Wedding & Event Childcare in BC: What to Know

Somebody always ends up watching the children. At most weddings it is a teenage cousin, a bridesmaid who volunteered before she understood what she was volunteering for, or the couple themselves at 9 PM, in the outfit they spent a year choosing.

Event childcare is the decision to make that someone's job rather than someone's favour. This guide covers what that actually involves in British Columbia — what the people do, what it costs, how many you need, and what to settle with your venue before you book.

What event nannies actually do

They are not entertainers and they are not a creche you drop children at. They are caregivers who work a shift at your event, with your guest list's children, in a space you have set aside.

On a wedding day that usually looks like: meeting parents and children as they arrive, running quiet activities somewhere away from the main room, managing snacks and bathroom trips, handling the 6 PM stretch when small children stop coping, settling younger ones for naps or sleep, and handing every child back to a named adult at the end.

What they are not doing is bar service, photography wrangling, or supervising teenagers. If the request is "keep an eye on the room," that is a different job and usually not one that needs a background-checked caregiver.

How many you need

Ages, not headcount. Two infants are as much work as four school-age children, so Puffin staffs by a points weighting rather than by counting heads: an infant under 12 months counts 2, a toddler 12–35 months counts 1.5, a child 3 and over counts 1, and one nanny covers every 4 points, rounded up.

Eight school-age children is 8 points — two nannies. Four infants is also 8 points, and also two nannies, for a quarter of the children.

The booking form runs this as you enter each child's date of birth, and the number it produces is a **recommendation you can change**. If you want three nannies for a group the formula staffs at two, you can select three and the price follows your choice. The selector runs from 1 to 10.

What it costs

**$40 per hour, per nanny.** Flat — no age loading, no evening or weekend premium, no difference between a Tuesday and a Saturday.

**$60 per hour past eight hours in a single day**, per nanny. The threshold is daily and it resets each morning, which matters for multi-day events.

**Four-hour minimum per day.** A two-hour ceremony still bills four hours.

Real totals, calculated by the same code the booking form uses:

| Event | Staffing | Total |

|---|---|---|

| 5-hour reception, 8 school-age children | 2 nannies | **$400** |

| 6-hour reception, 8 school-age children | 2 nannies | **$480** |

| 5:00 PM – 1:00 AM reception | 2 nannies | **$640** |

| 10-hour wedding day, 8 school-age children | 2 nannies | **$880** |

| 4-hour rehearsal dinner + 9-hour wedding day | 2 nannies both days | **$1,080** |

The 10-hour day is where the threshold shows itself: each nanny bills eight hours at $40 and two at $60, so $440 per nanny rather than $400. And the rehearsal-plus-wedding example is *cheaper* than one 13-hour day with the same total hours would be, because the second morning starts a fresh eight-hour allowance.

One practical consequence: if your event lands near the eight-hour line, moving your start time by an hour can keep the whole day at the standard rate.

Yes, you can book straight through midnight

Worth saying plainly, because it is the shape of most receptions: a booking entered as **5:00 PM to 1:00 AM** is one eight-hour day, not two, and it is priced as one — $640 for two nannies, with no overnight premium and no second four-hour minimum for the hour after twelve.

There is no late-night surcharge. The $40 rate is the same at 11 PM as at 11 AM, and the only thing that changes it is the eight-hour overtime threshold, which a 5 PM to 1 AM reception reaches exactly without crossing.

If your end time lands in the morning proper rather than the small hours — a genuine dawn finish past 6 AM — enter it as a second day, because the form reads that as a typo rather than a very long night.

The venue question

Book the room, not just the people. Children need somewhere that is not the dance floor — a side room, a quiet corner, a suite upstairs. Ask your venue three things:

1. **Is there a room we can use, and until what time?** Some venues release side rooms at a fixed hour.

2. **Is it in sight of, or a long way from, the main room?** Parents check on children more often than they expect to.

3. **What is the venue's own policy on children in the space?** A few licensed rooms have rules that decide this for you.

Nannies bring calm, age-appropriate activities. They do not bring furniture, a sleep space, or a room.

When to book

The formal requirement is **24 hours' notice**, and same-day booking is not available.

That number is close to meaningless for a wedding. Dates get taken, and an event needs caregivers matched to it rather than whoever happens to be free — so the real answer is as soon as your numbers are firm, which for most couples is when RSVPs close.

Two things worth doing early rather than late:

**Count the children who will actually attend, not the ones invited.** Twelve children where four are infants is a materially different booking from twelve five-year-olds, and RSVPs firm up last.

**Sort ID verification before the week of.** First-time in-home bookings need photo identification reviewed by an administrator before a caregiver is dispatched. It takes minutes, but it is not something to discover on the morning of a wedding.

What happens to your card

Your card is **held, not charged**, when you reserve. The authorisation confirms the card is good and reserves the amount; the booking is finalised with you before any money moves. That is the same mechanism used for hourly childcare bookings.

Who turns up

Every Puffin caregiver is an employee of Puffin Services rather than a contractor found through a marketplace. Puffin carries the insurance and handles payroll, so you are never the employer of record for someone working at your event. Each one completes a provincial CRRP vulnerable-sector criminal record check before any placement.

For an event specifically, that structure matters more than it sounds. If the person watching eight children at your wedding is a self-employed sitter you found online, the question of who is liable when something goes wrong has an answer you probably do not want.

Where this is available

Event nannies are booked across the 16 municipalities Puffin Services is licensed for — Surrey, Abbotsford, Burnaby, Chilliwack, Delta, Harrison Hot Springs, Hope, Kent, both Langleys, Maple Ridge, Mission, New Westminster, Pitt Meadows, Richmond, and Vancouver. Rates are identical everywhere. There is no travel surcharge and no zone pricing.

Questions worth asking any event childcare provider

Ask them of us too. The answers are above, except the last one, which is: we replace them, because they are our employees rather than an introduction we made.