Tips on what to do with children at your wedding
Children get bored easily and they will complain – loudly and long. We’ve found a few things your child minders can do with them in a special designated play area that you have arranged beforehand.
Newborn babies should remain with their parents. This may be unwelcome, but I will encourage guests not to come if they have newborns. But if they do come, arrange sterile changing stations for them.
Hire Professional Childminders
It’s a good idea to appoint a trustworthy childminder or keeping an eye on the children so no one gets hurt or tried to investigate what the wedding cake tastes like.
The babysitter can be in charge of the kids. You only have to setup the room and give them encouragement to try out the games.
Arts and crafts station.
Supply pots of crayons, playdough and stickers. Have wedding themed crafts like decorating a cardboard cake or making wedding type masks.
Mini photographers
Get a whole pile of disposable cameras and recruit the children to be mini wedding photographers. Give them a list of photos that you want and set them free.
Photo booth.
Photo booths are great fun and can keep children entertained for hours. A basket full of dressing up goodies, masks and fun props will give everyone a laugh.
Kids wedding tables for food.
Make a special place for the kids to eat and have child friendly food. Not too much sugar, kids on a sugar high can get out of hand. Make the tablecloths out of paper and get the child minders to encourage them to decorate the tablecloths.
Age-appropriate goodie bags.
Make the goodie bags interesting. You can add coloring books with crayons and colored pencils. Find some fun toys from a novelty shop. A few sweets, some age-appropriate printed jokes. Plastic moustaches and novelty glasses. Let the children have fun and have something to take home with them.
Hire an entertainer
If your budget can stretch that far, hire professional entertainment. The professionals have lots of ways of make sure that children enjoy themselves and they’ll bring everything they need for hours of fun.
Naptime
If you’re expecting very young children, there’s a good chance that they’ll be asleep before the event’s over, but you may also have some tired-out kids who can get grumpy and over stimulated. Set up a quiet room where they can rest after a long, exhausting day.
Wedding albums.
Plan what you will do with the final photographs and video. You might want to set up your YouTube channel for everyone to view the video. If you have created your own wedding site, then that’s where you want to publish your pictures with a link to the YouTube channel.
Just a word of caution – if there are embarrassing pictures of your wedding guests, don’t put them up on the site you may never be forgiven for it.