Jamie Wolfer shares practical ways to keep kids entertained at your wedding reception. She covers communication strategies with parents beforehand, activity ideas that work during the ceremony and reception, and how to manage expectations so children stay engaged and happy throughout the day.
Well, hello lovely humans and welcome to Engage, a wedding planning podcast for the modern day couple. I'm your host, Jamie Wolfer and I truly believe that wedding planning does not need to be complicated or time consuming. I kind of picture these episodes like jumping on a quick phone call with your wedding planner. You get your answers and you go on your merry way. Because sometimes not all of us have an hour to dedicate to listening to super long podcasts or super long intros. So without further ado, let's just jump right on into it. Today's episode is going to admittedly be a little bit all over the place. You see, every single month I sit down with the people over in the master plan course and answer your questions in lifetime. So if you find yourself struggling and really need to sit down and speak with a real life wedding planner, I would love to be a part of your wedding planning journey. Join us over in the master plan today to get your questions answered. Until then, take a listen. We will be having a kids activity station at our reception. I saw in one of your videos that it isn't always utilized or enjoyed by guests, but we want to have it as an option in order to help kids enjoy it without parents losing out on the party time. We we have a college age babysitter there to take care of the kiddos while they color or play or get their faces painted. Do you recommend I find a way to inform parents of this in advance or just let them find out at the reception? Oh, totally, totally inform them in advance. I think that this would feel like, especially if as a parent, if someone told me that this was going to be an activity, an option there, I prep my kids, I'd be like, hey, guess what, there's going to be an activity table just for you guys. There's going to be face painting, there's going to be someone in there like to hang out and watch you guys. You can come join me on the dance floor if you want to. Not a big deal, but there's a whole area dedicated just to you guys. How cool is that to kind of amp it up and kind of get them excited about it and so it doesn't feel like all of a sudden they're being ripped away from the party, if that makes sense. So I would 100% recommend this, especially if there are any kids on the spectrum. Sometimes they need some time to adjust to it and kind of get their mind wrapped around it. I would still prepare yourself for parents missing out in case the kid wants to go in there and the parent is the only adult that they want with them or the parent wants to go with them. That's obviously some things you I can't control at that point. And then I would also anticipate, you know, a lot of kids not using it just in case, because if you turn around, like there's 20 kids in there, your heart is going to be exploding and so excited. But if you turn around and there's five, you'd be like, okay, I get it, I see it. So the only thing that I will say is just make sure you're not over investing in this. Now there's two videos I would highly, highly, highly recommend. One, how to entertain kids at weddings and two, the wedding kit for kids video, because I think that those will be really helpful. And this is obviously coming from a mom of four. So my kids love weddings. They're obsessed with weddings. If there was a kid station, they'd probably go enjoy it for 15, 20 minutes, but then they'd probably be back with me on the dance floor because they really, really like weddings. Sitting here listening to a podcast is all fine and dandy, right? But sometimes you need an actual person to be asking some of these questions to and you may be sitting there going, you know what, Jamie? Actually, yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense. I would love to be able to ask you these. Guess what? You need to join the master plan. You've heard me talk about it, but do you know why I love it so much? You get over 10 lessons that walk you through planning your wedding with videos and spreadsheets and other detailed resources along the way. Join me and my virtual clients over in the master plan and get all your wedding planning questions answered. Literally thousands of couples have gone on this journey with me and I'd love for you to be next. Check it out@wolferandco.com tmp that's wolferandco.com tmp Listen. Wedding budget suck. They're just like the actual worst. And the hardest part for me is that weddings are not cookie cutter. They're not one size fits all. And I think it's important to make sure that you're budgeting according to your priorities. Build a budget that works with your vision and you'll be on the path to planning a wedding that you really want. So if you want my recommendations for making your perfect budget for you and your partner, head on over to Wedding priorities dot com. I've been taught to be an over communicator at work, so translating to all wedding day communication. How much is Too much communication and what is considered too little communication, little bit of background. We will have welcome signs, direction signs and wedding programs, including ceremony order, people's names, menu, general timeline of the day, fun crossword puzzles and we will also have an emcee that will direct people. I'm curious what you're worried about when it comes to being an over communicator, Jamie. So let me know. Are all of. Yeah, direction signs, wedding programs. I think all this sounds great. I can't see how this would be over communicating. I think this would really speak to the people who appreciate over communicating and then for those who don't want to read it, they don't have to. Now I. I prefer for things not to be over communicated on a loudspeaker because that gets really distracting. But if we're talking about documents or signage, I don't think it's really possible to over communicate unless it gets really wordy and lots of paragraphs, that's a different story. We don't want blocks of just information. People probably aren't going to read that unless they're seated next to nobody that they know and they need something to do with their hands, which is fair. But doesn't sound like any of that is over communicating to me. Regarding having a small ceremony and a large reception, how would you recommend wording invitations and the wedding website for reception only guests to minimize any disappointment. Any disappointment that they aren't invited to the ceremony. Okay, Cassidy, this is a fantastic question. This is. I don't have any experience with this at an American wedding. The only experience I have with this is at a wedding that we did just outside of London, actually just outside of Solihull. So like a couple, what, two hours north of London. Which was like, listen to me delivering this so casually. I did a wedding in England and it was so cool. But I was an assistant at this wedding right off, baby. So I didn't see the invitation. I don't know what that wording looks like. I think if it's not a culturally relevant or common thing, you will probably run into some disappointment. However ways I'm kind of thinking off the top of my head again, you could google this and probably get fantastic wording. I'm just going to kind of come up some things on the spot that I could think of following. A private and intimate ceremony, right. Using language like that, where it's like we want it to be small, we are choosing to do it this way. Figured you'd enjoy. Figured you would just enjoy the party. Something along those lines of yeah, following an intimate and private ceremony to let them know hey, it already happened and hey, reception only. So as long as those words are on the invitation, I would feel a lot better about it. If you are struggling with wedding planning and you have questions and you just need someone to listen and to chat with, come join us in the Master Plan community over@themasterplanwed.com I would love to have you in there. Thanks so much for listening. If you haven't done so already, subscribe, jump on over to wherever you're listening to this podcast and leave a five star review so we can let the podcast people know that Jamie knows what she's talking about sometimes. And until next time. Bye guys.
