Should child free wedding planner pay for guests child care?

No. Not as a given. If you really want to, sure, but in real life, if you can’t get a sitter, you don’t go.

I guess that may have sounded a bit harsh, but this new trend of catering to the guests’ every potential whim (food preferences! Alcohol or not, which will be least criticize$? But what if my friends don’t like the idea of a childfree event?) seems way over the top. If you have an evening cocktail or dinner party, do you provide childcare?

It’s a lovely gesture to do that, but unless theirs a boatload of money floating around, it seems a ridiculous extra expense..

No. Do movie theatres showing R rated movies provide childcare? No, because it’s the responsibility of the parent who wants to see the movie to arrange their own childcare. That’s one analogy.

I say no. If the children are are being taken care of nearby, there’s always that one parent that thinks it’s ok to go get the child for the reception.

No. Anything related to their children is the parent’s responsibility. I wish this trend was normalized!!

No. Nobody’s responsible for the child except the parents.

If parents want to pool their resources and find one person or a few people to do it as a team, that’s up to them.

If parents can’t find someone or their child won’t stay with someone, tough luck the parents don’t attend.

When my daughter was a baby, I was invited to a few events where it was no children, and it was up to me to find a sitter or not attend the event.

^^ Total agreement with all. We went to a family wedding in England which was child free. My grandson who was about two stayed up in a room in the inn and my son, DIL and Ex and I took turns going up and entertaining him. Our responsibility to figure it out.

Of course not.
And if it was, I would not automatically accept child care service picked by someone else.

I can’t even envision thinking it would be the responsibility of the wedding planner to pay for the care of my child. When people have an event, they set the parameters and if you can’t cope with those parameters, you deal with the consequences.

Depends on the group. If the guests have a bunch of kids, and especially if many of them are related, it might make a ton of sense to arrange a place for all the kids to hang out and be supervised by someone during such an event.

Wedding planner? Or, do you mean the bride’s family or whoever is paying for the event?

No, I don’t think the bride’s family pays, but I really regret telling people no children at my wedding. In the end children did come. There were so few it didn’t matter and I have a cousin who was originally not invited (she was a very young teen at the time) that I really wish she had come and I completely lost touch with her. My SIL used it against me for years that in her mind I was not family oriented.

I never would have thought to say no children on my own, but I listened to other people. So, it didn’t even really represent me to say they couldn’t come.

@Zaku That’s what our family did (years ago) when it came up. My sister and I were the oldest of all our cousins and we showed movies in our hotel room for six other kids.

Of course not!!

If the invited guests have children they cannot, or don’t wish to bring to the wedding it is for the guests to make arrangements for the safety and care of their children.

I have never been to a wedding where I could not bring my 3 children and quite probably if I could not bring them It is doubtful I would attend myself. I know my wife wouldn’t.

@Poseidon The question is about when the host has specified that children are not to attend the wedding. It is quite commonly done.

@Poseidon It’s quite commonly done especially in the error of kids’ plates costing the same as adults’ plates, and plates being hundreds of dollars per person. If you brought your three kids, even if they ate nothing or minimum amounts of food, it would probably be a thousand dollars for the five plates for you, your wife and the three kids.

No.

Should a wedding planner be responsible for renting guests’ cars? Buying their tuxedos or dresses? Of course not.

I’m with the other no answers here, along with the various versions of course not!

No, because going isn’t mandatory. In the same way you wouldn’t expect someone to pay for your hotel if its out of town or pay for your clothing or for your plane ticket or for getting your hair styled or the gas for your car or mileage. The only thing that should be paid for by the wedding party is the venue and meals if it’s going to be a long event. You shouldn’t expect wedding guest to bring their own dinners. If none of that is going to break a person than they can afford to find a sitter for the evening. Now if its guests coming from out of town that will be in town for a few days, then it would be helpful to them to find someone to babysit that friends or family can vouch for since they may not know anyone in the area to leave the children with. Some venues may provide daycare. Like I went to a company party once that was going to be at a hotel and they had a daycare room. People were asked to let them know if daycare would be needed so they could let the hotel know. But you had to pay for that. It wasn’t free by the hotel. Its something they had for hotel guest and available for venues.