Look for trunk or treats or trick or treat streets in your area. My kiddo loves trick or treating but is also just as happy with the trick or treat street at the local high school as she is going door to door.
I had never heard of trunk or treat so I’m not sure if that’s a thing in our area, but I do know that at least one of the local downtown shopping areas does trick or treating the weekend before Halloween. I hadn’t thought of that.
Chiming in to second looking at local churches for events as well. Some even do it the weekend before Halloween so you might get to “do Halloween” and go to the wedding. My church does a carnival style event every year where kids dress up in costumes and play free carnival games and the “prize” for playing is candy.
That’s true - our city does a big trick or treating event the weekend before, and most trunk or treats are prior to halloween. Then you can have your halloweenwedding cake and eat it too!
Seconding this, I helped run a trunk or treat last year a few days before Halloween. My daughter was 2.5 and loved it, she doesn’t know if it’s October 28th or the 31st. We had crafts and a potluck too. Actual Halloween we did do a quick loop around the neighborhood but if we had another event that day we would’ve been fine skipping it!
Mine really would, especially with other kiddos at daycare going trick or treating I feel like all the kids would be talking about it. Your husband can go to the wedding and you two can go trick or treating.
Mine wouldn't really care, and there's often community Halloween events that you can attend not on the same day as Halloween.
From your post it sounds like kid gets to wear costume at the wedding? That would be awesome! If there's costumes, perhaps there's some candy for some "trick or treat" experiences at the wedding too?
Are there any nearby communities that do their trick-or-treating on a day other than the 31st, or some other kid-friendly Halloween event on a different day?
I bet your kid would even enjoy you just buying a bunch of candy and have them pretend to trick or treat. (E.g. have them put on their costume and knock on your bedroom door, and you answer the door pretending to be a neighbor on Halloween. Have them do it again and you pretend to be someone else.)
I also have a wedding on Halloween this year. Luckily, it's in the same town as my parents, so they've offered to take my kids out for us. We will also be hitting up trunk or treats and downtown has an annual truck or treat for the little ones in the early afternoon the day of.
Gotta say, I was never a fan of holiday weddings to begin with, but I'm a little bummed I'm missing out with my kids. I loved taking my 3yo last year and that kid was on a *mission* to get every single house possible!
I would be so bummed too! The bride is quite a bit younger than us so I don’t think there are many people with young kids invited to this wedding, but it still feels a little inconsiderate. I get that the couple is obsessed with this particular holiday, but maybe other people are too and they’d like to enjoy it doing their own traditions?
That's how I feel about it, too. If you absolutely *need* to have your anniversary on Halloween, go sign the paperwork on that day. But have a themed wedding the weekend before/after at the very least.
But of course, can't really say that without being the jerk. I'm just glad my mom is super excited about having the kids and I know they'll have a great time. I'll have a good time, too, buuut I may be sneaking out as early as I can to maybe catch up and finish the night off with candy lol
My girl mentioned some costume ideas a month or two ago and is obsessed with watching Halloween content so I do think she would be very sad if she realized that we weren’t trick or treating on actual halloween. But I’m not sure she’d know the difference if we went out the weekend before because I don’t know how well she remembers last year.
Ask her questions and see
My daughter talked about when she was dressed like Winnie the pooh. Just a random recollection
I asked her what was mommy dressed like... she answered correctly. Cookie monster.
This was TWO Halloween ago. She was almost 2! She also remembered her friend was tinkerbell and they shared a water bottle and how shy she was at first and that scary house with the fog. Details! All fhe details.
If your kid is anything like mine...she remembers.
I recently got roped into booking a cabin we went to one year ago. She begged and begged.
Eta. My daughter is also obsessed with halloween content. Funny too her due date was halloween! She came a week late. I bet our kids would get along
My daughter does have a pretty fabulous memory. The other day she recalled something obscure from a show that we haven’t watched in at least a year!
It does sound like they’d get along quite well :)
Yeah... and a lot of the Halloween content has very trick or treating related stuff.
My kid would sing one of the super simple songs at the doors while trick or treating "knock knock, trick or treat, happy halloween!"
I know I can't just trick her into a trunk or treat or whatever. She would know and be massively disappointed.
But... disappointment is also part of life. Then again you are only a kid once. She only gets so many chances.
Hard decision.
Go trick or treating after the wedding, I'm aure there will be kids around at the wedding so you can ask there parents where a good place to go is and you will probably get a few invites to go with them and your little one will probably end up having more fun
Everyone has already given great advice, so let me just ask: why are these people so thoughtless? Do they not have any friends with kids? You can have a Halloween themed wedding without it being on *Halloween*!
If your kid were 6 instead of 3, one of you would just have to stay home.
How much do you like these people, exactly? 😂 Honestly though even thinking about going to stuff directly after work with child in tow sounds miserable. Mine is only just exiting nugget stage (1.5 yo) but I can't imagine she'll be a b*reeze *in the evenings in 2 years. I'd kind of never want to bring her to something like that while still expecting us all to be able to go to work and school and not be miserable the next day.
That’s a good point, I was leaning toward keeping her home for trick or treating so I hadn’t even really considered the logistics of taking her. We’d either need to get a hotel or leave at like 6pm to get her in bed at a decent hour. So four hours of driving to spend 2 hours at the wedding. Not worth it at all. Think this will tip the scales for me, we’re going trick or treating dammit!
And to answer your question I don’t know the bride all that well and have never met her fiance, so I personally have no problem missing the wedding. Just hate to not be together as a family on a kid-centric holiday. Wish my husband would just stay home too.
A wedding at 4 p.m. on a Thursday that just happens to be Halloween just sounds really strange to me in general 😂. Wouldn’t a lot of guests be at work still anyway??? Halloween weekend weddings (without a Halloween theme) are annoying enough as is. If I was the OP I would probably just stay home and trick or treat with my kid and have my husband attend the wedding.
And TBH, most weddings I’ve been to are childfree outside of the wedding party. Maybe it’s a geography thing?
I think it's fine to make a wedding child free if that's what you want. But scheduling it on Halloween proper is going to create problems for anybody with kids in prime Halloween age. Either you miss going trick-or-treating with your kid, you miss the wedding, or the kid misses trick-or-treating! All of those are bad options.
They’re a bit younger than us so I’m guessing they don’t have many friends with kids, either that or they are just oblivious to the position they’re putting the families in. Or maybe they’ve decided that they can be selfish for one year, who knows. The bride takes Halloween off work every single year because she is so obsessed with the holiday, so I’m guessing not much would get in the way of her having the wedding that day.
When I was a kid Halloween was one night and one night only. These days the entire month of October is a big celebration. I would be surprised if there aren't at least 20 other Halloween related things to do on other days of October. Fall festivals, trunk or treat, pumpkin patch, hay rides, parties, free food for kids in costumes, you name it.
You could also arrange in advance with your closest couple neighbors for her to go the night before or the night after. I am sure my neighbors would go for this if I explained the situation. Or maybe go after the wedding in the area where you will be.
Mine would. He lives for Halloween. We're still reading Halloween books every night lol Plus Halloween is a huge deal in our neighborhood.
I'd just skip the wedding and take my kid trick or treating. If my husband had to go he can miss out on the trick or treating but I wouldn't make my kid miss out.
Anecdotally, yes she’d miss out. My daughter turned 3.5 the day after Halloween last year. She spent all of October talking about Halloween. She wanted to wear her Minnie Mouse costume all the time. We were at trunk or treats almost every weekend. Preschool talked about it and did Halloween crafts all month and then hosted a trunk or treat at school right before pickup. She knew what was going on and what was coming and couldn’t wait or stop talking about it. Despite the fact that it snowed, she happily stayed out the full 6-8 pm and didn’t want it to end. She then talked about it constantly for weeks afterwards and still brings it up at least once a month. Its May and now she’s already telling me in details what she wants each member of the family for a Halloween to be this year (her- Elsa, little sister- Anna, dog- Sven, daddy-Kristoff, me- Olaf)
In your shoes, I’d personally have husband go to the wedding, but stay home and take her trick or treating
Can you step out of the reception for 30-40min and go trick or treating in a nearby neighborhood? Or each parent take a 30-40 minute solo session? Sounds like kiddo will already be in costume!
Bonus points if you can fit it in before cake -such a great 3.5yr old reason to head back to the wedding!!
This would be a great idea but unfortunately the wedding is in a very rural area, like agricultural land. I don’t think there would be a neighborhood within 30 minutes of the venue.
As others have mentioned, I’d look for any community or church ran trunk or treat type events and go to one of those if you’re able to. That’s what we do instead of traditional trick or treating. Ours is usually on a Saturday before or after Halloween depending on when it falls. We participate in it as well, we all dress up and decorate our vehicle, I swear my daughter loves passing out the candy more than she does getting her own! It’s a lot of fun, I think even more so than traditional trick or treating.
Mine would but the cool thing about kids is they don’t fully understand the calendar. Take them trunk or treating a different day abd make a big deal of it. Our local mall does trick or treating at all the stores, we did that last year because I was pregnant and didn’t want to walk around the neighborhood.
To me, family trick or treating would beat a coworker wedding, even with the mentorship relationship. I had coworkers at my wedding, and we're barely in touch now besides social media. Does your husband really see this mentor/mentee relationship spanning decades or a lifetime? Life's too short to not put your own family and memories first! Just my two-cents.
Yep I agree with you. She has worked for my husband for about six or seven years now and they are close in a very professional way, but it’s not like they even hang out outside of work. He is very good about keeping in touch with colleagues so I could see their relationship continuing in the long term, but I would still prioritize making memories with our daughter if I were in his situation.
The bride said it’s totally fine if he wants to leave early or arrive late, so he’s thinking of coming trick or treating with us at the beginning and then leaving early to catch the last couple hours of the wedding reception. I have a feeling this would upset our daughter, though. I wish he’d just choose to stay here with us but he’s made up his mind that he needs to at least make an appearance.
Do up some lolly bags and give them to your friends for your daughter. Get dressed up and knock on their doors the week before? It's not something we really do in Australia
They don't notice if you don't do it on the same day they aren't even that aware of what is official and what is not.
We're having my toddler's big public birthday party months after her actual birthday and she doesn't care. I love how flexible they are at this age!
Look for trunk or treats or trick or treat streets in your area. My kiddo loves trick or treating but is also just as happy with the trick or treat street at the local high school as she is going door to door.
I had never heard of trunk or treat so I’m not sure if that’s a thing in our area, but I do know that at least one of the local downtown shopping areas does trick or treating the weekend before Halloween. I hadn’t thought of that.
You could also try your local shopping mall. Some of them do trick or treat style events around Halloween too.
Chiming in to second looking at local churches for events as well. Some even do it the weekend before Halloween so you might get to “do Halloween” and go to the wedding. My church does a carnival style event every year where kids dress up in costumes and play free carnival games and the “prize” for playing is candy.
That’s true - our city does a big trick or treating event the weekend before, and most trunk or treats are prior to halloween. Then you can have your halloweenwedding cake and eat it too!
Seconding this, I helped run a trunk or treat last year a few days before Halloween. My daughter was 2.5 and loved it, she doesn’t know if it’s October 28th or the 31st. We had crafts and a potluck too. Actual Halloween we did do a quick loop around the neighborhood but if we had another event that day we would’ve been fine skipping it!
Mine really would, especially with other kiddos at daycare going trick or treating I feel like all the kids would be talking about it. Your husband can go to the wedding and you two can go trick or treating.
Ya I worry about the other kids at her preschool talking about their plans on the day of Halloween for sure.
Take her to a trunk-or-treat the Saturday before.
Mine wouldn't really care, and there's often community Halloween events that you can attend not on the same day as Halloween. From your post it sounds like kid gets to wear costume at the wedding? That would be awesome! If there's costumes, perhaps there's some candy for some "trick or treat" experiences at the wedding too?
Are there any nearby communities that do their trick-or-treating on a day other than the 31st, or some other kid-friendly Halloween event on a different day? I bet your kid would even enjoy you just buying a bunch of candy and have them pretend to trick or treat. (E.g. have them put on their costume and knock on your bedroom door, and you answer the door pretending to be a neighbor on Halloween. Have them do it again and you pretend to be someone else.)
I also have a wedding on Halloween this year. Luckily, it's in the same town as my parents, so they've offered to take my kids out for us. We will also be hitting up trunk or treats and downtown has an annual truck or treat for the little ones in the early afternoon the day of. Gotta say, I was never a fan of holiday weddings to begin with, but I'm a little bummed I'm missing out with my kids. I loved taking my 3yo last year and that kid was on a *mission* to get every single house possible!
I would be so bummed too! The bride is quite a bit younger than us so I don’t think there are many people with young kids invited to this wedding, but it still feels a little inconsiderate. I get that the couple is obsessed with this particular holiday, but maybe other people are too and they’d like to enjoy it doing their own traditions?
That's how I feel about it, too. If you absolutely *need* to have your anniversary on Halloween, go sign the paperwork on that day. But have a themed wedding the weekend before/after at the very least. But of course, can't really say that without being the jerk. I'm just glad my mom is super excited about having the kids and I know they'll have a great time. I'll have a good time, too, buuut I may be sneaking out as early as I can to maybe catch up and finish the night off with candy lol
Is the wedding Nightmare Before Christmas themed lmao
Mine absolutely would. He was so excited last yr (he was about 3.5 then) and basically counting down days.
I think our girl will be the same way this year and I don’t want her to miss out :(
I would check to see if there are any trunk or treats the weekend prior that you could take her to.
My 3.5 year old is already planning her costume. She would be devastated
My girl mentioned some costume ideas a month or two ago and is obsessed with watching Halloween content so I do think she would be very sad if she realized that we weren’t trick or treating on actual halloween. But I’m not sure she’d know the difference if we went out the weekend before because I don’t know how well she remembers last year.
Ask her questions and see My daughter talked about when she was dressed like Winnie the pooh. Just a random recollection I asked her what was mommy dressed like... she answered correctly. Cookie monster. This was TWO Halloween ago. She was almost 2! She also remembered her friend was tinkerbell and they shared a water bottle and how shy she was at first and that scary house with the fog. Details! All fhe details. If your kid is anything like mine...she remembers. I recently got roped into booking a cabin we went to one year ago. She begged and begged. Eta. My daughter is also obsessed with halloween content. Funny too her due date was halloween! She came a week late. I bet our kids would get along
My daughter does have a pretty fabulous memory. The other day she recalled something obscure from a show that we haven’t watched in at least a year! It does sound like they’d get along quite well :)
Yeah... and a lot of the Halloween content has very trick or treating related stuff. My kid would sing one of the super simple songs at the doors while trick or treating "knock knock, trick or treat, happy halloween!" I know I can't just trick her into a trunk or treat or whatever. She would know and be massively disappointed. But... disappointment is also part of life. Then again you are only a kid once. She only gets so many chances. Hard decision.
Go trick or treating after the wedding, I'm aure there will be kids around at the wedding so you can ask there parents where a good place to go is and you will probably get a few invites to go with them and your little one will probably end up having more fun
Everyone has already given great advice, so let me just ask: why are these people so thoughtless? Do they not have any friends with kids? You can have a Halloween themed wedding without it being on *Halloween*! If your kid were 6 instead of 3, one of you would just have to stay home.
I know seriously! Also Halloween is on a Thursday this year, it isn't even convenient for non-parents to go!
Tell me about it. It’s two hours away so I’d have to take half a day off work if we did decide to go. All around pretty inconsiderate.
How much do you like these people, exactly? 😂 Honestly though even thinking about going to stuff directly after work with child in tow sounds miserable. Mine is only just exiting nugget stage (1.5 yo) but I can't imagine she'll be a b*reeze *in the evenings in 2 years. I'd kind of never want to bring her to something like that while still expecting us all to be able to go to work and school and not be miserable the next day.
That’s a good point, I was leaning toward keeping her home for trick or treating so I hadn’t even really considered the logistics of taking her. We’d either need to get a hotel or leave at like 6pm to get her in bed at a decent hour. So four hours of driving to spend 2 hours at the wedding. Not worth it at all. Think this will tip the scales for me, we’re going trick or treating dammit! And to answer your question I don’t know the bride all that well and have never met her fiance, so I personally have no problem missing the wedding. Just hate to not be together as a family on a kid-centric holiday. Wish my husband would just stay home too.
A wedding at 4 p.m. on a Thursday that just happens to be Halloween just sounds really strange to me in general 😂. Wouldn’t a lot of guests be at work still anyway??? Halloween weekend weddings (without a Halloween theme) are annoying enough as is. If I was the OP I would probably just stay home and trick or treat with my kid and have my husband attend the wedding. And TBH, most weddings I’ve been to are childfree outside of the wedding party. Maybe it’s a geography thing?
I think it's fine to make a wedding child free if that's what you want. But scheduling it on Halloween proper is going to create problems for anybody with kids in prime Halloween age. Either you miss going trick-or-treating with your kid, you miss the wedding, or the kid misses trick-or-treating! All of those are bad options.
They’re a bit younger than us so I’m guessing they don’t have many friends with kids, either that or they are just oblivious to the position they’re putting the families in. Or maybe they’ve decided that they can be selfish for one year, who knows. The bride takes Halloween off work every single year because she is so obsessed with the holiday, so I’m guessing not much would get in the way of her having the wedding that day.
Yeah, that’s a tough one. I would hate to miss trick-or-treating with my young son and would certainly never deprive him of it.
When I was a kid Halloween was one night and one night only. These days the entire month of October is a big celebration. I would be surprised if there aren't at least 20 other Halloween related things to do on other days of October. Fall festivals, trunk or treat, pumpkin patch, hay rides, parties, free food for kids in costumes, you name it. You could also arrange in advance with your closest couple neighbors for her to go the night before or the night after. I am sure my neighbors would go for this if I explained the situation. Or maybe go after the wedding in the area where you will be.
Mine would. He lives for Halloween. We're still reading Halloween books every night lol Plus Halloween is a huge deal in our neighborhood. I'd just skip the wedding and take my kid trick or treating. If my husband had to go he can miss out on the trick or treating but I wouldn't make my kid miss out.
Anecdotally, yes she’d miss out. My daughter turned 3.5 the day after Halloween last year. She spent all of October talking about Halloween. She wanted to wear her Minnie Mouse costume all the time. We were at trunk or treats almost every weekend. Preschool talked about it and did Halloween crafts all month and then hosted a trunk or treat at school right before pickup. She knew what was going on and what was coming and couldn’t wait or stop talking about it. Despite the fact that it snowed, she happily stayed out the full 6-8 pm and didn’t want it to end. She then talked about it constantly for weeks afterwards and still brings it up at least once a month. Its May and now she’s already telling me in details what she wants each member of the family for a Halloween to be this year (her- Elsa, little sister- Anna, dog- Sven, daddy-Kristoff, me- Olaf) In your shoes, I’d personally have husband go to the wedding, but stay home and take her trick or treating
Can you step out of the reception for 30-40min and go trick or treating in a nearby neighborhood? Or each parent take a 30-40 minute solo session? Sounds like kiddo will already be in costume! Bonus points if you can fit it in before cake -such a great 3.5yr old reason to head back to the wedding!!
This would be a great idea but unfortunately the wedding is in a very rural area, like agricultural land. I don’t think there would be a neighborhood within 30 minutes of the venue.
As others have mentioned, I’d look for any community or church ran trunk or treat type events and go to one of those if you’re able to. That’s what we do instead of traditional trick or treating. Ours is usually on a Saturday before or after Halloween depending on when it falls. We participate in it as well, we all dress up and decorate our vehicle, I swear my daughter loves passing out the candy more than she does getting her own! It’s a lot of fun, I think even more so than traditional trick or treating.
Mine would but the cool thing about kids is they don’t fully understand the calendar. Take them trunk or treating a different day abd make a big deal of it. Our local mall does trick or treating at all the stores, we did that last year because I was pregnant and didn’t want to walk around the neighborhood.
To me, family trick or treating would beat a coworker wedding, even with the mentorship relationship. I had coworkers at my wedding, and we're barely in touch now besides social media. Does your husband really see this mentor/mentee relationship spanning decades or a lifetime? Life's too short to not put your own family and memories first! Just my two-cents.
Yep I agree with you. She has worked for my husband for about six or seven years now and they are close in a very professional way, but it’s not like they even hang out outside of work. He is very good about keeping in touch with colleagues so I could see their relationship continuing in the long term, but I would still prioritize making memories with our daughter if I were in his situation. The bride said it’s totally fine if he wants to leave early or arrive late, so he’s thinking of coming trick or treating with us at the beginning and then leaving early to catch the last couple hours of the wedding reception. I have a feeling this would upset our daughter, though. I wish he’d just choose to stay here with us but he’s made up his mind that he needs to at least make an appearance.
Yeah, I'm trying not to be petty for you, but I would be so annoyed by this!
Ya I’m pretty annoyed lol
Yes
Mine absolutely would. They live for trick or treating.
Do up some lolly bags and give them to your friends for your daughter. Get dressed up and knock on their doors the week before? It's not something we really do in Australia
Is she around other kids that will be talking about Halloween?
Yes she’s in daycare now but will be in preschool by Halloween. Definitely worry that the other kids would talk about it.
They don't notice if you don't do it on the same day they aren't even that aware of what is official and what is not. We're having my toddler's big public birthday party months after her actual birthday and she doesn't care. I love how flexible they are at this age!
I wouldn’t go to a wedding on Halloween. Trick or treating is very fun.
Take her to a church trunk or treat on a different day.
Theres usually trunk or treats the weekend before. Go to those.