children's party during wedding?

[acargen]

Has anyone had a children's party during their ceremony or reception...if so which did you have it during..or both? Was it worth it? How was it? I'm thinking of doing this for my April "08 wedding!!!

 

[myprincessgirlisa]

i dont have a very good answer for you, but........

alot of girls have a kids table at the reception

are there going to be alot of kids?

are you looking to have the kids somewhere else other than the reception?

i remember someone here was talking about something like this, but i cant recall who it was?? darn

well good luck & welcome!!!

 

[AbbyPan]

I wanted to have a kids table as well, but the kids going to my wedding would probably go crazy, organize and create some massive explosion on the table or destroy the certerpeices at the very least....so they will be sitting w/ their parents.

I am planning to place a small can w/crayons a coloring book/toy/childrens favor/candy on the tables where i know the families w/ children will sit. Hopefully this will help keep them entertained.

 

[acargen]

Thanks!..yes...we have a good amount of children so we were thinking that this would be a good idea. It would be in a seperate room in the GF which is where we're having the reception...I'm thinking its prob a good idea at least for the ceremony and cocktail hour before the reception?

 

[AbbyPan]

If you have the budget for the kids party as well as the okay from the parents, I'd say go for it. It might work best for the cocktail and reception hour.

 

[Icats]

We had an intimate/escape wedding and, due to the limited number of guests we could have, we had to make a choice between having kids at the ceremony or having a few friends. We thought our friends would enjoy the ceremony part more than the kids, so we had a small kids party at Shades of Green (where we had our reception). Since we had no limit on the number of guests at Shades of Green, we included the kids in the reception.

 

[DVCGirl49]

Yes, we are having a seperate Children's Party. We will be having somewhere between 15-25 children ages 0-12. It will be costing us more to do it this way than to just have the kids at the main recetion, but there were multiple factors that went into our decision that outweighed the money factor.

#1: Our reception is at AAR so it will not even be starting til 9:30pm.
#2: Our reception isn't scheduled to end til 1:30am. We don't want parents feeling that they need to leave early because their kids are getting tired or cranky.
#3: The bathrooms for AAR are the public restrooms outside around the corner from Liberty Inn. The only way to have private bathrooms for at least myeslf and the rest of our wedding party to be able to use (so that we don't have to leave our reception each time and I don't have to drag my dress into a potentially dirty public restroom) is to rent the upstairs AA VIP parlor.
#4: The only way to rent the upstairs AA VIP parlor is to have a seperate event scheduled for there. (We tried asking the SM if we could have a small spread for the wedding party before the reception as the 'event' up there and she said no it needed to be an actual 'event' - kids party, cocktail hour, etc.)
#5: Our wedding is on Valentines Day. We felt that the money spent to have a place fore the kids to go have a fun time and 'crash' when they get tired and the parents to have the opportunity for a few hours for themselves that evening was money well spent.

 

[eeyorechic]

We're having a kid's party at our Sept. 22 wedding using the extra room at the living seas. There's only 5 kids, but they're all under 3 so they require a lot of attention. So all the parents were so happy to be able to have fun, and know their kids are being watched and the ability to just walk right over and check on them. If you don't meet the minimum of 11 children, you have to pay for the extra ones. The sheet Disney provided said you just paid $2.50 extra an hour per child, so it works out to be about the same. But it's definintely worth it.

 

[DisneyFairy19]

I am going to need info about this b/c I have some kids going and I want their parents to enjoy themselves at the wedding..

So I am Sunscribing

 

[acargen]

I'm glad to hear that many of you will be doing something along the same lines. I really think that it would be the best idea...to have a small party for the kids at some point. I know how much some peace and adult fun is appreciated It will probably be a bit too much to do both the ceremony and the reception so I'm probably going to have to chose one or the other, but it will be best to have some sort of break I think. We're having Mickey come for the kids so I do want to involve them...but just not for the entire 8 or so hours thanx for all the ideas and insights so far!

 

[mo1973]

How my budget is flying out the window.. I just read the info I got in my sales packet about that- with four of our own kids- I can easily see them getting bored after a bit- I am considering it- a fun escape for them and the other kids in attendance. But I love Abby's idea of placing some crayons/books at tables where kids will be. A little tote bag with some small games and stuff might make a great favor for them and keep em entertained.