It’s wedding season! And for us, it’s wedding year! By the time 2018 is done we’ll have been to six. I love weddings. You get to get dressed up, watch your friends (or family) pledge their lives to one another, cry at all the romantical things, and of course eat cake. Love and cake are two cornerstones of my life. Boy do I love weddings. But then we had kids and just like everything else, things got way more complicated and often less fun.
For the most part, we’ll just get a babysitter and go have a great night out. I will admit though that at the beginning of this year I committed the ultimate wedding faux paus. Our normal babysitter wasn’t available and I had booked someone else. She’d never been around the kids and the week of I started getting extremely anxious about leaving the baby with a stranger for an extended period of time. Dadlando wound up staying home and I headed off to the wedding solo. Luckily my friends still want to be my friend after we last minute changed our part of two to a party of one.
This year is special though, as both my sisters have now gotten married! Two very exciting weekends for our family. So much joy and love. And planning and stress! Of course both aunties asked for our kiddos to participate in the wedding. Would my shy daughter make it down the aisle as a flower girl? Would little man walk his cute little butt down there or just cry for mama? And would they quietly sit through the reception? So many unknowns.
Here’s my advice for making it through weddings with little kids:
- Always defer to the bride and grooms’ requests. Do they want kids at the wedding? Just at the ceremony and not reception or have them there partying all night long? Hear their wishes and act accordingly.
- Don’t pressure your kids to perform. We tried to keep things low stakes in the flower girl & ring bearer world. No matter how much I wanted them to walk down the aisle and do their thing, I couldn’t force them. And though it never went exactly as planned, it was still great.
- If you’re bringing kids to the wedding, bring a change of comfy clothes. Kids look so cute in their fancy wedding clothes! But in our house, fancy shoes and shirts will eventually lead to a meltdown. Try to have them wear things you already know they are comfortable in or bring backup.
- Bring snacks. All the snacks. Which is pretty much true for all scenarios in parenting. Just keep a Costco sized case of snacks nearby.
- Listen to your instincts. If you know your kids aren’t going to make it through the wedding, or that you’ll spend the whole time parenting and not enjoying, just get a babysitter. If you need the kids there for family photos etc. have the sitter be at the ceremony and take them home afterwards. It’s the best of both worlds.
- Loosen up your rules for one night and let the kids have a blast. Did my daughter eat 10 cookies and two pieces of cake at her auntie’s wedding? Did she lick her plate and mine clean of icing? Sure did. And she had the time of her life.
A few weeks ago my daughter and I head up north to a cousin’s wedding. It was an exciting girls weekend with my little bestie. We missed our boys at home but know that it led to optimum enjoyment for us all.
If we have wedding’s next year it’ll be a whole different ball game. We might need a whole new set of rules. Whatever we do, I’m sure we’ll all make memories to last a lifetime.
