Not Exactly Child’s Play: Children and Weddings

Barbaranne Heaton, our very own bride-to-be (and BCME vendor as House of Moirai) is back after a relaxing break, ready to embrace the UAE wedding season, which this year includes her very own big day! As you may know from previous posts, Barbaranne got engaged to her fiancé Thom last October in Thailand, and has been giving us an insight into her preparations ever since. This month, B discusses something that a lot of couples and wedding guests can have very different opinions about: children at weddings. Below, she gives some helpful tips about how to include children in your wedding without having to worry about temper tantrums and sugar rushes!

Thanks B, over to you…

Hello lovely readers! Well, summer is officially over (yay!) and the cooler months are fast approaching. Also fast approaching, apparently, is our wedding! To be precise, it’s in ninety-nine days…okay, when did that happen?

I’ve been off radar for the last couple of months, so apologies for my lack of updates. I’d love to say that I have had my head buried in wedding prep, but those of you who know me will know how unlikely that is! July saw House of Moirai have its busiest month to date, with lots of gorgeous brides sailing off into the sunset with their Moirai gowns. I then took myself off to the UK for the month of August to recover, and came back to Dubai refreshed and ready for the months ahead. There’s new brides and new dresses to create, including of course my own. Yes, I have sort of started on my dress. Sort of.

Above: Via House Of Moirai. Bridesmaids dresses designed & created by House of Moirai.

I have to say that I’m pretty impressed with myself lately. I’m all over this wedding malarkey. It took me a while, but just call me Bride’arella. Deposits have been paid, guests have booked their flights, menus have been confirmed, lists have been made and sometimes ticked off. Decisions are being made people. Boom!

Our wedding isn’t going to be a traditional affair, due to certain life choices, we are lucky enough to have our little boy be such a big part of the day. Our wedding day will be a celebration of the family we have. It will bring a different meaning to the day.

I’m going to be quite frank now. We are certainly one of those couples who if we’d married before children were on the scene, would have been keeping the ‘children count’ down to a bare minimum. As harsh as it sounds, before I actually had one myself I could think of nothing worse. Screaming kids during the vows, sugar crazed toddlers charging around the ‘oh so pretty’ cake table and tantrums on the dance floor. No thank you.

Fast forward a few years and our thoughts on the subject couldn’t be more different. We have seventeen children confirmed to attend our wedding. Yes, you read right. Seventeen! Fifteen of them are toddlers, and I can quite honestly say that we couldn’t be happier about it. Let them have tantrums on the dance floor, let them scream and sing through our vows, they can run up and down the aisle for all I care! Our nieces, nephews, God children, friends’ children and Ellis’s besties will all be there to help the day be that little bit more special.

BUT…. we also know how hard it can be as a parent to take a child to a wedding. They’re easily bored, don’t sit still and eating a meal in full is a rarity. A lot of tag team goes on amongst parents so you don’t actually get to enjoy the day as a couple as one of you is always on duty. So we’ve decided to make the day fun for both parents and children.

After scrolling through wedding blogs and much Pinterest perusing later, we came up with the following ideas to keep all of our little guests entertained and out of mischief!

Babysitters

Babysitters are a must to keep the little monkeys out of trouble! We’ll be having a team of lovely ladies there on the day to man the ‘kids zone’ and give the parents a break.

Above: Via paperblog.com & Pinterest.

‘No adults allowed’

It’s a great idea to have an area dedicated to children. A bouncy castle, games, face painting…you name it, we’re putting it in there! The kids can run off their sugared-up haze as much as they like!

Above: Via Style Me Pretty and The Wedding Chicks.

Child friendly meal

There’s nothing worse for children at weddings than having to sit amongst a bunch of boring adults talking mush. And it’s the same for adults. If you don’t have children, or you’ve left yours at home to have a ‘child free’ day, the last thing you want is to be stuck next to someone else’s! So in the interests of all parties we have decided to have a separate child’s table in order for them to enjoy their meal with their newly made pals and make as much mess and noise as they want.

Above: Via Buzzfeed.com and theweddingplaybook.com

Goodie bags

And lots of them, filled with all sorts of goodies to keep them entertained, even if it is for all of five minutes!

Above: Via theprettyblog.com & somethingturquoise.com

Movie room

The venue has very kindly allocated us a room for the children for later on in the evening. We will fill it with bean bags, mini tipi’s, blankets and popcorn and play a film for them. This is where the babysitting team really comes in handy! (If we’re lucky they’ll fall asleep.)

Above: – ruffledblog.com & theknot.com

Activities

To keep the little ones busy, we are planning to include fun activities such as:

• Personalised activity books themed around our wedding and Dubai.

• Face painting (I think that this is a good idea…I may be wrong. White. Dress.)

• A list of fun and silly photos we want taking that must be ticked off. Probably a good one for the older children.

• We’re also toying with the idea of having a children’s entertainer. Frozen related it will NOT be! The venue has actually offered to dress some of the ground staff in clown costumes. The jury’s out on that one.

• Giant Connect 4, if we can find anyone who owns one. There might be a trip to DragonMart in order to see if it’s possible to buy one.

At the end of it all, if the dance floor is filled with children, dancing and laughter, we’ll be happy.

x B x

Check out Barbaranne’s previous real bride diary post here.