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.

People will feel very differently about this so I'd check with the parents to see how they feel. They might prefer to just leave the kids with someone at home and go on their own.

We got an invite like this, and decided it meant the bride didnt want our kids there, so we added 300 miles to the journey to leave the kids with someone they actually knew.
Nanny area available if you want it, fine.
All kids to be in a different part of the building, and not involved in the wedding at any point, I'd prefer you'd be honest and just not invite them.

I mentioned my wedding last week where we had nannies. We had a crèche set up staffed with nannies 2.45-8.30, for kids to come and go as they pleased if they wanted a change of scenery/were bored etc. It was in the same building and not a way of shoving kids out of our wedding. They were very much fully involved throughout

Our venue had contacts for this and they supplied 4 nannies for the evening. They played with the kids outside, did craft activities indoors, looked after the tiniest ones in a cottage attached to the reception venue, and settled them down with dvds later in the evening. It worked really well, the kids stayed at the wedding as much as they liked but also had somewhere to escape to. The cottage had lots of beds made up ready for them.

I hired a nanny for the day, to play with the kids outside, to sit with the kids at dinner (if the kids wanted they weren't forced) and then just general supervision and the parents told me they were grateful for it. If I remember it was £200 for 2 nanny's for maybe 6 hours? Can't quite remember!

I have done this.
I have an NNEB Dip. And at the beginning I ran crèches for local forums, a racecourse, a 3day medical conference and a couple of weddings. One was in a large country house and we had a large sitting room the other was in a castle and we had two rooms and a long, wide corridor which was great for cars. I went to each venue beforehand to view and advised the people. There was filming on at the time at the castle where a crew were filming a major film which was interesting but did create a few problems and changes of plans. I took three other trained staff, provided all the toys and art activities and liaised with the catering staff when the bride was late and therefore the meal had to be delayed but little ones and older children were hungry and couldn’t be kept waiting. Apart from that it all went very smoothly the only problem was a mum who didn’t realise that no children at the ceremony meant babies too. She didn’t want to leave him and was angry at missing the vows. She left him later on during the meal and he was fine.
I would say to ensure your numbers and make sure you have enough. There is criteria for the ages and number of children. I took an extra person so I could oversee everything at the castle which turned out to be a wise decision due to being on a different floor and the delay in feeding the children. The other crèche was easy because they were in a marquee in the garden. We were fine unfortunately the weather wasn’t and due to a thunderstorm and continual torrential rain part of the marquee’s roof collapse and put all the catering burners out!

If there is a lot of children get a company to do it but I ran mine and managed up to 20 children more at the racecourse but that was a set area and I ran it for about 5/6 years. If there are only a few two nannies could manage depending on the ages.

I hope you have a lovely day. Lots of the parents thought we did a marvellous job and it gave them time to socialise and enjoy their friend’s wedding.

I went to a wedding that had a creche when DS1 was 9 months and it was absolutely amazing. I would never expect it though, and while DS1 was happy as anything there that day if I'd tried it a few months later he'd have screamed the place down (he went through a big period of separation anxiety when he was about 1) so it's a bit of a gamble.

We had 10 small children at our wedding which was over 20% of the total guests. They were happy with their parents and they were all involved in the day which was relaxed so comfortable for them. Other guests would help distract them if they got a bit restless as most were related.

My own children would not have gone off with a nanny. I personally wouldn't bother.