Wedding Crèche in Birmingham: Childcare for Your Big Day

A wedding crèche in Birmingham gives the children on your guest list a room of their own at your venue, with qualified carers, crafts, games and a cosy story den, while their parents stay close by and enjoy the celebrations. Happy Little Guests is a pop-up event crèche based in Redditch, Worcestershire, about 15 miles from the city centre, and weddings in Birmingham and across the West Midlands are a big part of what we do. This guide covers why couples marrying in the city book a crèche, how we fit into different kinds of Birmingham venue, timings and travel, what we bring and how to book.

If you are still deciding whether a crèche is right for your day, our guide to what a wedding crèche is explains the basics. Here we focus on the city and the towns around it.

Why couples book a wedding crèche in Birmingham

Birmingham weddings are often big family occasions. A guest list here can easily include a whole row of nieces, nephews, cousins and godchildren, and many celebrations run from a midday ceremony right through to a late evening party. Whatever the traditions involved, that is a very long day for a three-year-old.

A crèche gives everyone a better version of it:

• Children still play their part. Flower girls and page boys walk down the aisle, smile for the family photos and come out for the first dance, then go back to play.
• Parents get to be guests. They hear the speeches, eat their meal while it is hot and dance without one eye on the door.
• The quiet moments stay quiet. Vows and speeches run without a tired toddler wandering between the tables.
• The children have a lovely time. Charlotte has spent nearly a decade in nurseries and primary schools, and she knows the hardest part of a wedding for a small child is the waiting. A room full of things to do turns all that waiting into play.

Birmingham wedding venues and how a pop-up crèche fits in

Because we are a mobile crèche, we bring the whole set-up with us and shape it around the room we are given. Birmingham has a real mix of venues, and each kind needs its own plan.

City centre hotels

Hotel function rooms are warm, dry and easy for guests to reach, so the questions are mostly about layout. Rooms are often upstairs or along a corridor shared with other guests, and lobbies are open to the public. We ask for a crèche room away from the lobby with one clear door, where every child is signed in and signed out. We also agree a lift route and a loading point for our kit, which matters in the city centre where parking can be tight.

Canal-side and converted industrial venues

Warehouses, workshops and old factory buildings in areas such as the Jewellery Quarter and Digbeth make striking wedding venues, and many sit right beside the canals. They often have open-plan spaces with high ceilings and hard floors, where sound carries a long way. We look for a separate room, or a clearly sectioned-off area that no other guests pass through, and we bring cushions and soft furnishings for the story den so it stays warm and calm.

Water close by means we take extra care with doors and routes. Children stay inside the crèche space, active games happen indoors or in an enclosed area well away from the towpath, and a child only leaves with an adult who signs them out.

Country houses on the edge of the city

Towards Solihull, Sutton Coldfield, the Lickey Hills and the Warwickshire border you will find country houses and estates with lawns and gardens. These often have more room to spread out, and on a dry day a safe, enclosed patch of lawn is perfect for parachute games. Older buildings can be chilly, so we check the crèche room will be at 18°C or more, especially for an evening reception.

Timings, traffic and travel for a Birmingham wedding

Our base in Redditch is about 15 miles from Birmingham city centre, and travel up to 20 miles from Redditch is included in every booking. That covers a good many venues in the south and centre of the city. If your venue sits further out, pop the postcode into our instant quote and it works out the travel for you, so you can see it before you book.

On the day we need the room 45 minutes before the crèche opens to set up, and for 30 minutes after it closes to pack down. City traffic on a Saturday can be unpredictable, especially when there is a match or a big event on, so we plan our journey with plenty of time to spare and agree arrival details with your venue in advance.

Choosing your hours

Most couples choose one of two packages:

• Short and sweet (4 hours): ideal for the ceremony and speeches, or for the meal and the start of the evening.
• Full event (up to 6 hours): from the ceremony into the evening reception.

Longer days are available too, for couples who want cover from the first guests to the last dance. If your ceremony is at a register office, church or place of worship in the city and the reception is somewhere else, the crèche usually runs at the reception venue. Children travel with their parents like every other guest, and we are set up and ready when they arrive. Mapping out a child-friendly wedding timeline shows exactly when the children need cover and when they will be with their families.

What we bring to your Birmingham wedding

As a mobile crèche covering the West Midlands, we arrive with everything the children need, so parents do not have to pack a bag of toys and your venue only has to provide the room.

• A craft table with paper crowns, colouring and cards for the couple, which make lovely keepsakes from the day.
• Games and active play, including parachute games and music and movement, to burn off the energy that builds up during a long ceremony.
• A story den, our teepee with fairy lights, cushions and picture books, for quiet time and tired little ones.
• A sign-in and sign-out table, so we always know exactly who is in our care. Each parent chooses a collection password when they register, and we only release a child to someone who gives it.

Couples sometimes search for kids entertainment for a wedding in Birmingham and find an entertainer who runs a show for an hour. That can be great fun, but a crèche is different. Qualified carers look after the children for the whole booking, with activities planned around the ages coming and calm time built in, so nobody gets overtired.

Who looks after the children at your wedding

Charlotte plans every Happy Little Guests booking personally. Alongside her years in nurseries and primary schools, she works regularly with children with special educational needs (SEN), so she knows how to settle a nervous toddler in an unfamiliar building and how to keep a group of excitable eight-year-olds happily busy.

There are always at least two qualified carers, and we add more when the number and ages of the children need them, following the EYFS ratios: one carer to three children under 2, one to five two-year-olds and one to eight children aged 3 and over. Every carer is enhanced DBS checked and paediatric first aid trained, and we are fully insured.

If you have been looking for a wedding nanny in Birmingham, a crèche often suits better when several families are bringing children, because everyone shares one well-staffed space rather than each family finding its own sitter.

A few things are always the same:

• Parents stay at the venue and can pop in whenever they like.
• We do not give medication, apart from an emergency auto-injector that a parent provides, shows us how to use and registers with us before the day.
• Photos never show children's faces, and any parent can opt out.
• We notify Ofsted at least 14 clear days before each event, as event crèches are exempt from registration.

How Happy Little Guests can help

Happy Little Guests is a professional pop-up event crèche for weddings and corporate events, run by Charlotte Pennington from Redditch, Worcestershire. We cover Birmingham and the wider West Midlands as well as Worcestershire, Warwickshire and beyond, and you can read more about the region in our wedding crèche Midlands guide.

Every booking includes at least two qualified carers, enhanced DBS checks, paediatric first aid, full insurance, all activities and materials, set-up, sign-in and sign-out, and pack-down. We liaise with your venue and planner, and a booking made with less than 14 clear days' notice runs for 4 hours, so the earlier you book, the more choice you have.

Questions first? Email Charlotte at hello@happylittleguests.com. When you are ready, get your instant quote.