Welcome to Pop The Question, a weekly space to dissect every aspect of wedding madness. Each Tuesday, we’ll ask a question (sometimes there might even be a poll!), you’ll share answers and stories, and then we’ll bring you the best of the bunch on Thursdays. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll fly into a total rage over something that doesn’t actually matter … it will be just like your wedding day.
The New York
Times took on one of the touchiest subjects when it comes to wedding planning: To include or not to include children in your big day?
The Times quite correctly notes that “It seems as if anyone who has ever been to a wedding has an opinion (and a story) of sweetness and shenanigans involving children,” which makes this a perfect topic with which to launch our Pop The Question series. The Grey Lady goes on to highlight stories of flower girls forgetting to scatter their titular flowers (adorable, says the paper) and ring bearers who stopped for a pee on their way down the aisle (they felt it considerably less adorable, as you might imagine). Then there was something about “custom coloring books featuring the bride and groom” and I lost consciousness.
I fell into the NO CHILDREN IN OR AT OUR WEDDING camp. The decision was made partly for the common reasons (too unpredictable, too distracting) as well as to help control the number of bodies, small or not, in the not-super-huge reception space we’d chosen. Including children in the event would have meant that our wedding would have been much larger than the already-much-larger-than-what-I-wanted event was shaping up to be. (I did a lot of compromising.) (No one appreciated it.) So I held firm and dealt with the fallout. And oh boy, was there ever fallout! I’d go into specifics but I’m not interested in getting a phone call from my mother that begins with “ANJOLIE ELIZABETH, YOU DON’T EVER AIR THE FAMILY’S DIRTY LAUNDRY.” and ends with a terrifying hissing noise and me crumpled in a heap on my floor.
Which is where you come in! We’ve set up a poll for you to take before heading into the comments to tell us some things. Things like:
- Why you did or didn’t include children in your wedding.
- Horror stories of children melting down, behaving badly, or otherwise causing chaos at a wedding you’ve been to, either your own or as a guest.
- Adorable stories of adorable children behaving adorably at a wedding you’ve been to, either your own or as a guest.
We’ll meet back here on Thursday to enjoy a roundup of the best responses.
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Poll closes on Wednesday at 11:59 p.m. EST
Image via Getty.