5 Ways To Entertain Children At Weddings!
Great tips to help you and your guests enjoy your wedding day!
For kids, attending your wedding can be the best day ever for them; the excitement of seeing their favourite family members, staying up past their bedtime, dancing to the latest music, and also stuffing their faces full of sweets, chocolate and fizzy pop! But other than the excitement of the day, it can be a very long day for kids and not to mention, the ceremony.
Before we discuss anything, you need to know whether you’re inviting kids to your wedding. It’s an important discussion to have with your partner and you both need to be happy about the decision, but it’s a good thing to remember that this is YOUR wedding day, not your guest’s. Most importantly, your guests should understand and accept this decision.
Otherwise, if you are inviting little ones to your big day, here are some helpful tips to keep them entertained!
Give The Children An Important Role At Your Wedding
Providing a child with a very special role is actually very exciting and fun for them! For example; let’s say you’re inviting your niece/nephew to your wedding; why not give them a role of being your flower girl or ring bearer? According to Momblog365, children love being the centre of attention, especially being given a very important job. As discussed on their blog, explain their important role and answer their questions — if you’re aware the child is nervous and unsure, have a chat with them. If they want to take the challenge, make sure they attend rehearsals and provide little tasks to do at home like practising their walk and confidence! It’s great fun for the kid to focus on something very special for your big day!
Another fun role for all the children is providing the confetti to the guests — who doesn’t love throwing confetti at the end? It’s a great traditional celebration. You can provide boxes of confetti and the children will be instructed to head to the front of the door while the guests are coming out and hand out the goods! It definitely gets the kids excited, especially when they can’t wait any longer to throw the confetti at everyone!
Providing Fun Little Games During The Ceremony
Ceremonies can be the boring part of a child’s day, sitting still and keeping quiet is a big no-no for an energetic kid. If you want children to be involved in your ceremony, it’s a great idea to provide an area at the venue/church dedicated to children’s entertainment. By providing that bit of space. You can provide lots of quiet jobs for the kids such as printed colouring pictures of a bride & groom (you can always commission an artist to create drawings for you), and the children’s parents can bring their kids favourite game with headphones or a jigsaw puzzle, etc. The trick is to make sure that the activities are age-appropriate and not too high energy, but fun at the same time.
Always remember to have someone supervising the children at the wedding. If parents have important roles (e.g. bridesmaid) you can always look into childminders, nannies, and appropriate guardians for the children, like an Aunt or Grandparent. The last thing anyone wants on their wedding day is for a child to have an accident or to become upset!
Outdoor Activities — The After-Party
If you’re thinking of having your wedding in Spring/summer weather, this could be something you might want to look into. Outdoor activities for children are the best, not only for them but for the adults too! There are lots of great different activities that would be perfect to keep the children occupied for hours. If you are looking for any ideas on what activities would be best at your wedding, we’ve created a board on our Pinterest showing you lots of different ways you and your child from getting bored, but for now, here are a few examples;
- Giant Jenga Blocks — just make sure they don’t fall on anyone!
- Lawn Bowling
- Hopscotch
- Mini Scavenger hunt
- Ring Toss
Remember to always make sure the kids are supervised during play time — either by parents/guardians, a nanny/childminder, or a responsible adult!
Reception Table Arrangement & Fun Games
When it gets to the wedding breakfast, some adults may want to relax and enjoy a prosecco or two — nothing wrong with that, but where does that leave the kids? To keep them entertained after eating a delicious meal, why not put some baking paper down on the tables with chalk and invite them to draw or play tic tac toe? Even better, if you’re having your wedding breakfast outdoors or in a marquee, we’d suggest getting permission to draw with chalk on any paving stones or upcycling some old wood panels into a chalkboard? If you’re not confident in DIY, there are always plenty of woodworkers in local areas that can help out! You could even write instructions beforehand on the chalkboard ready for the kids — games like Pictionary, drawing contests, or hangman!
If all else fails and you can’t get your hands on some chalk, there’s always good ol’ fashioned pencil and paper! Just make sure you put an extra covering on the kids’ table so there aren’t any stains on the table coverings and you’ll be golden!
Personalised Goodie Bags
Wedding favours are a great way for your guests to remember your big day, but what about something special for the children? A special wedding goodie bag would be a great idea, packed with bubbles, small toys (avoiding toys with small parts for younger children) and great drawing or colouring activities with crayons! You could also include little sweets, but always take care to consider that some children may have some special dietary requirements and allergies. Personalise the activities by relating them to the day, could suggest using words in the word search that they might encounter in the ceremony or speeches. Create a scavenger hunt for the room your wedding is hosted in, or a Bingo card for wedding activities — the list goes on!
Children are incredibly important to us, and while a wedding is a big day for you, it’ll be a big day for them as well — most of all we recommend giving them space to let out their energy and have fun with the other kids that’ll be attending. If they’re happy, you’ll be happy too!
Let us know if you have any more tips, or if you have a favourite tip from this list by getting in touch with our social media!
See you next week.
Facebook: UPlanIt / Twitter: @uplanit_online / Instagram: @uplanit_online
