crowder Atlanta DJ