A nanny at a wedding? Advice welcome!

[GreatOak]

Hi there,

I’d be grateful for some advice! Getting married next year, small ceremony at rather a unique venue, for immediate family only; however, in our immediate family there will by that time be 8 children aged 5 and under (most aged 2!). We’ve no plans to exclude any of them from coming, they are not ours though all much loved. Everyone I have told this to has said, “Have you thought about hiring a nanny for them?” Well, no… I didn’t know that was a thing! I’m also not sure where at the venue we’d designate a nanny to look after them!

Does anyone have any experience of this? Would love to hear from you if so, as it’s something we’d consider to make the whole day better for everyone (including lovely children who will probably be very bored).

Thanking you all in advance.

@Laquila

this thread is about a wedding. not general childcare.
hth

I guess it's similar to kid's clubs at a holiday resort. In which case, my DCs would have flatly refused to have gone / played Merry hell at being left but most kids (and parents) would have a lovely time.

We had a childcare service at our winter wedding, mostly for under 5s. It was in a big separate room and ended up being really well used, they had toys and a TV. The tinies and the over 4s went in by themselves, for the 2-4a it was at least somewhere their parents could take them away from the wedding.

I have been to other weddings where the nanny service was less well used. I'd guess the biggest difference was probably the weather / temperature - if outside space can be used then it's a lot less hard work entertaining kids yourself than if you are stuck indoors.

It's up to you of course - but we had it once as a guest and it was immense.
They actually walked the babies around the grounds in their buggies until they fell asleep and then had them lined up with a 2 to 1 ratio.
I danced all night

I paid one of my sons nursery workers to look after him the evening of my wedding. He was already familiar with her and we could enjoy ourselves

We did this. Had a separate room with 2 staff for childcare. ( They had a lot of fun, it was like their own mini party).

I'd suss out the parents. Some may not even intend on bringing their children, especially if they are friends rather than family. I had invited my close friends small kids to our wedding and her response was "absolutely not, I want to enjoy the day, have a drink and wake up without a little persons foot in my face".
Personally my DS (toddler) would not go to anyone he isn't familiar with so a nanny service would be wasted on us. I'd still probably leave early even if the nanny service worked out as he is a nightmare if we don't get him to bed in time.
Even if you don't get a nanny service you still can help the parents out by having a separate room with toys/movies playing that parents can bring them for a break. You can make little packs full of things to entertain the children during dinner and put them on their tables. Loads of gorgeous ideas on Pinterest.

It sounds like a good idea to me.

I did this for my wedding. She was brilliant . I really recommend. We had a beautiful venue which sensibly had a policy that every 2 children had to have a non drinking adult with them. We didn't have a huge amount of children but had our own and very close family so she counted as our responsible adult for our DC. Not that anyone was drunk but it was really useful.

The children attending my wedding were all very close family so a few weeks before we had a children's afternoon tea in a lovely children's cafe and the nanny came. The kids all met her and felt so at ease with her
on the day.

@RampantIvy that's true, but who gets to draw the line?! Who gets to decide when it's just "overcomplicating it"? If I only work part-time, but get an au pair in to help at home...is that OK? What about if I have a day off work to go to a spa and put my kids in holiday camp for the day?...parents do use childcare for all kinds of reasons, and we don't usually try to regulate it or restrict it. Weddings nowadays have all kinds of batshittery that are a lot more unnecessary/complicated than this, if you ask me! But maybe that's because I've appreciated this service at a wedding before, and also been to a couple of quite stressful weddings that my kids didn't really enjoy...

Interestingly a friend has been invited to a festival type wedding this summer where kids are welcome, but the invite stipulated a cheery "no iPads, please!"...I'm not a massive fan of screentime but it can be very useful and I'd be a bit unimpressed if that was imposed on me as a guest 😁

Personally I would always try to offload a 2 year old onto family/friends rather than schlepping them along to a wedding. Bringing them would be a last resort for me. So check how many will be attending.

OP have you asked them if they are actually wanting to take their children?
I’m happy for my children to attend a wedding (if they’re invited) if it’s a family wedding. If it’s a friends wedding/work colleague etc even if they were invited I wouldn’t bring my children. They’d be staying at a grandparents and DH and I would enjoy the day child free. Maybe see if they’d rather just not bring them?

My brother did this at his wedding. It worked well for slightly older children, or younger ones that had a sibling/cousin or similar.

I had a tiny baby (6 weeks!) and an 18 month old and while they were too young to stay and play it was great in the evening to leave them asleep supervised in the double buggy for an hour or two while we had a chat & a dance

I was at a wedding where the couple hired childcare to look after the kids. The plan was they would take the kids into a separate room with toys and games. Backfired massively with my son. He didn't know any of the other children and was freaked out at being left with strangers. Pulled him out after half an hour and just kept him with me. Not sure that went down well but if you're inviting kids then you have to accept that they will often want to be with their Mums...

I worked a couple of weddings in this role. We had a nanny crèche during the day and then the nannies were available for babysitting for families who stayed overnight. It worked really well and adults and children had a lovely time!

@ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba When does general childcare veer into the specific? Is it that childcare is fine for parents whilst they're working, but not at any other times? I'm not being facetious - I'm interested in the thought process here.

By sheer luck, the cafe where we had our reception had a wonderful soft play zone we could sit the families next to. It saved us so much stress and the families stayed until the end with their children happily occupied in a place they could keep an eye on. I'm so grateful!
It definitely helps to have something planned I think - whether it's just a goody bag with some bubbles and colouring books or something more fancy!

This company are good www.sweetheartnannies.co.uk/

We went to a wedding with two nannies in a corner of the venue. They came with the all the toys/crafts etc and basically made it a little kids corner. You still had to supervise your child but could do so from a distance.

It was the best wedding I’ve ever been to as a parent!

But certainly wouldn’t expect it and obviously supervise our own children at other weddings.

We went to a wedding in London where the bride and groom provided nannies. It was fantastic (our son was under 5). All the kids were entertained in a separate room and we could drop in periodically and check he was ok. Also meant the younger kids weren't playing up and interrupting proceedings at inappropriate times (would probably have been my son). It was a very kind gesture that the parents really appreciated.

If you can afford it though the parents will love you forever

I went to a wedding and the bride and groom had paid for two childminders to look after all the children, It was brilliant, they were still part of the wedding but were sat with them during food and speeches etc.

I worked at a wedding once as a nanny the bride told me my job was to keep the grooms children away from her .

8 kids and one nanny??

I got married last week and we had 24 children ranging 2-12yrs including two of our own. We had a nanny set up for 6.5hrs and went down a storm. Well used, so glad we did it. We used Little Sweeties