Children

Thank a great idea!! We decided to make ours a child free wedding except for our kids who are in the bridal party. Our invites will welcome the kids to the ceremony but the reception is off limits. I've experienced so much times watching parents and kids not having fun at receptions. Our kids will between the ages of 14 and 9 so it won't be to boring for them. But they still leaving the reception before us with their grandparents.

View quoted message Let me know how it all goes!

This is a great idea, my fiance was thinking about this for ours too.

We're doing this. We are having an outdoor wedding and having someone look after the kids during the meal time and up to a certain time (having figured out logistics yet). We will be having an area for the kids to hang out and do different activities as well to keep them busy.

Thanks everyone! I was worried that people would be upset by this. But I feel very confident that this would be the way to go

I think this is very thoughtful of you!

My friend did this! She hired a coworker of mine (RECE) and she watched the kids in the bridal suite for the night. The price was about as much as two adult dinners, and there were about 5 kids so it was manageable and made the parents more comfortable. She put them to bed on the pull out couch when it got late and then parents picked up when they were ready.

Im planning to do this for my wedding, and my venue even gave me a list of preferred babysitters! So I’ll be putting on our invitations a note to let us know if they need childcare and then we’ll cover that for the night. We’re probably not going to have them in the bridal suite though. If we were getting married in our city, we would definitely set up a sleepover in our home though! That sounds so fun!

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That would be fun for them, I agree. And, if you're having a dance, it gives the parents the freedom to stay at the dance and not go pick up their child to take them home to bed.

I am doing this. I work at Boys and Girls Club child care assistant so I will be asking some of my coworkers if they want to work supervising children at the wedding. We will have around 20 children at the wedding and that does not include the newborns.

This is a very interesting idea!! I'm wondering how it would work for children over 1 but under 5

View quoted message That's an awesome idea too. There is another small room in the building as well. I will check into that.
My thinking that all the kids are mostly cousins and they would love to have a big sleep over

My cousin hired people to look after the children. She had them in the same building though because there was another room in her venue. They provided food and the babysitters brought the games and entertainment (since they already had it and my cousin didn't have anything). If there was an issue, one of the sitters could've come up for the parent. I think it worked well for them. They didn't have a dance so it didn't run super late.

I was thinking of doing this exact thing. Offering my house as a place to bring the kids (as we’ll be staying at a hotel that night anyways) and hiring a babysitter or two. I figured it’d be cheaper than having the kids at the wedding and having to pay for a meal for them and it also frees up a space for friends who we might not have space for otherwise. I’d love to hear opinions from people who have tried this or something similar!