By Nancy Veitch, Nancy’s Nannies, Inc.

With so much planning and organizing for your big wedding day it is often easy to overlook the needs of your guests with small children. Some brides do not want any children at the wedding ceremony or the reception. Other brides don’t want them at the ceremony but want to give the parents a break at the reception. In either case your guests will appreciate your thoughtfulness and attention to this detail when it comes to “what do we do with the children?” Here are 5 tips for stress free child care at your wedding.

1)  Let your guests who are parents know the service is available. Parents can view the sitting service web site, or call the service if they want to make their own arrangements. Your wedding planner can provide you with information on the service and you can provide a link to the sitter service from your wedding Webb site.

2) Your wedding planner can handle the arrangements with the sitter service if you want to have a group setting for the children. Your planner can also handle the payment to the service if she is paying your other vendors on your credit card.

3) If you want to offer a setting for all the children to enjoy at the reception, the sitter service can provide games and toys for the children. Once you know how many children there will be, and their ages, the service can bring whatever is needed to keep them occupied. The sitter service will probably have a sign in sheet and parents can let them know if older children can come and go on their own.

4) If your reception is in a church building ask about using the church nursery for child care. This room is set up for children under 3years old and will be conviently located near your reception hall. Parents of babies love to bring their friends in to see their baby. Some brides will even stop by the nursery on their way to the church sanctuary so the children can see how beautiful she is in her wedding dress!

5) Don’t forget to budget for items such as decorations, specific toys and games, and favors with the bride and groom’s names and wedding date for souvenirs. Just like their parents, having a fun souvenir item (not match books!) to take home will be a nice touch to remember your day.

There are so many options for child care at your wedding and your guests with children will appreciate a way to take care of this detail. Depending on your budget it can be a grand affair or simple care, but in either case it can be an important aspect of your wedding day.  For a list of sitter services in your area contact your wedding planner, hotel, chamber of commerce, tourism office, or the old reliable “Google search”. Your can then rest easy knowing one wedding detail is “no problem”.