What About the Kids?

6/17/2019

Last week I got an email from a bride. She seemed overwhelmed, stressed out, and wasn’t quite sure what to do. Her concern? Their children. One of them is a toddler, and a quite vocal one at that. He’s a daddy’s boy through and through (happy late Father’s Day by the way!) and when he’s not able to hang with dad, he’s not a happy camper. The other child is an infant. A little one only six months old. She’s not so much of an anybody’s girl just yet, and she doesn’t actually make a whole lot of noise. The bride isn’t so worried about their infant daughter as she is their son. Her fear, and a legitimate one, is that their son will lose his cool during their nuptials and run to dad, causing a scene for the ceremony. My bride just doesn’t know what to do!

What I’m about to tell you MIGHT sound a little harsh, and I’m apologizing now if it comes off that way. My goal here really is to make sure you are as well prepared as possible for the chance that your child, or someone else's, may fly of the handle on your big day. So here’s part one:

Part One-Your Kid/Kids

If you have children, you are getting married, and you want your children present (which you should), it is your responsibility to have a plan B for them. Ok, now let’s say they are older, maybe third grade and above. They can probably handle being at the ceremony without any problems. You might want to sit them with your parents or other trusted family member but they should be fine. The real concern comes in when you have a toddler or an infant.

The following situation is one I actually witnessed and it was stressful for everyone. At a wedding I attended as a guest (I was not a vendor mind you), the bride and groom had a five year old child. This little lady was a mamma’s girl and she wanted to be up with her mom during the ceremony. The bride’s mother had been put in charge of the little girl so every time the little girl went running up to her mom, the bride’s mother went up after her to grab her. Each time the little girl went up, was told she couldn’t, and brought back to her seat, the louder the little girl cried. It was uncomfortable for everyone involved. In part, because we couldn’t hear the officiant. We also missed the vows section of the ceremony because the little girl was wailing so loudly. The videographer, who is a good friend of mine, told me later that he would have to scrap a lot of the ceremony footage because of the constant wailing. After the ceremony, I caught up with the bride in her dressing room after she’d taken some pictures. She broke down crying because she didn’t know what to do when her daughter started crying. The bride didn’t want to tell her little girl “no,” but the bride also felt like she missed out on an amazing ceremony opportunity because of her daughter.

If you have children and you are planning to have them at your wedding, it is your job to find a plan B for disruptive behavior like this. It’s one thing if a little baby is crying in the back of the seating area. It’s quite another if a child is wandering up to the ceremony space to intervene. As a Celebrant, I cannot stress enough how uncomfortable it is for me to officiate ceremonies where children are not given parameters. In those situations I have to make a decision: do I ask someone to grab the child so that we can continue the ceremony and risk looking like I hate kids? (P.S. I don’t hate kids. I teach 6th graders) OR do I let the ceremony continue with a child crying so loudly that no one can hear and risk the couple being angry with me because their videographer couldn’t pick any of their words up over the crying? It’s a rock and a hard place folks, and it’s not one that’s fun to be in! This is why I tell my clients, it is YOUR responsibility to know what to do with your child if they begin to lose their cool.

Outside of the officiant being impacted by this situation, photographers and videographers are as well. When you hire a videographer, they are going to put a microphone on the groom and it will pick up both of you speaking. They will also put a microphone on me so they can pick up the ceremony. When you’re trying to read your vows or exchange rings while holding a crying child, that’s what the microphone will pick up. All of that money you spent on hiring a videographer is going to feel like it was wasted a little bit because you didn’t pick up good video of the ceremony.

And your photographer. They need to be able to see you! They want to get pictures of your face in this happy moment. If your face is being obscured by a little one who is crying and kissing you and pleading with you to stay up there, again, you will look back on those photos and realize that there aren’t many of you to see.

What might you do with your own children in this case? First of all, make sure you have a family member or friend that is ok with missing part of the ceremony to help. I mean that. You will possibly need this person to miss out on the ceremony to take your child out of the space. It sounds harsh, sure, to have to remove your child from the ceremony site, but you are spending a LOT of money on this. Like...a lot. Between your awesome officiant (which should totally be a Celebrant), your venue, the decorations, videography, and photography, the ceremony is an expensive piece of your day. It’s also an important part of your day. This is the part where you actually legally get married. Let me say that again for the people in the back. This. Is. The. Part. Of. Your. Day. Where. You. Actually. Legally. Get. Married. This is a pretty big deal. You PROBABLY want that part in your pictures and on video. Just ask a friend. Any friend worth their weight in gold will understand the request. You could even come up with a signal to indicate to them that they need to take your child somewhere else.

Part Two-Other people’s Kid/Kids

This is a little bit more tricky and one of the reasons I recommend that children not be invited to a wedding. I know. Ouch Heather. Dang. I thought you liked kids? I do. I do! Don’t get me wrong here! But, that being said, a wedding is an adult event. It is two adults doing an adult thing (which sounds kind of dirty but you know what I mean). These are two adults signing a legal contract, drinking alcohol, and hanging with friends and family. It’s not exactly the best place for kids. When I gave one of my friends her save-the-date, she came up to me and the following conversation ensued:

“Hey Heather, are kids invited to your ceremony?”

“Hey Lynn! No actually. We’re hoping to keep it to adults only.”

“Ok, that’s so smart. Weddings are for adults anyway.”

So even my friend Lynn knew to expect her children would not be invited. If you’re worried about other people’s children causing a scene at your wedding, I suggest you just don’t invite them. Ask your friends to make it a date night instead...a night away from the kiddos!

Let’s say though that you have a lot of littles in your family and you want to have them present. That’s fine too. Go for it! But again, it’s going to be up to you to have a plan B. If you are planning to invite children to the wedding, talk with your friends first. Let them know that you are going to have a videographer there and you would like to make sure that the sound quality is the best it can be. Or, if you aren’t going to have a videographer, let your friends with children know that you have been to so many weddings where you could barely hear the officiant and you have hired a great officiant (hopefully a Celebrant) and the ceremony is written so perfectly, that you want everyone to be able to hear it and enjoy it. Then move to asking them to consider taking their children out if they begin to get noisy. Two things will happen after you make this request. The first is that they will totally understand and agree to take their kids from the ceremony space if they begin to get rowdy. The second is that your friend will just decide to keep them at home. The third (hopefully not likely) possibility is that they will think you’re a big fat jerk who hates kids, and in that case, I’m surprised you are friends with that kind of a person. You’re way more sweet and understanding than that! All jokes aside, possibility three has NEVER happened to anyone I know after giving them this advice, so you should be in the clear.

What can Officiants do to help?

Officiants, yes, it is the job of your clients to figure out what to do with kids on the day of their ceremony, but there’s still some things you can do to make sure things go smoothly.

Check in with your clients and ask them if they have any children of their own that may get upset that they can’t be with mom and dad.
Once you know if there are children that may get upset, talk with your clients about who the child might be able to sit with to help them remain calm.
Talk with your client about a contingency plan. If the child loses it (we all have melt-downs...it’s ok) find out who would be responsible for taking the child out of the ceremony space.
Bring an incentive! Ask the couple what toys their child likes to play with. Go buy a toy that the child would like. Before the ceremony, go to the child and let them know that you have a little surprise for them (don’t show them what it is!). Tell the child that if they are able to sit in their seat and listen quietly the whole time, that you’ll give them a surprise. At the end of the ceremony, if they did just that, make sure to make good on your promise!!

Main Take-Away

The point I want you to take away here is that it is YOUR responsibility as the couple to come up with a plan of action for children. Your vendors, as much as we would love to say we know you, we don’t know you well enough to make these decisions in the moment. This is your big day and we want you to experience it how you want to, but we can’t read minds. Keep us updated on what you expect as well. If you are worried that a child will come up and pester you, let us know so that we can prepare the right wording to ask someone to escort them out. Let us know who you’d like to have escort them out so that we can invite that person up gently to do so. We want to support you. We love you. We love your love story. But this is your day and you are responsible for ensuring that children are taken care of however you best see fit.

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