How would it be if guests at a wedding arranged childcare there?

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I don't want to kick off the child-free wedding debate, but we've been invited to one and need to go with the flow and I'm pondering the practicalities.

We're good friends with several other couples invited, all of whom live 500 miles away from the venue, and we have 8 children between us. It's occurred to me that what would help all of us would be to arrange some joint childcare there.

Is this a mad idea? I'm not sure how I would go about it! It's a case of finding both the person (in an area none of us knows) and possibly the location. The obvious people to ask, of course, would be the bride and groom but (a) they might think it odd and (b) they might think it's a dig for not letting the children come, which it isn't. So I'd rather do it independently of them.

Of course, the other parents might not be so keen on the idea so I'd like to get it a bit more than half baked before I run it by them!

Anyone had any experience of this? Or ideas? And feel free to tell me I'm bonkers if I am. It's actually only about an hour from my inlaws, so we're actually the people with the smallest logistical headache if we don't do this...

Some childminder offer a wedding service
You generally need a room in the hotel/venue where the wedding is taking place

Some hotel run them

Why not phone up the hotel (if it is a hotel) and ask them?

Don't think it's a mad idea.

A wedding we attended when DS was 8 months old was technically "child free" however the bride had gone out of her way to organise a babysitter in one of the venues rooms to watch over all BF babies! I thought it was a very considerate thing to have thought about.

Unfortunately the theory was better than it in practice worked for DS and me: he decided that he needed boobie from 9 to midnight . At least I had had a nice dinner by then but missed the dancing.

Maybe you as the guest could organise something similar - however do not rely on your DCs cooperation .

Do any of the children go to nurseries?

If so, it might be worth asking if one or two of the nursery nurses fancies the job. We did this for our wedding and it worked perfectly.

Our reception was at my inlaws house and the children had a base-room upstairs with two nursery nurses - but it could work equally well if the children were at a nearby hotel with loads of toys/arts and crafts stuff/dvds. If the hotel had a garden that would be even better.

There are companies that provide childcare for weddings, ie normally as part of the wedding - I think that they are normally nursery owners who operate this as a sideline at weekends. I imagine that they could do something similar in a hotel separately from the wedding.

A friend of mine arranged nannies at her wedding from 7pm onwards, so we could leave either the sleeping babies/kids with them or leave the monitors with them, on the basis they would call our mobiles if there were any problems. If you chose to leave the kids asleep in their own rooms, the nannies would walk around every 10 mins to check for noise (apart from using monitors).

The company was called Event Nannies and they were lovely. All you need to do is ensure the hotel will give you rooms together and that it is big enough for you all to stay there!

Wow. Am amazed that there are people who specialise in this.

So perhaps I will phone the hotel. I think it is a hotel. I just want to tread very gently with the bride and groom, as it were.

You know, on reflection, I'm not sure this is necessarily going to work. If we asked someone to care for the children in a separate room in the hotel I know that my DD for one would want to wander out and see us from time to time.

And if she did that then it wouldn't be a child-free wedding any more, which isn't respecting their wishes.

So I think that children need to be not on the premises at all. Perhaps I will go back to the grandparent option.

Hi I run a mobile creche for weddings. We take lots of toys and activities etc tailored to the age of each child attending. I bring enough staff along to ensure that noone wanders out of the room and take a contact number of all the parents/carers so that if the children need them we can contact them in an instance. We also offer evening creches where we take quiet activities and give children a chance to rest or sleep. If you are interested have a look at our website for more information

Where is the location, I know someone who does this for a living, ie wedding creche, very very qualified nanny.

I would contact the hotel.

We have had nannies come in and supervise - they are used to these requests and will porbably be able to help out. No need to involve bride & groom.

There's a local company here who specialise in creches for big events. Seems a pretty good idea.

How about taking someone the children know with you and paying her/him to babysit?

I went to a wedding a couple of weeks ago where the bride had put in her invite no children, but she rang me up and said they weren't totally against children and were providing four nannies for the 8 children under one that were going. I thought ds would hate being away from me with a stranger but actually despite crying a bit initially he had a great time. I took a stack of his favourite toys with him and played happily with those. A friend of mine went to check on him and said he was fine. In the end I was struck with a tummy bug and had to retire to bed, so he only really spent a couple of hours with them, but I'm sure he would have been fine for longer. If you do decide to do that I'm sure your friend will be thrilled you've taken one thing off her hands when there's so much to organise for a wedding.

you can always advertise for a nanny etc on fidababysiter.com for the date

Wedding I went to the bride provided 2 well expeienced nannies and a huge room (plus a couple for sleeping babies with monitors) to entertain the children in. There were 32 children in total they had a ball. Play doh, pens and drawing pads, hide n seek,disco, dvd's etc. Seems like they had more fun than the wedding guests lol