Choosing a childcare provider for a wedding

If you are planning a big wedding and have a lot of friends and family coming but don't want to have children at the ceremony, one option can be to choose an allied childcare provider. This can ensure that parents are free to come along and have a great time while their kids are being cared for. Here are some options. 

Contact a local babysitting agency

One of the options to look at is contacting a babysitting agency that can get a babysitter for each family to sit in each hotel room. You can often get a discount code if you are making a large booking, and this can be a good idea if you think that the party is likely to go long into the night and parents might want their children asleep in their own beds when they get back to the room. This can be a relatively expensive option per family, especially if you are planning on paying for all of the child care, but it can be a good idea when you only have a few children or children of the bridal party that you really want to attend part, but not all, of your wedding. 

Contact a local childcare centre

Another option is to contact a local childcare centre and see if they will open up for a few hours after their regular business hours so that the kids can all be cared for in a familiar setting. This can be especially good if a few of the kids attend the childcare centre during the week. This can allow the kids to play in an atmosphere that they are familiar with and that is fully set up for younger children. One common restriction with these centres is that they may only look after children up until the end of primary age, so they may not accept younger teens that may need supervision. 

Contact the hotel

If the hotel or reception centre where you are having the ceremony often caters for large weddings, it can also be a good idea to contact them and see if they know how other weddings have dealt with child care concerns. They may be able to give you a referral to local child care service with great references from other wedding parties.

If you are having a wedding party and don't want kids to come along, it can be a very thoughtful gesture to help your guests with finding a childcare provider they can use.