WWYD - childcare option for child free wedding?

[Catingle]

Close family member is having a child free wedding this year. All of our family who might conceivably babysit our two children (6 and 9) will be at the wedding. Wedding is on a Saturday about 4 hours drive from our house. 6yo has never spent a night away from both DH and I and isn’t a great sleeper (nearly always ends up coming into our bed at night).

Which of these would you do?

1. Only one of us attends the the wedding (it’s DH’s side of family so that would be me)

2. Ask one of our friends with kids same age to have our children from breakfast time on Saturday until lunchtime Sunday. Feels like a big ask, esp as our youngest is an unreliable sleeper. Our local friends all have local family so unlikely they’d ever take us up on offer to reciprocate.

3. Our ex-nanny might do an overnight for us, but it’ll cost us £££ for her to have them all weekend, and she’s never had them overnight.

4. Bring children with us and hire a local babysitter to have them for roughly 12 hours (midday to midnight) on day of wedding. But we’d never have met the babysitter before, and we’d probably need to rent an apartment for 2 nights rather than a hotel room for 1 so all in all £££.

Or something else I’ve not thought of?

Another option. No one goes.

Option 2 and spend the tine between now and the wedding wotking on your childrens sleep, at those ages it needs sorting

Option 5 - you speak with the bride/groom, explain the situation and then don't go. Or revert to only one of you going.

For every solution offered OP, uou have a problem.

It's bizarre all the posters saying only one of you should go. There are parents who exist out there who quite happily wish to both attend do's without their DC in tow and that is perfectly acceptable. The poor OP is simply posing a question of working out the best way to do it, not asking for a vote of those for and against child free weddings 🤣

Your idea of making a weekend of it sounds great OP. Enjoy the wedding!

Send DH. If the B&G kick off, give them a quote for a nanny and ask them if they will be covering it.

Sorry! I mean DH goes to ceremony, you stay with kids. You head for the reception and to stay over. So you’ll need a babysitter from about 3ish. Have babysitter sleep over.

Then, could you organise a friend to have the kids for a morning play date? Say from 9am-noon?

so you’d need a babysitter 3pm-9am? Although it would mean making your way there and back separately.

Or could do similar to above with a local babysitter? Get an air bnb and then you stay with kids until 5pm, babysitter comes for normal shift? You go to canapés and reception? You get home about 12pm.

I have this problem this year and the wedding is on a weekday on a day J normally work.

Let DH go. Whilst it would be great for you to go as well it sounds like a bloody palava, can you really be arsed with the logistics? Nah. They'll be plenty more weddings you can attend without all this hoohah.

Take them so they're close and get a sitter near the locale. If it's a family wedding do the family have any contacts near the venue who might be able to help source good childcare? In a similar situation I got someone who worked in a nursery nearby who was happy to work the hours at a weekend!

Ha, indeed! We went to another child-free wedding recently that was also a childcare headache but we really enjoyed getting to spend the day together child-free. It’d be much easier if the DC were invited to this one but we do actually both want to go and enjoy ourselves if possible!

Could you all travel and stay in hotel / b and b and go in shifts? Eg one of you goes to ceremony, other one goes to meal, one to evening bit?

Unfortunately the venue they have chosen, while very lovely, is nowhere near where any of the family live.

Anyway I’ve booked a cheap cancellable holiday cottage for the weekend and put a sitter booking request in on an agency website so we’ll see if we get someone. It’s not the cheapest option but I think it’s the most likely to make for an enjoyable weekend. It will cost less than hiring our ex-nanny for the weekend and removes the stress of having to make the long drive on the morning of the ceremony. I’m sure friends would do it if asked but I know I’d feel bad for taking over their weekend and we still have the issue of driving 4 hours before the ceremony.

I just don't accept invites like this far too much hassle
Or send your DH if he wants too but don't shell out loads of money on nannys etc

I love nights out with my husband without the kids but not so I can hang out with his relatives listening to shit music and terrible speeches. Not wasting babysitting money/goodwill for that!

Going to a proper gig, club or party with my actual friends, now that's worth it.

i see you have a plan. I would have gone with a variation. Bring ex-nanny with you to babysit. The most expensive option by far, but solves the sleep issue and means you don’t leave your children with a stranger.

Sounds like fun OP! Hope you enjoy!

Anyway you can "pool" with another family? You say there'd be many young kids going if they hadn't made it child free so there must be a few people who need childcare too. Could you liase with another family and do something like book somewhere to stay together in the vicinity, then the "blood" relations go to the ceremony while the spouses stay with the kids then do something like one spouse goes for the first bit of the evening and another spouse the second, or one couple with the kids then swap? That or book a babysitter together for all the kids for the full day or just for the evening so they're at least with kids they know if not a babysitter they know.

Any way

I would never have a random stranger I'd never met before looking after my children alone. I'd have asked a friend.

1 or 2

I would just decline.

We used a few sitters when DS was young. Apart from the slightly worrying incident in Lanzarote where I suspect the sitter had her BF in the room, it generally worked out well. Particularly in UK where it's all nicely regulated.
Besides it's not as if OP or her DH will be far away if anything does go wrong.

Is it really worth all of this planning, expense, stress and worrying about sleeping issues etc?

There’s no way you can properly enjoy yourselves when you are there.

Why not have just DH go and then you can both have an evening out and hire a babysitter another night or have a night away and ask family or friends to look after them.

None of them have our problem as they have family on the other side who can look after their kids (we had another child free family wedding recently and it wasn’t a big deal for them). As far as I’m aware we’re the only attendees with DC for whom childfree is a challenge.