Would you pay to go to a wedding?

Person_one

slimbo wrote: »

Pay for present or pay for meal. Not both. Simples!!

When is 'simples' going to go away? Surely its been long enough.

Errata

You have the very awkward and sensitive task of trying to bring them back down to earth a bit!

Easily done if they plan to invite a work colleague, which is not unusual, and you point out to them their wedding will be the talk of the workplace for many years, and not in a good way.

ska_lover

Don't pay and when everyone else is served dinner, pull out a picnic basket

coolcait

Would I pay to go to a wedding?

No.

Do I understand how this scenario is supposed to work?

No.

We're told it's a posh venue. So, no doubt, it will require a deposit and certain other up-front payments.

How does that tie in with the idea of an impromptu, enforced whipround among the guests at the reception?

gillycat1

When we got married 5 years ago, we had the 'reception' (ie sit down meal) in the evening and asked for contributions towards the meal instead of gifts (we didn't specify an amount). The reason for this was that we didn't want to have to leave certain people out because we could not afford to invite them, and I come from a large family when all cousins, aunties & uncles are counted. So when you added all the friends in too, it was more than we could afford, even though we didn't have a fancy affair at all (it was a hog roast).

We spent quite a lot of time deliberating over whether or not this was the right thing to do, but we felt that we definitely did not want any presents as we already had a household each before we got married and we knew that some people would insist on buying us something even if we asked them not to. We worded the invitations quite carefully and made it clear that we did NOT want any presents, that this was an optional contribution so that we could invite everyone, and that we wanted those who were invited to come whether or not they wished to make a contribution. Some people who came didn't give us anything and that was fine.

We also had afternoon tea at the church immediately after the service, which we paid for. This was the main event in some ways as we invited more people to the church & afternoon tea than to the evening - about 200 in total. We didn't mention anything about gifts to the ones who were only invited to that part. Some of them did want to get us something even though we did try to discourage them, so if they were really insistent, we just asked them to give us vouchers, which went towards a few things we needed to replace around the house.

I don't think anyone was offended or didn't come because of the way we did it and we really hope that they weren't. We did it because we wanted to include everyone rather than because we wanted to have a more expensive venue or anything else fancy. Everything was done pretty much on a shoestring with friends and family helping out with making the dress, cake, flower arrangements etc, and we paid for bridesmaids dresses (off the peg) and everything like that as it doesn't seem fair to ask someone to play a role like that and then ask them to pay for an outfit they may only wear once!

The other thing which I've noticed is often very expensive now are hen and stag does - ours were free, just an evening at a friend's house - so that was one less expense for everyone!

A lot of people afterwards said that the wedding had a really relaxed feel and commented on how much they'd enjoyed it, which is what we wanted, so it seemed to work. I would say that there is always a way to make a wedding possible even if you don't have much money and it's doesn't have to be a really expensive 'do' to be special.

In reply to the original question, I would say if it were me, I would probably think about how much I actually wanted to go to the evening do, and go if I wanted to and not go if I didn't. If I did decide to go, I'd probably pay as asked but then either buy no present or a cheaper one. If I decided not to go then I'd spend whatever I was originally planning to on the present.

msb5262

What puzzles me is the assumption that going to a wedding automatically involves new outfits. I agree that the bridal party probably need to get something special to wear, but why would every guest need a brand new outfit? Apparently even children need new stuff! Why don't people just wear their current "best" clothes?

Sounds like it's just me...

MsB

Torry_Quine

msb5262 wrote: »

What puzzles me is the assumption that going to a wedding automatically involves new outfits. I agree that the bridal party probably need to get something special to wear, but why would every guest need a brand new outfit? Apparently even children need new stuff! Why don't people just wear their current "best" clothes?

Sounds like it's just me...

MsB

It's not just you. I can't understand it either, also the idea that you cna't wear the same thing to two weddings if there are the same people there.

Person_one

msb5262 wrote: »

What puzzles me is the assumption that going to a wedding automatically involves new outfits. I agree that the bridal party probably need to get something special to wear, but why would every guest need a brand new outfit? Apparently even children need new stuff! Why don't people just wear their current "best" clothes?

Sounds like it's just me...

MsB

I sometimes re-wear wedding outfits, but it depends. If you go to a lot of weddings within one social circle, you feel a bit funny wearing the same dress every weekend all summer with the same people there! Then there's the fact that one outfit won't be appropriate for every situation/venue/event.

Also, I'm sure I'm not the only one who isn't always the same weight they were at the last wedding season, for better or worse!

Children need new outfits all the time, because of the growing thing.

msb5262

Person_one wrote: »

Children need new outfits all the time, because of the growing thing.

This is undoubtedly true - but they don't need to be something which won't be useful again; at my ex-husband's second wedding, our sons wore their school trousers and new white (school) shirts and our daughter was a bridesmaid so had a dress. Everyone was happy with this, and you couldn't say it was a pricey arrangement!

piglet25

How about the wedding we were invited to and told we had to pay for our own meals, well me being me and not fond of them anyway, rang the venue to enquire the cost of our meals so as to pre pay them ( as we weren't going to be seeing the happy couple before the day and they were collecting the money in ) and was told that our meals did in fact come to £25 less than we had been told by the couple, who were very insistant that the money had to be given to them to pay it two weeks before the wedding.
How about that then? And no, we didn't go. Hope they had to pay out for the meals we didn't eat.