Dear Ms. Manners: Isn’t it the bride and groom’s choice whether to invite children to their wedding?

I have attended many weddings where children under 18 were not invited. Our son and his bride planned a small wedding (about 80 people) and requested no children except for the two in the bridal party. Even those two were to leave after the ceremony to be watched over by a nanny, whom the couple had hired to watch the children of the invited families.

Family members with questions about why such and such adults were invited and not their little darlings were approached beforehand. All seemed to go well and everyone agreed to comply.

Or so we thought! One couple showed up with their children in tow: the same aunt and uncle who had questioned the childless policy a few days earlier.

The wedding planner politely asked them to bring their children to the babysitter. They flat out refused and made a big scene of it. Because we didn’t want to cause any more unrest, we went ahead with the wedding.

Was it too much of us to expect respect for the couple’s wishes? Or was it rude of them to bring their children?

GENTLE READER: Child-free weddings, especially out-of-town weddings, can indeed be difficult for families with young children. But since the rules of this wedding were clear and consistent, and there was a nanny, Miss Manners agrees that your family members were rude to bring them anyway.

And certainly to cause a scene, especially since avoiding public tantrums was undoubtedly the intention for excluding children in the first place.

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