DILEMMA: Should she pay for cancelled plans?

SDavies

i'd ask for a break down of the £140 before going any further

SJ_Jones

Hmmm I've just had a thought that I will be checking with my sis.... she cancelled the night before the event, so the hotel at least was 24hrs notice. I'm wondering if the Hen Organiser actually cancelled then, or if she left it till later, and thus incurred charges...

aliasojo

She needs to check the hotel policy though, sometimes 24 hours notice isn't enough. Some require 7 days for instance.

BNT

I just noticed that this is titled as a dilemma rather than a money moral dilemma. Is your sister looking for advice on what to do from a moral standpoint, or looking for advice on reasons not to pay?

giverny

Surely ths issue here is that the organiser should have made everyone aware in advance about what the costs would be and got their agreement first. By failing to do this, they should accept responsibility for the resulting confusion. I would not pay anything that I hadn't agreed to regardless of whether I could attend or not.

minicooper272

Woah! £140 is a lot of money to pay for the 'non-refundable' portions of the evening! I can only assume that the people who actually went had to pay a fortune extra on the night as well? If it's going to cost this much money then you MUST tell people in advance... If I had have attended this night and was informed nearly 2 weeks later that it had cost £140+ I'd be furious! I'd almost refuse to pay if I had gone, never mind if I hadn't...

Your sister is right to be annoyed about this. For so much money, and following the event, I'd be suspicious that the organiser had totted everything up and just split it equal ways, making others pay for the bride's (and possibly even the bridal party's) share. I agree with others who say she should request a cost break-down for the evening and take away the items that could have been cancelled. The costs for the dinner should have been refundable (if it was a set menu, most restaurants like numbers to be confirmed the day before/that morning, so there would have been time to cancel, and if it's not a set menu, then she shouldn't need to pay for what she didn't eat). She could get in touch with the winery to see what their cancellation policies are, as with the hotel. Your sister contacted the bride however, and it is possible that the bride didn't say to the organiser until the next day/when they got there. I would suggest that, to reduce any bad blood that might arise, your sister make a gesture of goodwill and pay a small amount towards the costs (not more than £50) and just buy the bride and groom a cheaper present and spend less on an outfit to wear.

minicooper272

As a little post script, to my above comment, I think it's quite horrible for these guys to land these costs on your sister after such a shocking bit of bad news... I don't think a good friend would expect you to pay for something like this after what had just happened... Given the overall cost of the entire weekend, it would be a really small proportion of the cost for the others to shell out an additional £5 to try to reduce the bad situation your sister is in. Given wedding venue drink prices, it's just one less drink at the event. (This is assuming that there were more than 15 people at the night, which would cover half the cost and make it a much less daunting figure for anyone to have to pay)

SJ_Jones

BNT wrote: »

I just noticed that this is titled as a dilemma rather than a money moral dilemma. Is your sister looking for advice on what to do from a moral standpoint, or looking for advice on reasons not to pay?

I labelled it differently as it's not the official dilemma for the week.

aliasojo

How many people were included in this do, OP?

money_honey

It's a difficult one. If it was me in the situation I would assume that I was going to be paying a fair amount for room, dinner deposit and wine tasting. However the organiser should have made it clear about the costs. Maybe a fair way to do it would be as another poster suggested - everyone else pay slightly more so your sister has to pay less. I don't think they should be made to pay more than an extra £5ish each though as it's not fair on them, they shouldn't have to take up the bill for someone else cancelling and they could have money issues themselves.