Affordable Utah Weddings

Today I’ve been inspired by The Knot’s page of ideas for children at your wedding reception.  The photos featured below, along with many other great ideas have come from their site.

Like it or not, children typically play a big role at Utah wedding receptions.  And if you don’t plan for it, that role will be likely include getting a huge Wedding Cake Sugar Rush and running and yelling all around your reception location.  Not too big of a deal if you’re having a more casual, outdoor reception.  But if you’re looking to have a formal affair- especially if it will be held in a nice reception center full of glass tableware and -   you might just find that a few minutes of planning something constructive for them to do on the big day will be worth the effort!

There are so many options when it comes to keeping kids occupied.  They can range from games (a bean bag toss or bubble blowing competition for an outdoor wedding) to crafts (make your own pinwheels or sand art in the wedding colors) to simply providing a place for them that’s full of things they’ll love to do (coloring books, crossword puzzles, maybe even one of those personal DVD players going with a kids movie for them to sit at watch as their parents socialize).

You can of course do anything your heart desires!

I recently ran across a few websites that have free wedding coloring pages and activity books that you can download and print from your own computer.  A lot of the books are even Microsoft Word documents so you can easily go in and customize it with your names and wedding dates.  Here are a few links to those-

http://weddings.shanbritedesigns.com/templates.htm

http://www.kidskorner.net/activities/coloring/jun/wedding.html

http://www.123coloring.com/events/coloringpages,wedding,1.html

If you want to put a little more time into making an activity page,  here are a couple websites (http://www.crosswordpuzzlegames.com/create.html and http://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/) that allow you to type in your own custom words (your names, wedding date, where you’re married, people in your wedding party etc) and it will create your very own crossword puzzle for you!  This would be a lot of fun for older kids, and even a lot of the adults.  I personally think it would be a lot of fun printed on a pretty half sheet of paper and place on each plate at a dinner reception.

If you’re planning on entertaining just a few kids (maybe you want to focus on the flower girls or children of close family who will be at the wedding all day long), Amazon.com offers a lot of fun wedding books- almost all of which are under $5 each (most are just $2).  Here’s their info-

Fit for a Princess Wedding Book (featuring the Disney Princesses),

Precious Moments Wedding Activity Book, Love To Color: Wedding,

Weddings Traditions from Around the World (Coloring book),

Wedding Coloring and Activity Book,

Bride and Groom Sticker Paper Dolls,

Little Flower Girls Paper Dolls

I hope these ideas help you find a quick and easy way to allow the kids at your reception to have fun and enjoy themselves (without knocking down the wedding cake table!)

Do you have any other great reception ideas for kids?  If so, please share!