Women charge $1k to see children at weddings (exclusive)

Sandra Weir has 11 years of babysitting experience, but one modest gig in 2024 changed business, brand and life forever.

She was hired to help families attending the wedding, looking for four children while their parents enjoyed the night. Throughout the event, guests continued to approach Weir with the same type of questions and asked if they were watching the children at the wedding as a particular service. It was something she had never even thought about before.

“It was natural to go to events with (the family),” Weir, 33, tells people a year later. “But then I saw a huge amount of potential to build something more complete.”

Then there was a wedding nanny NYC. Weir set up the company with the intention of adjusting childcare for weddings and similarly special events. She strengthened her brand with a background of nutrition and child development, CPR certification, and general knowledge about what children need to be satisfied and disappear.

Although Weir’s experience is widely applicable, she points out that wedding sitting is different from the typical nanny job for several reasons. For one thing, between the ceremony and the party, the wedding can run all day long. It’s a much longer mission than Mom and Dad’s date night.

Additionally, Weir usually doesn’t see people who hire her or the children she is asked to see. For this reason, she always sets up comprehensive calls with her clients a week before the wedding day, allowing her to carry out logistics and concerns and “build connections,” says babysitter experts.

“We need to know if they are at a wedding party, if they are just going to be some of the kids of the guests, then how many kids they have. She asks safe questions, such as whether the little ones have allergies or health issues, but also tries to get better ideas about each child’s behavior patterns.

“I also want to know if they’re obsessed with their parents. Sometimes they didn’t have a nanny before. They’ve never been to school so they’re not used to strangers. That’s an important point I ask,” she adds.

Once they solve the basics, Weir sends a suggestion to the client that summarises how she and her team will be involved throughout the event.

Business owners say parents are most commonly worried about what will happen during the ceremony, especially when it’s a religious wedding. “Especially when they’re small things like toddlers and babies. They really worry about them crying, getting tired or uneasy,” Weir says.

Wedding portraits also tend to bring anxiety to people with children around them.

But she’s prepared for those tough moments. Weir is mostly equipped with several ways to keep your kids busy and provide toys, coloring books and iPads.

“If they’re just crying at some point, we’ll sit and play, give them some colour and colour. We have some stuffed animals. If they want to play and run around a little, we have some balls,” Weir says. “Obviously, everything is different, but that’s what’s been working so far.”

But this job is not to distract children from their actions. It’s about including them in all the family fun and memory creation that happens during the wedding.

“They could hire someone to stay home or stay in a hotel, but most of the time they want us to have kids involved,” she adds. Regarding reception, Weir says she will take part in the festival if it means that adults can spend their time with the children.

Weir isn’t always the only one who runs a show solo. She oversaw the nanny team and each could have helped her on the day. In one example, Weir tapped four employees to help them see the 12 children at their wedding. Regardless of the number of sitters on site, Weir and her team are all dressed in black, including the brand’s wedding nanny NYC t-shirts.

So, how much does childcare cost if it is customized for any type of child to suit your wedding day? Weir will launch the “Total Core Package” for a $1,000 fee. This covers 12 hours on-site, but clients can extend service to 14 hours if necessary. If the fee group is big enough to require multiple sitters, it costs $65 per hour per nanny.

“We pay for insurance and it costs a lot, so the price is not something that some people expect to charge us,” Weir said, adding that an eight-hour package client can also be purchased for $650.

She is based in Westchester, New York, so if you happen to have a very local wedding, Weir offers a special 4-hour package. “That way you don’t have to be careful about mileage fees and all of them,” she says of limited services that start with a $350 fee.

For now, Weir’s business runs within a more stringent radius. She and her team will travel to the Borough of New York City, as well as the Westchester, New Jersey and Long Island surroundings. Ultimately, she hopes to expand even further, perhaps on a national scale.

“We have a lot of people reach out from other states as big as Californians. We have Texas and Chicago people everywhere. They want to bring their brands to their cities,” Weir recalls her hopes for the future. “We’ve had inquiries about our destination wedding. We haven’t done it yet, but it would be amazing if we could do it in the future.”