Children at weddings? & Ideas on how to entertain them

When planning your wedding, it's very important to remember that it's your day. All the decisions about the day should be made by you and your husband or wife to be, not by the pressure of what others expect of you. It's so easy to try to please everyone but try not to, try to have what you want.

 

Should you allow children at your wedding? oh, it's such a difficult question to answer because everyone is different. If you haven't yet had children you may decide not to have children attend or maybe you'll want just really close family to come but you could welcome other children in the evening to celebrate with you then. The choice really is up to you.

As a mum, as a wife, I just need to point out that if the wedding wasn't too far from where our children would be then I would happily leave them behind for a day. I love nothing more than a day spent with my husband but I know not everyone feels the same.... someone even refused to come to my wedding because her older children were not invited to the entire day... alrighty then! I know family weddings are difficult but I even went to my brothers wedding without Oliver and it was great. It wasn't something he would have enjoyed anyway and it's nice to have a little relax isn't it.

 

If you decide you do want children there, the next question is probably going to be 'how do I entertain the children at my wedding so they don't ruin it with their tantrums?' So here are some things that children love at weddings..

SWEETS - not just for the children actually because the adults absolutely loved the selection of sweets we had. We didn't spare any expense when it came to sweets and we probably (ok definitely) went overboard on them. So what?! You don't need to go overboard though, you could even just have a few bags where the children are sitting to keep them happy. *top tip* Save them for the evening reception so they can run off all the hyper, dance it away!

 

Balloons are always a popular thing to have for children at weddings and they went down really well with ours, the ones we had were wedding ones with various designs they were about £1.50 each so a cheap way to keep the children happy. We only had them for the two flower girls and the two page boys but if you wanted you could have a balloon for each child in the evening - they would love it. *top tip* make them match your colour theme.

Having children be part of your wedding day can be really special, if you have a child similar age to our son, Oliver then you could include them by letting them do a special reading during the ceremony itself! Oliver read an Irish Blessing so beautifully *top tip* Let the child have a few choices of what reading they would like to do, you can even shorten it to an appropriate length.

 

Having an outdoor area for everyone to get some fresh air is a really good idea, the children mostly loved playing outside and it helped them to be more calm indoors. *top tip* Pack spare clothes for your own children incase they get really dirty! Ours didn't - which was a huge shock to us all.





Include the children in the speeches too, they will get embarrassed but they'll secretly love it! We decided to get page boys and flower girls little gifts too, the boys both got a Harry Potter book which they can cherish for many years to come. *top tip* Write inside the cover a little message to remember why the book was given, as a keepsake.
Bubbles, bubbles and more bubbles. Kids love bubbles! I love these bubble wands, we still have lots left and every now and then get some out for a little bubble popping fun. They also create brilliant photo opportunities with children because you can create gorgeous shots of them being naturally happy *top tip* Touchable bubbles which you can buy on amazon really cheaply are a fab idea!

Candy floss and popcorn carts, they look so cute and everyone loves them. I happen to know a little boy who was seen going up to get more again and again. He seems to have this ability to eat and eat and eat without ever feeling full up! *top tip* If you can't afford to have someone on manning the carts like we did - we got an amazing deal to be honest, then you could do it DIY easily, you can get huge bags of popcorn and divide these into small treat bags. You can get see trough sweet cone bags to put candy floss in which you can buy in a big tub in many shops very cheaply, it just adds something additional to your evening reception to keep everyone entertained and happy.*






Michael booked us a greenscreen photobooth too which was amazing, everyone seemed to love it and because it was so much fun the children were in and out most of the evening. We have some fabulous shots too, just look at this one of Isabelle trying to see where the lions were because they were on the screen but they were not behind her she just couldn't work it out. *top tip* you can easily do a DIY photobooth, set up a camera and have a corner where you have a box full of props, funny hats, huge sunglasses and wigs can all be purchased really cheaply if you shop around.

Ask your DJ to play some songs for the kids too, with my two they would definitely get up and dance for any of the songs from trolls movie - can't stop the feeling would be ideal. Also, Pharrell Williams 'happy'.... we even had let it go from Frozen when we were signing the register.

Another thing we had were little packs I had printed out of colouring in sheets, little Mr Men books which were the children's favours along with you guessed it - more sweets and each table had some colouring in pencils in a little jar so the children had something to do whilst adults were listening to the speeches.

What do you think about children at weddings?