Kids kids everywhere

There are two schools of thought when it comes to children at weddings:

1) Kids are great
and
2) Not so much

While I tend to lean toward the former, Mr Corn and his family definitely lean more towards the latter.

My biggest concern when considering our children options for the wedding was that I wanted as many of our friends and family as possible to be able to attend our wedding and since it is a semi-destination wedding, it only seemed fair that we allow people to also bring their kids. Also, many of my friends have children and weddings seem to be the only time when we can all get together and see how much everyone has grown since the last wedding we saw them all at.

Mr Corn was concerned that parents tend to not have a good time at weddings if they have to worry about Junior knocking over the cake or (a more likely scenario) getting back to the hotel before the kids zonk out on the dance floor.

Six of the couples invited to our wedding were expecting additions to their families between last Fall, when we were engaged, and the wedding date. This meant that if we wanted them to be able to come to the wedding, they would have to be allowed to bring their infant with them. To complicate matters even more, one of those people expecting is my Matron of Honor and she and another guest also have 2 year old sons.

Mr Corn and I calculated how many children there would be at the wedding if they were invited and came up with 12, PLUS the six that weren't even born yet!!

We threw around the options of providing on-site and/or off-site babysitting for all the children as well as the option of making people figure out their own arrangements. In the end, we decided that we would provide on-site baby sitting for children under the age of 1 and all other children needed to be accommodated for by their parents**. As it is, most of our guests with children (older than 1) are leaving them with assorted grandparents for the weekend and this way those guests with infants can still come and enjoy the party without having to leave early to go do what-ever-it-is that people do with infants that keep them from going out and having a good time.

What about you? Are you having children at your wedding? If so, are they just in the wedding party or are all children invited? Did you and your future spouse have any disagreements about this and how did you compromise?

**the only exception to this is my 2 year old nephew who will be in the wedding (he will be escorting my mom down the aisle)