The “Adult Reception”

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Every bride that has walked in the door for the past 10 years has made the same jokes.  They thumb through the binders and all stop to giggle at the same invitations.  There are the couples who both look like men, or both look like women; the invitations with motorcycles or cowboys or frogs or barbed wire; and then there’s every reception card that invites people to an “adult reception.”  “What,” you may ask, “is an adult reception?”  I, like you, can only assume it means a reception without kids.  Some people have the kind of weddings where specifically warning people not to bring families is a good way to start a family.  “But there at least must be a better way to phrase it.”  Yes, there is.  Here are some ideas:

1. First off, if you’re going to have a de facto anti-kids event, you need to have other events with kids.  That’s just polite.
2. Hire a babysitter for another part of the building.
3. Throw a kids’ event at the same time (for $50 you can rent out any dollar theater in town to show whatever movie you want.)  The kids don’t want to be at your stuffy old reception any more than you want their stinky young selves there.
4. Even for free, just put a movie on a DVD player somewhere else in the building.  You don’t have to mandate that the kids stay in that room, but they will…
5. The most polite way, although perhaps not as effective, to ward off kids is to specifically list those invited on the inner envelope.  Standard etiquette says that while on an outer envelope you put people’s postal titles (”Dick Jensen”), on the inside you put “Mr. and Mrs. Richard Jensen” (or, more casually, ”Dick and Sonja Jensen.”)  In either case, people are meant to take that as “you two are invited.”  Even doing this for a living, I was surprised how many single people called me to ask if they could bring a date to my reception!  (Of course “Dick Jensen and guest” if they’re single is a good option.)  So then if you want kids, you put “The Dick Jensen family” or something similar.  Even if you only want specific friends (like your buddy and his parents), put “Dick, Sonja, and Kim Jensen.”
6. “No kids, please” is a really tacky thing to put in my opinion.
7. Send out a list of reliable babysitters in the area.  No, you wouldn’t enclose this in your invitation.  But you may already have a small travel packet for those who are coming to the area.  You probably have a guest’s daughter already who could babysit, and you can ask her.  But a list like this would be a nice thing to email around casually after the invitation goes out, through your mother’s grapevine, or on your wedding website.

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