Weddingbee Blog

In general, my fiance’s family has money, and mine doesn’t. This was the biggest reason we didn’t reserve a block of hotel rooms–the stuff my family could afford, his family would turn their noses up at. It’s been kind of touchy in that his parents really want to throw money at the wedding, and my dad absolutely can’t; we decided early on to pay for it entirely ourselves because of that.

We also took on the transportation costs of our attendants and officiant; although some could afford it, many simply would not have been able to do it (grad students, new parents with single incomes, etc), and we wanted those particular people with us. The only incident that’s come up is one of the grad student bridesmaids told us we should pay for her boyfriend du jour’s plane ticket since we’re paying for the others’ husbands. Besides the fact that we’ve never met this guy, she asked in a really excruciatingly tacky way, to the extent that I started wondering if I really needed her as an attendant. We turned her down, and they managed to find the money for his ticket.

Although it’s not a destination wedding in the Paris/Jamaica/Disney sense, it will require significant travel for at least 80% of the guests; I guesstimated about $1000 a couple. Whenever one of the grad students or less-wealthy relatives responds with regrets, I naturally assume that’s the reason. But we didn’t pick this site out of a hat–we really put in time and consideration in choosing it, and I’ll admit in the “cons” column we listed “expensive,” but it still seems like the right choice.

I agree that money is a touchy subject. I’m beginning to feel a little put-upon by my friends, for some reason I have 6 friends getting married within a year of each other. They’re all having showers/bachelorette parties/rehearsal dinners, and it’s hard enough to get the time off, let alone afford to go. I feel guilty for not having the time to go.

We did, very briefly, think of having a destination wedding somplace warm. Sounded romantic, fun and wondeful. But we quickly realized that it would mean that a lot of our relatives and friends wouldn’t be able to attend. We could have probably helped out a few financially, but not many, we’re not rich ourselves. So we’re having the wedding here.

I think that if you and your friends are the types who think nothing of a weekend in Vegas, then go there for your bachelorette and have a great time. But most of us can’t afford a destination pre-wedding party. I remember a thread on Long Island Weddings recently where a bride, planning her own bachelorette party at Foxwoods casino, was angry that her wedding party was refusing to sign up for all the spa treatments she wanted as group activities. She didn’t seem to have a clue that the weekend was costing her bridesmaids more than a thousand dollars each. For your average non-wealthy young woman, that’s just too much. And for the record, I restrained myself from calling her “Bridezilla” in my response. I did suggest that she give her poor friends a break from the expensive seaweed wraps.

For me personally, I would love to go on a trip for a wedding or a bachelorette party. You get to spend much more time with your friends that way, usually in a more fun place. One of my friends is getting married in Italy next year, and I can’t wait. Perfect excuse to go to Italy!

But for any wedding or party, if I can’t afford to go, I just don’t go. I don’t resent the couple at all. Articles like this one come along from time to time being all grouchy and resentful about spending money to be a guest at a wedding. If you can’t afford it, be a grown up and don’t spend the money! But I think the chance to hang out and take a trip with good friends is worth it.

We really wanted a destination wedding, so we’ve tried to minimize the cost to our friends and family, who will have to travel (in some cases) all the way across the US. We are offering free lodging in a large residence and planning to do a lot of cooking instead of eating out. I originally asked my bridal party to choose their own dresses so they’d be spending money on something they’d wear again (this is casual), but my sister is going to make the dresses instead and it shouldn’t cost too much.

Taking time off (and spending money that they won’t be making during that time off) is a huge deal for my sister and her bf, so I asked our parents to help me with airfare for those two, and they generously offered to cover all of it. I was prepared to offer my airline miles to my best friend to cover her airfare, but it sounds like she will have no problem after all.

The trade-off for every luxurious detail of a wedding is, of course, cost.

Two of my best friends are getting married this summer, and already the costs of pre-wedding parties and bridal-party planning are adding up (though, to their credit, they’re both trying to keep costs low). Through a series of events, I’ve realized that part of wedding planning is anticipating the cost to guests, and asking yourself:

“If so-and-so can’t afford to attend this party, or buy that dress, etc, is the cost of that person not participating worth the luxury of what I’ve chosen to do?”

I think it’s a fair question, and isn’t meant to pass judgement on people choosing one answer or the other. It just helps clarify priorities for that specific choice…

I come from a fairly pragmatic/thrifty circle, so here are my misc observations.

We would have really enjoyed having our wedding in NYC because it’s got so much to offer, but decided on hometown wedding b/c more friends and family would be able to attend, primarily because they couldn’t or wouldn’t want to pay for NYC travel and hotel, but also because of TIME — whether people want to spend so much time traveling, or whether they can pull themselves or their kids from school, use their limited number of vacation days, etc. And time is money, so… same thing!

RE me spending my own money to attend others’ weddings, I have skipped weddings (especially while in school) because I knew it would cost $1,000 (travel, rental car, hotel) and instead sent a generous wedding gift and made a point of visiting each other when we were in the area (e.g., vacation or on business) so we could actually spend real time together, instead of 30 seconds on their wedding day.

For bridal parties, it’s better if the bride can gear everything towards whichever BM is the most strapped (time/money/geography) to maximize the opportunity for that BM to participate without sacrifice/guilt. Otherwise, the bride should be prepared to pay for everyone; no fair to pay for one and not the rest, at least that’s how I’d feel if I were a paying BM. Unless you could truly have the broke BM keep a secret, not that you want to have a secret. So there’s really not a great solution other than planning for the lowest common denominator and using other ways to keep it fun.

For me, the bottom line is that an invitation is not a subpoena (requiring attendance) nor an invoice (requiring payment), and we have to respect others’ decisions and feelings about how they prefer to spend their own (always limited) time and money.

Once upon a time I was planning my BP in Vegas and all my friends were on board–they had a year (at least) to plan and we’d done this for another friend so I didn’t think it would be a big deal.

Then, more like five months before the intended trip, my friends mustered up the courage to tell me they couldn’t afford it. I was heart broken for a couple reasons:
1–I’d done it for them two years ago
2–I’d do it for them even when money is tight
3–I felt like it was *kind of* a reflection of how dedicated they are as friends. I know no one backed out to hurt my feelings but the gamut of excuses ranged from “I’m planning my own wedding” to “I didn’t even know,”

Anyway, I’ve come “to terms” with all it, and we’ll have a great time here at home. It was just a crummy thing to hear when again, they had over a year to plan and until they had their intervention in January I thought we were all on board. If everyone had said that to begin with I wouldn’t have been excited, telling everyone about it, etc….I love my friends of course and I don’t really expect them to drop everything or pay for something they can’t afford, but I would have liked to have known from day one. Or week three…

“I felt like it was *kind of* a reflection of how dedicated they are as friends.”

This kind of thinking is absolutely insane and backwards. You are the one revealing your true colors. How much your friends can afford to spend is not a ‘decision.’ On the other hand, as the person planning the event, how much that event will cost is entirely up to you. By not considering how much of a burden this is on those participating, you are excluding them. It is you who had difficulty giving up material desires in exchange for their company. Initially i thought the use of the word ‘resent’ in Miss Bluebell’s poll was inappropriate, but after reading this comment I get it completely.

To put it more simply: when someone tells you they can’t afford to be a part of your bachelorette party, it’s probably because they can’t afford it. When you tell someone who doesn’t have a lot of money that your bachelorette party is going to be this expensive shindig, you are telling them that you value your expensive shindig more than their attendance or financial wellbeing. That’s being a good friend, eh?

It seems far more likely to me that your friends only backed out at the last minute because they were afraid of disappointing you and kept putting it off, hoping you would come to your senses and they would be able to make it work in the end. I don’t think it’s hard to see why they would be afraid of telling you that they had a problem with the event as planned.