‘I wanted a child-free wedding so I paid for babysitting… everyone was furious’

“I thought I was doing the parents a favour, and somehow everyone still got the s**ts with me,” the confused bride reveals.

When you’re having a big wedding, you might be tempted to impose sweeping rules on all the guests, but someone is bound to get annoyed.

If you encourage guests to stick to a colour scheme, someone will complain they can’t afford to buy a new outfit.

If you want to provide a set menu, people’s complex dietary requirements will cause all kinds of problems.

And Celine learned that if you want parents to leave their kids at home, no matter how you try to accommodate them, no one will be happy.

“I got married this summer and while I wanted a child-free wedding, I realised this would exclude a lot of my friends and family,” she said in a Reddit post.

“I rented out my brother’s indoor playground and paid the staff to work late. Basically I paid them double time until midnight whether there were kids there or not.”

The employees all had police and working with children checks, and Celine thought it was a fun, safe option for everyone.

But her guests were not happy.

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Nursing babies were allowed at the wedding, but not older children. Photo: iStock

Bride provides free childcare at wedding and guests are furious

“People were mad that the indoor playground was so far away (about a five-minute drive).

“They were mad that the kids didn’t get the same food as the people at the reception. No, they got pizza, nachos and fried chicken.”

Then there were the parents who didn’t want to leave their children at the play centre.

“They were mad I didn’t have someone to watch nursing babies.”

Celine revealed that her wedding guests called her names over what she thought was a nice thing.

“My husband said we should have just gone child-free and dealt with that hate instead of wasting money on ingrates.

“My aunt actually called me an a**hole for not wanting a couple of dozen screaming and crying kids at the reception.”

Celine was upset about the reaction, but so many people had reacted negatively, she began to wonder if she’d one something wrong.

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Celine thought she was doing something nice and was shocked when people got mad. Photo: iStock

Bride asks Reddit if she should have organised babysitting for guests

People had a lot to say about the matter. At the time of writing there were 1,200 comments on Celine’s post.

Most of the commenters thought Celine was thoughtful to organise childcare for her guests’ children, and that they were being ungrateful.

“You try your best to accommodate people and they’ll never be happy,” one person said.

“OP sounds incredibly thoughtful and went well above any person I know who has had a wedding,” said another. “Some people just want others to be miserable as them. You could’ve piggybacked them to the venue in your dress and they still would complain about why your husband wasn’t fanning them.”

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One person said that the concept of a child-free wedding bothered some people on principle.

“People are especially weird about child-free weddings for some reason,” they said. “If they don’t agree with the concept, they should stay the eff home.”

Others said it was impossible to please everyone.

“That’s just how people are. They’ll never be happy about anything,” was one person’s bleak reply.

Originally published as ‘I wanted a child-free wedding so I paid for babysitting… everyone was furious’