Weddings Without Kids

Kids at a wedding can be real pests - go on, admit it. How many times have you squirmed with embarrassment as some little brat runs around and around the bride and groom as the photographer struggles to take their photograph?

The ultimate embarrassment is, of course, a baby screaming during the ceremony. As the registrar or priest attempts to read out the vows, all you can hear is a shrill 'BLAH'. For those who insist on recording the event with a camcorder, you can enjoy the sounds of your favourite toddler echo down the years at you as you endeavour to recall the wedding.

If the kids are not doing that, they're crying, showing off, pulling faces or generally misbehaving. Just what you need when the schedule is as tight as it's bound to be and everyone is stressed to the limit. Kids will be kids and there is nothing anyone can do to change that.

Worse still are the faces of the parents of these kids. They either bear the tortured look of one who has lived through this before and whose ears and other sensory organs have numbed to the abuse heaped out by their spawn or, most nauseating of all, is the sublimely content smug smile of 'my child is just expressing him/herself and has every right to do so, thank you'.

And no, a 4 year old bridesmaid does not look 'cute', she looks ridiculous. For goodness sake, pick girls of a responsible age and attitude for the job. If it's ok to have a tot as a maid, then why not have a best man of a similar age too?

If the wedding is to have a chance of going smoothly, it will need all the help it can get and that can start by keeping kids away.

This does not mean that kids can't attend - no, far from it. The reception is the place. Everyone is more indulgent, drinks are flowing, noise is everywhere and anything which prevents the in-laws from turning on themselves has got to be a plus.

Once the wedding ceremony is out of the way, the cars go off to the reception and everyone settles down to the meal and drinks and then the kids can be introduced to the day's proceedings.

So, how do you keep kids from wrecking the day? Well, why not set up a crèche or childcare facility for the day? Can a room be rented or, if the sun is shining, a bouncy castle hired out somewhere? Is there an adult who lives locally who doesn't mind missing out on the wedding ceremony but who can come along for the reception?

It's not that I am a professional children-hater, it's just that I believe that a wedding is supposed to be a very special occasion for two people - the bride and the groom and no-one, but no-one should stand in the way of it being so. Married life is hard enough without getting it off to a bad start and that is why I think that a wedding is no place for kids.