Our reception centre holds 200, but our list spills over with distant cousins, and we've decided on an adult-only reception to cut down numbers. However, we'd like a ring-bearer and a flower-girl. Is it proper to invite them to the reception, even though they will be the only kids?

Also, should we send invites to people who are welcome to the ceremony, but not the reception? And should those people be invited to the shower???

We've struggled to get our reception list down to under 200, but there are so many people who we want to include!

I think that it is fine to invite the children that are in your wedding to your reception even if your reception is an adult only. We are having 2 ring baerers (age 8), a flower girl (age 7), and a jr. bridesmaid (age 11). I am inviting them to our "no children under 12 (b/c of space)" reception as a thank you. Hope this helps!

I belive that the eticate I have read says you can invite people to the reception but not the wedding, but if they are invited to the wedding you also need to invite them to the reception. The reason being "it makes them feel like they are important enough to go to the wedding but not enough to go to the party." I would just think about it, because as an adult I would be hurt if someone invited me to the wedding but not the reception. As far as kids go I would follow the same rule. However if they are in the wedding I would have them at the reception too.

I feel ya! We had trouble narrowing our guest list down to 300 (especially because my mom at first tried to turn my wedding into some psycho family reunion! ahhhh!!!).

Children: We did not invite children, but we did have two JR Bridesmaids and a family with four children. This is not rude, the children were cousins and the JR Bridesmads were participating in the wedding. If anyone was mad, I wouldn't know about it. We printed on inserts in the wedding invitations "Adult reception. We love your children, but they will be more comfortable at home."

Ceremony but not reception: Is becoming very common these days. Reception halls can cost a small fortune! My friend got married last year and could not invite everyone to the reception. So what she did was have a cake and punch reception at the church so that she could thank everyone for coming and then the closer friends and family went to the restaurant. As far as I know no one was offended.

I wouldn't worry about wording. If someone isn't invited to something, you shouldn't have to put an explanation in the invitation. I would make two sets of invites, one set for people invited to everything, and one set of people invited to the ceremony. Anything I felt people needed an explanation about I would refer them to our wedding website which we created for free at Free Wedding Websites.