Your wedding day is always going to be exciting, and there’s going to be tons of things to think about. No matter whether this is the first time you’ve walked down the aisle or you’ve done it before.
There are some things that you might want to include in your wedding in some way. However, you might not have the time to organise it or the budget to carry off. Remember, when you look back on the big day itself, you’ll usually find none of that mattered. Even with a few things missing, it was still a wonderful and memorable occasion.
One thing that you can’t forget, however, is your children. If you have kids, you’ll need to work out how to involve them in your wedding somehow. It’s not something that can usually be left until the last minute. Plus, if you forget to organise this particular aspect of the day, you’ll more than likely come to regret it. That will mean your memories of your wedding are tinged with sadness no matter what else happens.
Assuming you don’t want that to happen (which you probably don’t!), it’s best to put some thought into how your child can be involved in your wedding so that everyone’s happy and you can enjoy your memories in peace. Read on to find out more.
Meaningful Roles For The Kids
Perhaps the easiest way to involve your child or children in your wedding is to give them a really meaningful role. Something that they’ll enjoy doing and that everyone will remember for years to come. Most of the time, the roles you can assign will depend on the kids’ ages. So that’s something to think about first.
There are lots of roles to pick from. Younger children could be flower girls or ring bearers for example. Slightly older kids could be bridesmaids or page boys. Or what about having a teenager or even an adult child (because they’ll want to be included too) give you away or be the best man?
Whatever role you allocate, it’s going to make your child feel very special and important. Plus the guests will love that you were able to involve them in such an important part of your wedding day.
The Right Clothes
Dressing your child in the right clothes can also be a great way to make sure they’re involved in the wedding. If they have one of the roles we mentioned above, they’re likely to have an outfit picked out for them. A bridesmaid dress, for example, or a suit that matches the rest of the groomsmen. In that case, you don’t really have to think about it; it’s all going to be picked out for you.
However, if they haven’t got a special role or if you haven’t got a particular dress code (remember, although it’s tradition for everyone to wear ‘wedding attire’, it’s not the law – you can actually get married wearing anything you want!), then you’ll want to make sure they’re wearing something that at least compliments the central theme of the wedding. In that way, they’ll feel like they’re part of things. You’ll be much more pleased with the wedding photos when you see how everyone’s outfits work together.
Helping You Plan
Planning a wedding is no mean feat. Making sure everything comes together when you need it to can be truly stressful. That’s why it’s best not to try to do everything by yourself. You need to delegate some tasks to various people who want to play a role in your big day.
Guess what? Your kids might want some jobs too, so don’t forget about them. They could be really helpful. Again, it will depend somewhat on their age as to the kinds of jobs you’re giving them. But they’re sure to be able to help as long as they’re of school age, at least.
A good example is the order of service. This needs to be designed, have all the right information included, and then booklet printing has to be organised. That could be a great job to pass to a teenager, especially one who has some excellent design skills. They can take complete ownership of the task. Give them a budget to work with and tell them about any specific designs you do or don’t like so they go down the right path and have something tangible to show for it.
Choose The Entertainment
Every wedding needs some form of entertainment. If your children are old enough you could get them involved with choosing the entertainment for your big day. They might suggest a live band, DJ, or even the use of a photo booth. These are great ideas, and ones you might even end up using. This will give them a huge sense of achievement and pride.
Other jobs could include the flowers, rings, photographer (or they might even be the photographer themselves if they have the skills), cake, and so on. If you’ve got more than one child, they could all work together on one task as well. This is ideal if some are quite young children who wouldn’t be able to do it alone.
Child-Friendly Menu
Including your child in your wedding doesn’t have to mean they have a job to do, and it doesn’t have to mean they need to be part of the ceremony. Although it’s lovely for some people to do that, for others, it just wouldn’t work for all kinds of reasons. Not least of which is the child themselves not wanting to do anything.
What you can do to make them feel considered, though, is to make sure the menu is full of things they’re going to want to eat. In fact, it doesn’t matter how involved (or not) your child is, making sure they can eat everything they’re offered is a great thing to do as it shows you’ve thought about them and literally catered to their needs.
The truth is, kids’ food is often a lot more tasty than the ‘posh’ food normally served at weddings. Your guests will more than likely be very excited to get pizza or chicken nuggets or even a meal from McDonald’s or Burger King or something similar. It’s a fun way to include your child in your wedding and make the entire event a lot less formal and more fun at the same time.
