Entertaining kids at a wedding

[BexusSugarush]

My wedding, specifically. We have alot of under 4's coming to our wedding (with a few under 10's too) and we'd like to look into hiring some sort of soft play area/equipment to entertain them.

Has anyone had any experience with this? Someone suggested to hire with a company that also provides a qualified member of staff to watch the children, but that sounds a bit much.

I have also posted this to the Weddings group as I wasn't sure which would be the most appropriate.

Any help, contacts or even just ideas you may have are all very welcome!

I went to a wedding that had a bouncy castle. It kept a lot of children of a range of ages occupied. I think there was also some lawn games out for the older ones.

If you have a large space we hired a portable soft play area that fitted into a corner of the room. It did come with a staff member who played with and supervised the little ones but it wasn't a crèche, it just meant that parents could sit at their tables and keep an eye from there, which was quite relaxing all round. It worked well for us and I don't think it was hugely expensive.

Or the other thing we've done is an inflatable disco dome, worked well as it was still accessible when it was rainy and dark.

We had a magician do a show during the gap between the meal and the evening do.
It was great, one of the highlights of my day!

I've only been to one wedding that provided anything special for children (but it was a lovely touch). It was during the evening bit, after dinner, and they set up a table in the bar area for children (it was like a barn with a bar area to one side and then an open space to the other, imagine they must usually set up tables or something there then the band and rest of the evening do was in the main barn across a small courtyard). They just put up some tables with lots of kids party food, some toys and games, colouring, etc. and an area to run around. But because it was next to the bar, it was nice, we could get a drink and keep an eye on our dd and she was happy with snacks and some colouring, etc. If you have the space, a bouncy castle or other play space/slide would be great. I don't think you need to provide supervision. I know I would be so grateful to have something to occupy my kid so I could have a glass of wine in peace and carry on a conversation while keeping an eye on her at the same time. I wouldn't necessarily need to go into the other room or something and leave her. Just a bit of downtime and peace would be plenty.