Wedding Etiquette Questions: Ask the Etiquist

Is it okay to invite only SOME children to an adult only wedding reception?

Q. My brother-in-law is getting married. My husband and I received the invite which stated "Adult Only Reception." This is fine, but I told my husband to clarify that children of immediate family were not included. This is our second marriage and my husband has a daughter who is standing up in the wedding and I have three daughters. We were told that his daughter was invited to the reception, but that mine were not. Is this proper wedding etiquette - to leave out three members of a family? I cannot imagine that it is. We decided to handle the situation by not bringing any of the children. Also, the children are all about the same age. Please advise, Denise.

A. If a wedding reception excludes some children, the rules of etiquette dictate that it should exclude ALL children. The jury is out on whether this applies to children in the wedding party, but most etiquette experts believe that if the reception is to be adult only, there should not be any children in the wedding party.

The correct way for your brother-in-law to handle this would be to omit children from the wedding party and exclude ALL children, without exception, from the reception. This is because guests, such as yourself, who were instructed not to bring their children would feel justifiably slighted by seeing other children at the reception.

Do you have a question on wedding etiquette? Submit your wedding etiquette questions to the Etiquist