Tips for Child Friendly Weddings

Deciding to invite children to your wedding day can sometimes be a difficult decision. It is important to consider how they can be kept entertained and behaving during your special day as temper tantrums and running around touching everything could be distracting. Anytime day or night, children in the wedding party get fed up. Children being children, will make it clear they are bored, tired, hungry and when not fully supervised, will kick off. The time it takes to get ready,  travel to the venue, routines being out of sync, lack of food, sleep and entertainment all play factors.

Children at a wedding have one of the biggest impacts on a wedding day both positive and negative.  If you add up the cost of all the activities and the entertainment, a creche company provides all of that in one so look at costs. If the budget is larger, try to do both!

The major key with a crèche company is the supervision so that the parents do not have to have their eye on their child every second, which they really don’t want anyways, parents want to enjoy the wedding and the celebrations.

It’s not about taking the children out of the day, but about making them a greater part of the day by providing supervision and age-appropriate actives. Children never spend the duration of a day EVER with so little to do, and in such an adult situation as a wedding, they too need to have some fun.

If you chose not to invite children and believe it could offend someone, be sure to have that conversation ahead of time with people explaining the reasons before sending out the wedding invites. 

If you decide to include children, be sure to ask your guests to RSVP how many children and ages to ensure the venue has the appropriate seating arrangements in place and the caterers have prepared a child-friendly menu and consider creches services, as they will need to plan activities accordingly. 

There is an extra cost consideration for catering and offering a child-friendly menu option. Logistically your creche partner will inform your venue confirm ages, dietary information, and any personal requirements. A  good crèche company will liaise with the venue and bride to sort food, times for food, seating with parents, with the supervisors or on separate tables supervised by the company. Children do not have to sit there for the duration of meal and speeches, they can go off to play and come back when next course is served. Should you plan to keep the children involved during the wedding breakfast, be sure to have colouring books, little games or any other creative ideas to keep them entertained. 

A good tip mothers have shared with us is having extra snacks during the day and evening could prove useful as children often eat less… but often.

Health and Safety/ Supervision Considerations

Your natural instinct will be to turn to friends and family to help during wedding planning, but beware they can let you down last minute. Venue staff and entertainers are legally not allowed to supervise the children so you have to have other adults present. 

Speak to your wedding planner or if you are a DIY person, make sure the venue and decorations are ‘child-friendly’ which includes decor being higher up away from reach and keeping entranceways as clear as possible for children run about safely. Keeping space clear and avoiding clutter will help prevent damages/breakages or children experiencing any falls. Consider centrepieces well centred on tables away from the easy reach of children arms; this includes the wedding cake and candy carts.  Be aware of any water features at the venue, there have been cases of children ending up in the hospital due to running around and falling into the water.

Remember it’s your wedding day you chose who you wish to invite!

10 Ways to Keep Children Entertained

1- Movie Night with popcorn and other treats

2- Face Painting

3- Dress up photo booth

4- Soft play area 

5- Puppet Show

6- Arts and Crafts

7- Building Bricks

8- Magician

9- Toy box, puzzles and books

10-Giant games