Kids at a Destination Wedding: What to Pack and How to Survive It

Four functions, three days, one suitcase allowance, and a child who will get mango on something within twenty minutes of landing. Destination weddings are hard enough to pack for as an adult; adding a seven-year-old turns it into a logistics exercise. The good news is that children are the easiest people at a destination wedding to dress well with very little, provided you decide what you're doing before you start throwing things in a bag.

Pack Three Outfits, Not Six

The temptation is one outfit per function. Resist it. Children at destination weddings are seen by the same seventy people all weekend, which sounds like an argument for more variety and is actually the opposite — nobody is auditing a nine-year-old's wardrobe, and everything you pack, you carry.

Three pieces covers a standard four-function weekend:

• One celebratory piece for the wedding ceremony or the reception — whichever is the bigger event.
• One bright, comfortable set for the mehendi or sangeet, which will involve running and probably food.
• One quiet, tonal set for the morning function, the puja, or the farewell brunch.

Then add a fourth: a plain, comfortable everyday set that isn't festive at all, for the travel days and for the moment something goes irretrievably wrong with one of the other three.

Let the Climate Decide the Fabric

Goa, Kerala, coastal, or anywhere in April–June: cotton and lightweight silk only. Humidity makes heavy fabrics genuinely miserable for children, and synthetic linings are worse. The Sahira kurta with Fizza pant — soft pistachio green silk with a lime yellow pant, hand-embroidered in resham, sequins, cutdana, beads and aari — is light enough for heat while still reading as festive.

Rajasthan or Udaipur in winter, or anywhere in the hills: silk and satin with sleeves, and a shawl. Evenings drop hard. The Tara kurta with Pari pant in deep navy satin has real body and works for a cold outdoor phera.

Anywhere at all: avoid unlined tissue and organza for children. They crease catastrophically in a suitcase, offer nothing against cold, and tear when a child does what children do.

Choose Pieces That Survive a Suitcase

The single most useful packing criterion for kidswear is crease recovery. Silk, satin and lined Chanderi come out of a bag looking broadly fine; heavily starched cotton, tissue and organza come out looking like they've been slept in.

A hero piece is still worth packing if the wedding warrants it — the Mehergul lehenga with Abroo blouse in rani pink silk travels better than a tissue lehenga would — but pack it flat, at the top, and steam it on arrival.

How to Actually Pack It

• Fold embroidered pieces with the embroidery facing inward, with a layer of muslin or tissue between the folds so beadwork doesn't catch on itself.
• Roll plain cotton, fold everything embroidered. Rolling crushes raised work.
• Put the heaviest piece at the bottom of the case, flat.
• Bag each outfit as a complete set — kurta, pant, dupatta, and the jewellery for it, together. On the morning of a function you do not want to be hunting for one earring across two suitcases.
• Carry the first function's outfit in hand luggage. If a bag goes missing, you land able to attend.
• Steam, don't iron, on arrival — and never directly on embroidery. Our steaming guide covers doing it safely in a hotel room.

Our full guide to packing Indian outfits for travel covers the adult version in more detail.

Footwear: Two Pairs, Maximum

One pair of juttis or dressy flats for the functions, one pair of comfortable closed shoes for everything else. Destination venues involve grass, sand, gravel, temple steps and long walks between the hotel and the lawn, and children abandon uncomfortable shoes within the hour — usually somewhere you won't find them.

The Backup Kit That Saves the Weekend

• A complete spare set of ordinary clothes, in hand luggage.
• Dry tissues and a small pot of talc — the only stain response that's safe on hand embroidery. Our stain guide explains why not to improvise with anything wet.
• Safety pins, a small sewing kit, and spare hooks.
• Sunscreen and a hat for daytime functions — Indian destination weddings are relentlessly outdoors.
• Snacks. Function timings and children's hunger are not aligned.
• Something to sleep in that goes on easily at midnight.

Order Well Before You Fly

The one thing you cannot fix from a resort is sizing. Anything made to measure needs four to five weeks of production plus shipping, and a child who was measured in September may not be the same size in December — so order early enough to allow for a fitting check, and late enough that the measurements are current.

For which outfit suits which function, our function-by-function kids' guide covers each event, and how many outfits a child actually needs covers the wider season.

Frequently Asked Questions