There was one time during my wedding planning, where I felt the need to play the "But it's MY day!" card.

It was the day before the wedding. My adorable niece was my adorable flower girl. She also happened to be three. I was very excited to have her involved, and was completely confident with her ability to sprinkle rose petals around.

Having seen a few of her temper tantrums, I knew she had the "throwing stuff" thing down. Pat.

But to my horror, at the rehearsal, I realized that once she was done with her tossing flowers act, everyone was assuming she was going to stand up by the altar. For the entire duration of our Catholic wedding.

I quickly filed that under H.

For "Hell, no."

And that's when I pulled my bridezilla trump card and said that she'd be sitting by Grandma, in the front row.

Have you ever seen a kid stand still for 45 minutes? Have you ever seen any child, under the age of five, stand still for even one minute? I hadn't.

The only time I'd seen this toddler stand still for 5 minutes was when she had fallen asleep while bitterly sobbing against her mom's legs.

So I knew that standing up there, she might distract everyone from the wedding's gorgeous readings and our carefully written vows. (If you haven't noticed, I'm all about the words. And I just couldn't have the one thing I cared about be upstaged by two and half feet of river-dancing energy.)

I felt a little bad about insisting she sit down. For about 8 seconds. Then I realized, my God, how awful for that little thing to even have to try to stand still for that long! Most little three year old girls might love the idea of dressing up, getting their hair curled extra cute, and all that. But do they love getting glared at or shushed for doing what comes naturally - fidgeting? Playing?

I love kids, but I love kids acting like kids. Not little miniature Mr. Roboto adults. Why do you think they make all the possessed kids in horror movies talk and act like adults. Because it's creepy.

So what's your take on kids and formality? How much is reasonable to expect of kids? Speaking of horror - any good stories about wedding kids gone wrong?