Drinks for kids during reception - advice please!

Charliezoo

Hiya,

We're having our reception at a hotel which is an inclusive per head package.

Looking at the paperwork tonight, they do a 3 course kids meal for under 12s for about £13 which is fine. Next to this is the 'Kids drinks package' which is another £8! And for what? 2 soft drinks during the reception, 2 during the meal and a glass of fizzy apple during the toast! We certainly don't want to be paying for this, it seems like a total waste of money and we're trying to think of alternatives. They'll be mineral water on the tables, should we just expect parents to utilise that for their kids? Should we pay for the package but for older kids only, say 10 - 12 year olds or could this just cause confusion?

What normally happens at weddings? I haven't really paid much attention at weddings I've been to so can't remember.

If anyone's got any advice or tips the help would be much appreciated, thanks x

RainbowDrops

If you're providing wine etc for the adults, I think it would make sense to get the kids drinks package too.
Only getting the drinks for some kids doesn't sound like a good idea - you don't want the younger ones screaming for a coke because other kids have one!

Bride2be24

were just having a couple of jugs of orange per table that the kids are on. I do agree that its only fair to give them all drinks if the adults are getting one 2 x

pinkteapot

£8 for five soft drinks isn't bad... Would cost you about the same in a pub!

Our venue came round with jugs of squash for the kids during the meal.

emsbet

Our venue charges £5 a jug just for squash! We are going to have two jugs available with the reception drinks for the six kids (two of them are under two years old). They probably won't drink it all before we sit down so they can take a drink to the table with them. They are all scattered around and at £5 a jug that would be another £20 just on squash for the tables! When the children's meals are costing £18 each :eek: it'll soon add up!

I'm sure the parents will bring drinks for the younger ones (I know my sister will bring drinks for her 5 and almost 2 year old). they'll be water on the tables and if they want soemthing else to drink I'd rather buy them an individual glass of squash each which will be a lot cheaper!

hope I don't sound to much of a penny pincher!

xx

LEJC

If you dont take the drinks package what is the alternative?
will your venue supply something like a jug of water and squash for the children without say the apple juice toast?
I think you have to supply the children a drink but you may need to enquire further about the combinations offered by your venue.
Children can get dehydrated quicky and there is nothing worse than a thirsty child....although having said that squash fruit juice or water is perfectly acceptable as their drinks choices.

Personally I think you must supply a drink and possibly a refill but I wonder if the juice toast is necessary?....if the child wants to take part in the toasting at the speeches then they can raise a glass of water or squash....chances are the younger ones wont even listen to the sppeches let alone toast them...

runninglea

Can you ask the parents what they drink, my daughter only drinks water or milk so fizzy drink would be wasted on her. Whereas my son would drink fizzy all day long.

When we got married we put a selection of fruit shoots, bottles of vovic water where we knew all the children were sitting.

Kittendreich

What are you doing for the adults that don't drink? Are you having to pay an adult package for them regardless or whether they take it? We had soft drinks offered at the meal for those not drinking and the kids (there was wine on the table) - cheaper than trying to guess what they wanted.

minerva_windsong

runninglea wrote: »

Can you ask the parents what they drink, my daughter only drinks water or milk so fizzy drink would be wasted on her. Whereas my son would drink fizzy all day long.

I was the same as a child - never liked Coke or lemonade and only drank water, milk and apple juice, so a fancy drinks package would have been no good for me! I would do that first, especially if as you say that some parents will be bringing drinks for their kids (although obviously if there are loads of kids then that's not entirely practical).

The package mentions drinks at the reception, does that mean when your guests arrive at the reception venue or after the meal? When I worked in a hotel generally the children's drinks both before and after the meal were bought from behind the bar, whether it was 'free' or not, and personally if I was a parent I wouldn't object to doing that.

I'd also see if you can tweak the package slightly, five drinks seems like a lot and most kids I know wouldn't bother with the toasting thing.

tattycath

we got some bottles of non alcoholic fizzy wine for the kids and they enjoyed it and felt 'very grown up'. We bought all our own bottles of drink for the speeches and the toast and just paid corkage. Then there was a bar for any other drinks during the course of the reception evening.

Charliezoo

I think the problem is that we know lots of the kids probably won't even have the drinks. The toast is a nice touch but a bit pointless, my sister's kids won't drink anything except the squash from home and many of the kids are too little to need all those drinks, also do you quietly let the parents know what the kids are entiltled to? I think we see it as a bit of a waste of money for those reasons. Non drinking adults get OJ during the drinks reception but don't seem to get anything more than mineral water during the meal even though we pay full price for them. I think we'd rather pay for a jug of OJ to be on each table then kids and adults can share and there should be less wasteage. It will probably work out the same if not cheaper to do this too.

I will speak to the venue and see if we would be allowed this instead. Hopefully we won't have to take the kids drinks package if you order the meals.

Thanks for all your feedback.