Seems like kids are no longer fashionable at weddings. All recent wedding invites have been adult only. The bride and groom thoughtfully provide babysitters. Gee thanks, like I'm going to hand over my kids to people the bride and groom found. No way. Staying home.
What happened to weddings being a right-of-passage to be marked and celebrated by family and community? For some folks weddings are just about the facebook pictures anymore.
Historically, that hasn't been the human experience. In most European cultures, kids have never been welcome at wedding receptions.
The purpose of the wedding reception was for the wealthiest, most elite people to introduce the new couple to their very select society *as* a couple. The party was traditionally planned and executed by the parents of the happy couple, and later on it became part of the bride's family expense (in lieu of part or all of the dowry). At such spectacles, brats weren't welcome. They were generally being raised by nannies and tutors while the older generation socialized anyway, so a wedding reception was one more event they simply weren't part of. Ordinary people didn't have receptions or parties to celebrate their new status. They just went to the church, got married in front of witnesses, and set up their households. If you weren't the sort of person who got your own debutante ball, you didn't get a wedding reception either. For a realistic look at how people in different classes handled marriage, read "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens, and compare the wealthy Miss Havisham's approach to Biddy's and Wemmick's. A big, fancy to-do simply wasn't the normal experience.
Starting in the 19th century, more affluent couples started aping the upper classes and throwing parties after the ceremony, but it was by no means universal. It was regarded as a form of conspicuous consumption.
The only time weddings have been parties for the community, in the Western and European tradition at least, has been in areas that are very thinly populated, where people are really hard up for entertainment. The African and Indian models are different, but didn't have a huge impact on customs in Europe and European-influenced cultures.
During the Westward expansion of European colonists into the Americas, people started using weddings as an excuse to get together and celebrate as a community or family, but again it was generally just a quiet get-together in somebody's home. Big, fancy halls and reception areas simply didn't exist. By the time the population became big enough in the rural areas to support having, say, Elks halls or dance halls, there was a justification for bringing the whole family including the children, but that was simply because in a farming community nobody expected to have an extensive household staff including a nanny. People living out in the boonies brought the brats along simply because there was nobody to look after them if they didn't. Hence the introduction of squalling babies and loaded diapers to what was originally intended as a serious, formal event. Urban areas still tried to emulate the European model. I'd say that just hasn't changed much.
Source: Olwen Hufton, "The Prospect Before Her", and Stephanie Coontz, "Marriage, a History".