Inviting Children to your Wedding (or not!): 10 Suggestions

The query of inviting children to your wedding generally is a contentious one, and it’s something that comes up in almost every one in every of our couples’ planning journeys. Happily, meaning we’ve got loads of experience and advice to share with reference to inviting (or not inviting) your family members’ little ones to your celebrations, ensuring everyone seems to be glad, taken care of and capable of thoroughly benefit from the day.

Tip 01: selecting not to ask children to your wedding

Today a number of our couples prefer not to ask children to their wedding because they’re frightened about disruptions to the proceedings, and wish to present their guests the chance to calm down, let their hair down and luxuriate in themselves without their parental responsibilities for a short while. Given this, the very first thing we would like to say is that when you select not to ask children we will provide help to convey this message graciously and politely in order to not cause offence or upset. It’s essential to keep in mind that when you do make this decision, there are prone to be people invited to your wedding who need to decline the invitation since it’s impossible for them to depart their children with anyone else – or they simply don’t wish to, particularly in case your wedding is overseas.

So long as you’re ready for and expect this, it needn’t be an issue. Nevertheless, it could be that you may have immediate members of the family with children and even want them to be a part of your wedding day entourage, otherwise you’re just very glad for everybody to bring their lovely families along to your celebrations. The remainder of our suggestions will concentrate on how one can prepare for having the little ones around, and the whole lot it’s worthwhile to take into consideration to make it smooth sailing for all involved.

Tip 02: catering for youths

In the event you’re going to ask children to your wedding, we want to make sure they’re embraced and properly taken care of and cared for. Weddings, by design, are very much adult playgrounds of sorts, and we want to adapt certain elements for the littler members of your guest list. The primary place to look is to your catering, starting with ensuring we offer a special kid-friendly menu. We encourage our couples to talk over with their guests with children to search out out what they may actually wish to eat, which can differ greatly depending on their ages – an 18 month old will want and want totally various things to a 12 yr old, for instance.

It’s price noting here that, while most caterers will provide discounted pricing for youths’ food, that typically only counts for youngsters as much as around age 10. While this varies by caterer, this can be a useful average to remember; beyond this, caterers will charge the complete adult price for older children – even when the 15 yr old decides they’d wish to eat chicken nuggets and chips or pasta and tomato sauce. It’s because caterers know that, as children grow old, they eat like adults! Somewhere along the road they need to draw this line and, having worked for a while within the event catering world myself before moving into wedding planning, I’m well versed within the inner workings of this.

In actual fact, the discounted price for childrens’ meals is something of a courtesy and doesn’t actually cost the caterer less. If anything, it will possibly find yourself costing them more because they’ve to offer separate meals for the youngsters in addition to still needing to offer the place setting on the table, the service, the dish washing…the logistics and repair involved aren’t dissimilar.

The underside line is that this: ensure you think about the youngsters which can be going to be in attendance and arrange special meals for them, but be kind to your caterers and understand that their prices aren’t going to differ wildly for all children of all ages.

Tip 03: high chairs and seating for youngsters

Staying on the childrens’ dining theme, we also all the time check with our couples whether any of the children will need a high chair. We will’t all the time assume they can be available at the placement and we frequently need to hire them in, especially if we’re working at a dry hire venue (where all furniture have to be hired in) or somewhere distant overseas. If high chairs are needed we’ll ensure they can be found for those children, but this must be planned for.

Tip 04: BYO seating for youths

While we’re with reference to seating, often when inviting children to your wedding you should have guests who say they’ll bring their very own clip-on child seat for the tables. While that is, in theory, a beautiful idea and feels like it might save on some planning for us, it’s actually all the time going to be a ‘no’ from me as your wedding planner! The difficulty is that, because we’re talking about banqueting tables, these clip-on options are really not all that sturdy. The very last thing we would like is a baby falling off the table because they’ve clipped on and it’s slipped on the tablecloth – it’s just too dangerous.

If there are kids of high-chair age, we’ll arrange floor-standing ones that will be pushed right as much as the table. Now, we’ve got just yet another thing to say on feeding the youngsters and keeping them involved within the dining experience…

Tip 05: BYO food for youths

One other scenario we frequently encounter when inviting children to your wedding is that somebody says they’ll bring their very own food, which happens particularly with toddlers or children who are only being weaned onto solid foods. This is totally superb, but we still need to think about whether that child needs a spot on the table. If they may need to sit down in a high chair (which we’ll arrange), they should be counted in on the seating plan.

High chairs, baby seats and buggies take up the identical space as a chair at a table – if, for instance, you may have a table that seats 10 but one couple desires to bring a baby, seat them in a high chair and feed them their very own food, we want to count them as one in every of those 10 seats. There can be no cost from the caterer because there aren’t any logistics involved, but we still have to count them as one in your seating chart and table plan – together with a note to put a high chair there.

All of the magic that happens at a marriage is the direct results of meticulous advance planning, even in these tiny details that aren’t essentially the most exciting to discuss and couples don’t all the time consider as a part of the method. The fact is we’ll ensure we learn about all of this upfront and include it on our event plan (which is large and detailed!), and pass on relevant information to all of the vital vendors.

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Tip 06: babies and buggies

When inviting children to your wedding we’ve got to think about that a few of your guests may bring very young babies. While they don’t necessarily need any catering, we still have to know that they’re coming so we will accommodate them. In the event that they’re arriving with a pram or buggy, we’ll need to think about where that will be left when your guests take the newborn out. It’s not a guarantee that your venue may have a number of free space to depart buggies and baby bags, because your floor plan is rigorously designed to incorporate all of your tables, production equipment (similar to sound and lighting decks), staging for bands, speakers, and a transparent route in your catering team to are available in and out of the kitchen. Sometimes tables are very close together and your guests should want to keep prams right next to them, so we absolutely must take this all into consideration.

Once we create your floorplan we will account for folks with babies and buggies, ensuring we put them on tables on the periphery of the event space where we will secure a spot for the whole lot they should have close by. This implies nothing gets in the best way of other guests or the food service, ensuring your whole event runs more easily. So, the takeaway is that this: if guests are bringing young babies it’s not a straightforward case of ‘they don’t need any food from the caterers so we don’t have to worry’ – we still have to know they’re coming, and plan for his or her attendance.

Tip 07: letting sleeping babies lie

Many guests with children tell us their little ones will wish to sleep sooner or later throughout the event, at a certain time normally. If we’re suddenly asked on the day of the marriage ‘is there a room we will use for this?’, the reply is commonly no unless we’ve got specifically planned for this upfront. If we’re at a destination wedding somewhere within the Italian countryside, a dry hire venue anywhere on this planet, or a selected wedding venue without on-site accommodation, it isn’t possible to only ‘find’ an area – particularly one that provides the precise conditions for youngsters and babies to sleep. Working in a hotel in London, for instance, makes the query a bit simpler as there are many bedrooms to make use of, nonetheless it must still be thought of ahead of time.

It’s a matter that needs very careful thought, and depending on just what number of young children and babies can be coming to your wedding we will do a few various things;

Some couples simply resolve there aren’t enough sleep-requiring attendees to factor this in, and so they don’t need to make extra arrangements (and possibly spend extra cash) to offer it

Others may decide to specifically put aside some space of their venue for this purpose, away from the dancefloor and speakers, and even hire a bedroom or extra space

Nevertheless, as you’ll soon read, the query of who will watch over the little ones while they’re taking their nap will undoubtedly raise its head next – and we’ll cover that in suggestions 9 & 10.

Tip 08: inviting children to your wedding might mean early departures

The opposite query we get so much from guests with young children is whether or not they may give you the option to depart early to take their kids to bed. Particularly for lots of our destination weddings, we frequently transport guests by coach to venues which can be very distant or not easily serviced by taxis and Ubers, and it’s not straightforward to only resolve to depart on-demand. Anybody who thinks they should want to leave early must be advised to pre-order their very own transport, and that is something we’ll remind our couples about if we all know we’ve got a number of guests attending with children.

Tip 09: childcare and creches

Our couples often ask us if we may help to rearrange childcare, babysitting or creche services, a very popular query at destination weddings. The very first thing to say on that is that it should all the time be provided by child care providers with all the suitable paperwork; properly vetted, criminal record checks, and registered with OFSTED if operating within the UK (like Protected & Sound Events, an organization we frequently use for this purpose). For weddings within the UK we’ve got quite a few different childcare services for events we will recommend, but as a consequence of laws we aren’t legally allowed to become involved with any of the small print of planning with the provider. What this implies practically is that we put our couples in contact with the kid care suppliers, and it’s their responsibility to contract them after which put parents directly in contact to handle the small print and paperwork.

In the case of destination weddings it will possibly be somewhat more tricky to secure the precise level of service, and we might never start recommending ad-hoc babysitters abroad because we will’t guarantee safety or security. On this case we again put the childrens’ parents in direct contact with either the marriage venue or the hotels we’re using for guests, and so they may help to make those arrangements. Parents are often very glad to work this manner because they understand we’re safeguarding and protecting their children, and we would like them to be glad and assured that they’re leaving their children in good hands – otherwise, they won’t enjoy themselves in any respect!

On the marriage day we, as a planning team, is not going to become involved with the babysitting, creche or child care, but we will in fact arrange childrens’ meals to be delivered at the precise time and help to offer details to guests who would love to utilise the service.

Tip 10: ceremony squawking

One among the the explanation why our couples are sometimes hesitant about inviting children to their wedding is because they’re frightened about hearing crying throughout the ceremony, and particularly that the parents of the youngsters won’t take their distressed little ones out of the room. We all the time advise that our couples have a quiet, respectful word with parents on the guest list beforehand, asking that they please sit towards the back of the room so that they can exit with their child if vital without causing disruption. If parents are primed beforehand, it’s much easier for us as your planning team to observe it on the day. We recommend having this conversation and the kid care one in the identical breath!

BONUS TIP: entertainment and goodie bags when inviting children to your wedding

Our final tip is on no account compulsory, but many couples do decide to put together entertainment packs or little goodie bags to the youngsters in attendance at their wedding. As we mentioned earlier, weddings are grown-up playgrounds and infrequently involve periods of sitting, mingling, drinking and eating – all of which the adults find enjoyable, while the children find it terribly dull. Providing packs containing something to read, color, play with or do on the dinner table may help everyone’s day run so much more easily, saving parents from boredom-induced tantrums and couples from unintentional heckling during speeches. Pick your moment handy out the goodie bags – when will they be of the largest profit?

If you may have a number of young children attending your wedding and need to make a degree of ensuring they’re included and luxuriate in their experience, it is perhaps price considering hiring in childrens’ entertainers or amusements – what exactly this looks like varies greatly from wedding to wedding, nevertheless it’s something we will absolutely support you with in order that the youngest members of your guest list have just as wonderful a time because the eldest.

In every one in every of the following pointers for inviting children to your wedding, the principal takeaway is to plan, plan, plan. Luckily, that’s exactly what we’re here to provide help to do – with us in your team there can be nothing left to probability and nothing unconsidered, whether you choose to have a number of little ones running around at your celebrations or not.