A child-friendly wedding
May 17th, 2009 by Sam
All of a sudden we have 6 weeks to go before the wedding.
The last few weeks have been very busy, mainly spending money!
We have had to pay the balance on the venue booking (at the beautiful Middle Coombe Farm), pay out for hiring equipment, and to the caterer.
Recycled rings
More excitingly, we have now got our rings underway. Les at Hairy Growler jewellery is making our rings – mine out of old silver spoons and Graham’s out of an old silver coin. We met him at the weekend in Cambridge to sort out the details and walked away absolutely over the moon. They are totally recycled, one-offs and are going to cost £90 in total. Les is going to take photos along the way so we will have a record of them being made.
Homemade jewellery
My daughter and I have been on the hunt for a tiara to match her dress, and have decided to make our own. I’m also planning on making her a matching necklace. So, we have looked at a couple of websites – jillybeads and tiaramaking.com
and found lots of great beads and accessories.
Child friendly wedding
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You may have spotted from my posts that we have a couple of children already, and one of the reasons we are getting married is for a family celebration; we are not religious, so neither of the kids is christened, but I really think that rituals are important.
We are having our civil, registered ceremony first, and then having a family celebration under a big oak tree in the woods. So, how to make the weekend child-friendly yet still as green as possible?
There are 14 kids aged 5 and under…Luckily for us, our venue is fab – our kids are very outdoorsy, and there are fields and woods to play in. There is also a trampoline and sandpit etc. It was important to us that people didn’t have to stay offsite, as we have been to weddings before and had to worry about the kids getting tired, leaving early and so on.
Most of our friends are happy to camp (even with small babies), so that’s worked out well. We are also planning a fireside story telling session, and a morning after disco (so the kids can run off some energy and the parents can sit out their hangovers).
Party bags
My other main task has been thinking how to keep them occupied. We are having some craft making in the morning – making wands with bells on for a parade up to the tree. I have also been putting together party bags. This has been harder to source, as most party bags are full of plastic tat – but the bags I’ve found are paper, and we have some great colouring in binoculars, and little craft sets. The kids will have these while we eat, so that there is some possibility that the parents will be able to eat in peace.
Food is fairly easy – the caterer is doing pizza, and we have some colourful cups and plates. We are aiming to eat at 5, as later becomes a nightmare with small kids. I have to get some juice and think about what they are going to drink/snack on at various points in the proceedings.
Finally, because we cannot afford a creche we are having a child curfew of 8.30! Hopefully, we’ll have worn them out by then.
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Middle Coombe is where I want to get married!! Is it as beautiful as I imagine?? I am unbelievably jealous.
We’re hoping to have a very child friendly wedding, I work with kids and my partner is very good with them and we would hate to inconvinience our guests by making them find somewhere else for their kids to go while they come to our wedding!
So we’re looking for good activities too, lots of lawn games, I’m trying to locate one of those giant connect four games, or snakes and ladders, and plenty of frisbees and footballs etc. Crafts sound like a good idea too… will have to give that one some thought!