--- title: Family and Money: Why I Think Adult-Only Weddings Are Selfish description: The truth is, I just can't afford so many kids-free weddings canonical: https://time.com/3940696/adult-only-wedding-opinion/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-29T22:00:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:02:24.577Z og:title: Why I Think It's Selfish to Have an Adult-Only Wedding og:description: The truth is, I just can't afford so many kids-free weddings og:url: https://time.com/3940696/adult-only-wedding-opinion/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why I Think It's Selfish to Have an Adult-Only Wedding twitter:description: The truth is, I just can't afford so many kids-free weddings twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Why I Think It's Selfish to Have an Adult-Only Wedding > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture recommendation newsletter, edited by culture editor Eliza Berman. Each week it surfaces the books, shows, films and ideas TIME's editors think are worth your attention, and explains why. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Does TIME have a culture newsletter? Yes. Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published weekly. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-worth-2026q3/newsletters?i=f6721a59-7867-4350-91b1-874a4f755442&cr=time-nl-worth-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Wide, Wacky World Of Weddings [Watch (HLS stream): The Wide, Wacky World Of Weddings](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/WgK2gN3E.m3u8) (2:09)  _Published 2015-06-20. A look at some of the flashiest, most expensive and weirdest weddings out there._ by [Chaunie Brusie / YourTango](https://time.com/author/yourtango/) ## Chaunie Brusie / YourTango Jun 29, 2015 10:00 PM UTC by [Chaunie Brusie / YourTango](https://time.com/author/yourtango/) ## Chaunie Brusie / YourTango Jun 29, 2015 10:00 PM UTC Wedding season + kids + babysitter = a tulle-filled circle of hell. This summer, my husband and I have approximately 10,000 [weddings](http://www.yourtango.com/weddings) to attend. O.K., that’s an exaggeration, but it definitely feels that way. In and of itself, our plenitude of weddings are a good thing. Drinks! Dinner! Butter cream frosting! The only problem with all these weddings this summer is that the vast majority of them don’t include an invitation extended to our offspring. [_For all the best parenting stories from the web, sign up here for TIME’s weekly parenting newsletter._ ](http://time.com/t4parents) And while I totally get that most [couples](http://www.yourtango.com/couples) don’t want to fork over the cash to pay for some snotty-nosed children to eat a few rolls and bust a move in the chicken dance, adult-only weddings have become my nemesis. On one hand, I [love](http://www.yourtango.com/love) the idea of an adult-only [wedding](http://www.yourtango.com/wedding). The chance to eat a kids-free meal and drink it up with my husband — which actually means like two drinks because I’m the world’s biggest lightweight (thanks kids for those perpetual pregnancies) — is pretty much my idea of heaven right now. But the truth is, I just can’t afford so many kids-free weddings. And frankly, after the third one, they kind of lose their appeal a little. Green beans and rubbery chicken, a few painfully drunken toasts, did they cut the cake yet, and are you ready to go yet? I know every couple thinks their wedding will be different and the event of the century, and I appreciate that — I really do. I’m happy for you all, and I’m sure you put a lot of thought into that cupcake table and the vintage-inspired centerpieces, and the photo booth props, really. But a wedding is a wedding is a wedding. For couples that have kids, an adult-only wedding is a painful decision-making process that includes weighing the cost of a babysitter with the most special night of your lives, which is just another weekend in ours. For us, to attend the ceremony and a reception, I’ll easily shell out over 100 bucks on a babysitter, plus the wedding gift. It’s a horrendously expensive date night and I’m sorry (and no offense to you and the love of your life), but that’s really asking a lot of your guests with young children. I know you think that you might be doing us a favor by giving us a “night out,” but that’s not really the case when $100+ could buy me a whole lot of date night elsewhere. Part of me doesn’t buy all the justifications couples use for not inviting kids to their wedding. The uber-fancy wedding, granted, I can accept. I wouldn’t want my kids breaking any crystal, either. But if you’re like the rest of us, hosting a pretty standard wedding and reception and aren’t inviting kids because of the cost, it’s a tough pill for me to swallow. I’d rather bring my kids after dinner, or pop them on my lap to share my buttered roll, so we could all attend your special day without it costing me an arm and a leg to be there. And is it just me or do kids sometimes make the party? Who else has such a carefree lack of inhibitions (sober) on the dance floor? Who else can you do the robot with and not feel like an idiot? Everybody dances more when there are kids around and parents don’t have to hurry home to pay the sitter. Don’t get me wrong, I will be a good little wedding guest this summer and shell out the cash to a sitter when I can, and send a polite card when I can’t, but part of me wishes that if you care enough to want me (or my money) at your wedding, you could make it a little easier on me to be there with my family. Because I want to be there, I really do, but preferably not while going bankrupt in the process. _This_ [_article_](http://www.yourtango.com/2015276544/i-have-kids-and-its-selfish-to-have-an-adult-only-wedding) _originally appeared on_ [_YourTango_](http://www.yourtango.com) _More from YourTango:_ * [15 Marriage Vows I Should Have Made On My Wedding Day](http://www.yourtango.com/2014238874/15-marriage-vows-i-should-have-made-to-my-husband) * [37 Love Puns To Make Your Day](http://www.yourtango.com/2013190264/37-love-puns-make-your-day) * [The Top 10 Most Epic Wedding Toasts Of All Time](http://www.yourtango.com/2013186775/gifs-top-10-most-epic-wedding-toasts-all-time) ## Transcript Marriage, it has a long and storied tradition all over the world. Some ceremonies are small, others are flashy, expensive, even televised events. Some are between dogs. Who are we to argue with love, right? Some weddings are presidential, the White House has hosted more than a dozen weddings. But only one actively serving U. S. president ever tied the knot there, Grover Cleveland. He married Frances Folsom Cleveland in the blue room in 1886. With musical accompaniment by none other than John Philip Sousa. But it's hard to get more glamorous than George Clooney's wedding to Amal Alamuddin. An actor and lawyer getting married in Venice with names such as Matt Damon and Bill Murray on the guest list. Oh and the paparazzi. It's a hive of activity. People stopping outside to take photos. Paparazzi camped outside. You can also see them lurking around the city. [ MUSIC ] These canals on speedboat. And that's nothing compared to what was arguably the most watched wedding of all time, Prince Charles wed Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 in front of a congregation of 3, 500 and a global television audience estimated at 750 million. It was also one of the most expensive weddings ever, ringing in at nearly 70 million dollars in today's prices. Prince William and Kate Middleton's ceremony was only half that by comparison. On the other end of that particular spectrum, Was activist Gypsy Taub's nude wedding to fellow nudist James Smith at San Francisco's City Hall in 2013. She saved a lot of money on a wedding dress, but the police fined and arrested the couple for the unusual ceremony. So perhaps attorney's fees made it a wash. Maybe even more unusual is the concept of mass weddings. At Unification Church ceremonies, thousands of couples exchange rings all at once. 2500 couples are tying the knot at exactly the same time. A mass wedding of the unification church. And yes, there are dog weddings. Their owners are professional wedding photographers, and they say that like most crazy ideas, don't I know it, this one was born over a bottle of wine. Official? 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