For any event, there are lots of considerations, and children are a huge part of that. We will be visiting this in a later post specifically on wedding receptions, but initially, I think the best thing to do is plan for the worst and expect the best. I have seen a number of creative solutions–for instance, establishing a play area at the reception for young children.

If you truly do not want young children at the event, use words on the invitation to specify this. For example, you can send out invitations to the wedding, with an invitation to attend the adult reception which follows. These are just a few ideas, but as I said, we will explore this topic in depth when we start looking at specific events. Thanks for visiting!

For my wedding, I actually created an access database to maintain the data in an easily searchable format, where I could generate customizable reports (her side, my side, family or friends, etc). That’s probably a little bit of overkill, but it works very well.

As to what works best, that’s really up to you. In my case, I’ve been a programmer for a number of years, so a database made perfect sense to me. My wife, on the other hand, kept track by hand in a planning book. It drove me nuts, but it worked for her, and that’s what is important. So the best answer is probably “whatever works best for you.” The crucial thing is to know approximate counts and basic group details before you start making arrangements–that way you don’t have to scramble to make huge changes later.