I never intentionally weaned anybody. We kept on nursing until the child was ready to stop. I would never wean anybody just because the child reached a certain age- in fact I can't imagine ever doing an intentional mother-led weaning unless there was a medical reason for it.
DD2 weaned at 14mo, one month after introducing bottles because I was newly separated, stressed, etc. and needed a bit of a break. If I'd had MDC back then, I probably could have worked through it and kept her nursing longer (either by never offering bottles in the first place through better support earlier, or offering bottles less often when she slowed down on nursing, or only offering smaller bottles- neither of which occured to me at the time to do.)
DD1 weaned at 30mo, one month after her little sister weaned. That was very much a mutual weaning- both of us were ready.
DS weaned at 4 years, 3 months old.
The only "issues" I ever had was some rude glares by strangers when I nursed DD1 while pg or after DD2 was born. If anybody ever asked me why I was "still nursing" a toddler or preschooler I'd simply give them a blank look that said "why on earth wouldn't I nurse a child this young?" and/or say "we're not ready to wean yet". But really, it didn't come up. I did face some subtle pressure for weaning when DS was about a year old, but neither one of us was ready to wean so we didn't. Then it reached a point where everybody just assumed he was already weaned, or knew us and had gotten used to the idea.
DS was enrolled in preschool a year and a half before he weaned. I don't think any of his classmates knew he nursed, and if they did, they didn't care. It simply didn't come up or cause him any social problems whatsoever.
When you look at the big picture, 2yos are still babies. Even 4yos are still babies in many ways. Yes, they're way bigger than 6mos and can seem "huge" when your only experience is nursing a tiny, immoble infant. But now, having a teenager, an almost teenager (both of whom are well into puberty) and my "baby" being 7, I can look at friends' 4yos and easily see how a child that age could still need to nurse. I look at a 2yo or 2.5yo and I just see "baby", and it seems rather odd to me that there are some kids that small who are already weaned- and perfectly natural for a child that young to still use a bottle or pacifier if they're not nursing.
