Go2Wed.com Blog for Brides Planning a Wedding!

Phew, the holidays are over and it’s back to the grind!  For those of you newly engaged after the holidays - congratulations on your Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa or Wisconsin wedding plans!  We have added a few new states and are delighted to have everyone on board.

The kid issue is a very sticky one in wedding planning but let’s review the parents perspective for those who might not appreciate all that goes into it from a parent/guest perspective. 

First of all, many parents have to both work to pay the bills, leaving weekends as the only time to really see their children.  Weddings without kids means…well, you lose a chunk of time with your children!

Then add that many of us parents don’t have reliable babysitters, or perhaps just family (and the “flexibility” of whether the parent is free on a given night.)  Even if you do have reliable babysitters, the average babysitting cost is about $10/hour, give or take $5/hour.  But let’s take the $10 average, and the 6 hour average wedding plus reception, then 30 minutes on either end to get there and back (check in with babysitter and see how the night went before babysitter leaves) and you have 7 hours, times $10/hour, so we’re already up to $70 for the guest to attend your wedding without kids.  Of course it’s more - it’s the clothing if they don’t have something to wear to your wedding and the wedding gift which averages about $75.  So, don’t see your kids, spend $150+ to be without them, if you can actually afford or find a babysitter.

 I am not saying that kids have to be at weddings but I would think twice if most of your guests are parents.  It could be a lot cheaper to hire a few nannies, let the parents have fun and the kids play in another room.  This is especially true for out of town guests where leaving kids at home can be an impossibility or extremely challenging.  My friend went to a Colorado Wedding and the location had a huge glass gazebo area where the kids could play and parents could see them. The kids were free to come and go and everyone had a great time.

 I was unable to attend a close friends Iowa wedding because of the 5 hour drive with a new baby who screamed bloody murder in the car seat.  He wouldn’t just scream but shriek, nonstop, til he was out of the car seat - up to 1.5 hours when we had no choice.  I was nursing him so there was no option to leave him behind.  It was sad especially since my friend was very welcoming of children and even had a friends house set up as “baby central”, so we wouldn’t be stuck in a hotel room outside the wedding festivities.