Entertaining Kids at a Wedding (Ideas Please)

I have got about 20 kids coming to our wedding in Dec and we are getting a balloon modeller/ magician to entertain them during reception drinks and hes going to stay for most of meal as well so hopefully can keep kids entertained alson the activity packs are great pencils , colouring pads and stickers they have kept my son amused at weddings we have been to hes 4. Also if you have space you could get giant games connect 4 and Jenga etc.

Thanks, we are having it at a country hotel so have plenty of grounds, like the idea of giant jenga and connect 4, everyone keeps saying why am i bothering its our big day but want to include the kids as much as we can, want them to be with us but don't want them bored, been told we can have a bouncy castle in one of the rooms so that might be a possibility x

We gave out activity packs when the children arrived at the reception venue which included a disposable camera each and a list of things we wanted them to photograph. They all really enjoyed it and it kept them busy whilst adults enjoyed the drinks and canapes and we went off for photos. We also had cricket and croquet sets outside for them- fortunately it was a dry day! We did have a separate room that the nannies used during the speeches as we were concerned the children might be bored having to sit through those and osme of the smaller children went into the room for their naps throughout the day. We also had games, DVDs and jigsaw puzzles in the room for them but to be honest, they didn't use them much as they wanted to chase each other around!

I don't have many kids coming, i have 3 10-15 year olds, 6 5-9 year olds and 2 under 2.

I am doing a teddybear hunt for the younger ones when we will be having our photo's done.

They will also have garden games. During the meal they will have a party bag that contains colouring crayons with an activity pack, a camera and a set pf pictures to capture and just other little bits like stickers, keyring, glow in the dark bracelet.

The older ones are getting top trumps.

Not sure about the babies yet though, maybe a rattle of some sort.

We agreed that no under 1s would be allowed, this sounds harsh but the venue prefer older kids and as SO many of our friends have new borns and by many we would be talking like 12 babies. So we decided to say family kids over 1 only.

So we have colour co-ordinated Event Smiles boxes for each child (big kids like our flowergirl and page boy who are both 6 have puzzles, colour pencils, paper, card games, foam puzzles)mthen the one baby who is just under 2 has a rubber duck squeezy toy, big chunky crayola crayons and paper.

Event smiles are good as they do a nice pearl box in whatever your colour is.

Also our grounds are quite big so the kids can play.

I had 8 kids a my wedding (nearly a third of my all-day guests!) we bought favour packs from cocoonparty for them all, slightly different for all of them but they had things like bubbles, rocket balloons (fun for the guests - not so fun for the venue staff lol) those fluffy crawly things on an invisible string (hope that makes sense!!) colouring books, jumping beans, slinkies and some of them had sweeties in too - my nephews tore into the maoam before their dinner lol

Seen the activity books are around 5 pound each, had so many ideas when we first got engaged now we are finally planning it my minds gone blank, thank for your ideas, x

We're having a "NO ADULTS" area for our kids and i'm paying someone I know to be an Au pair for a day. (i'm a teacher and shes a volunteer in my class so i trust her 100% and she's CRB checked etc) We're having a bouncy castle (mainly for me), ball pits, soft play stuff and a whole stck of games and drawing things and play dough and other fantastic kids stuff!! I think that will be the place to be to be fair!!

I made my own activity bags for the kids at our wedding.

Went to the pound shop. Got some colouring books...some felt tip and colouring pencil sets.

A reading book each and some small lego packs. There were a few other bits and peices too.

Probably spent more than £5 but was sooo worth it.

The kids didnt moan or grumble or act up for the whole wedding.

Their mum said they couldnt wait to sit down and play.

Before hand everyone said the same thing to me about it being our day and the parents are the ones that should be

keeping the kids entertained but I wanted them to have a good time....after all I spent alot of time making sure the adults would too

Plus if they are quiet and happy it makes the day better for us and their parents.

Hi there

i've been to a few weddings with kids running riot!!! and also a couple of good ones where there were things for them to do and it makes it better for everyone!!

few ideas -

bouncy castle

magician

goody bags

balloon modeller

or a friend of mine who lives in the cotswolds is looking at hiring some childrens pedal cars from www.pedalcarparties.co.uk which looks like something a bit different!!

the other thing is to hire a childrens entertainer and have a separate room / creche??

hope this helps!

charlotte x

Yawn!

We had 30 children under 10 at our wedding out of 120 guests.

My mother was convinced that every child would be bored silly and causing havoc, so she filled a basic party bag for each child which was left in their spot in place of a wedding favour. They also had chocolate place names which surprisingly kept them all amused for ages.

We also had a large number of garden games on the lawns outside the venue - giant Jenga, balls, pick-up-sticks, giant cards. No bouncy castle or anything like that.

My wife struggles in the evening as she suffers from an extreme form of migraine, so our wedding was designed to start early and finish early evening so as to avoid lights coming on, people starting to use flash on their cameras etc - which meant that we did finish at a very child friendly hour but we certainly didn't have any bored kids.

We served afternoon tea rather than having an evening reception and part of that was an ice-cream cart, which also kept them entertained.

A camera scavenger hunt is one way to keep them amused and you cna modify it to suit your venue etc.