Money Moral Dilemma: Should I keep forking out for my friend's hen do?

MSE_Sarah

This week's MoneySaver who wants advice asks...

My friend’s hen do costs are spiralling out of control. A relatively cheap weekend away in a country cottage has risen to £160 - not including travel or a night out in the city. We’re having a beautician visit but I opted out, mindful of money. Now, days before the hen do, the bridesmaids have asked us all to put £5 towards the bride’s beauty treatments. Now, I know it’s just £5, and I hate to appear cheap, but I’m self-employed while the bride earns close to six figures. Is it OK for me to (finally) put my foot down and say NO to these ‘just one more thing’ costs?

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PrettyFlower90

Yes of course it's okay. I think it's absolutely ridiculous how much hen parties have now spiralled out of control. What happened to a last single girl night out? It's been replaced with holidays abroad and weekends away costing hundreds of pounds, and everyone's supposed to just stump up the cash.

I went to my best friend's hen party 2 years back, and it initially started out with the other bridesmaids trying to organise a weekend away in UK somewhere or south of Ireland. It was coming up at like £200 for accommodation and few activities- no drink or food. I thought no way, I'm saving for my own wedding and house deposit. So I just said to my friend I cannot afford what is being planned. I;m happy to come to a night out at home, but I can't spend hundreds on a weekend when I don't even spend that on myself going on any holidays etc. People seme to forget that not everyone's circumstances are the same and at the end of the day it's a hen party. It's not the only one you'll go to and it's not that special in the grand scheme of things (not like a one off wedding, in my eyes).

So I would just speak to your friend and say you can't afford it. Simple as that.

pearl123

A fool and their money are easily parted. Complete waste of money.

robin58

pearl123 wrote: »

A fool and their money are easily parted. Complete waste of money.

Sounds like Marriage.

Zeni

I think its acceptable. I had to recently miss a friends hen do a few months back as it was over £200 pounds for a few nights at a UK hotel and some activities but this didn't cover travel or food there! I was cash strapped and just couldn't afford it. I felt awful as my friend was sad I couldn't come but she didn't actually know how much it cost as was a surprise and I hope if she did know she would realise that I wanted to!

Elisecas

About 20 years ago this happened to me for the first time. It was a friend from school's wedding. She had gone straight from school into a great job and had lots of new friends with jobs but there were two of us who were her best friends from school. I was in uni at the time and our friend was a single mum of a baby so we didn't have any money at all. The event planned cost too much so we wrote her a lovely card saying we were so sorry but we couldn't afford it, but could she come to one of us for a weekend where we would all spent the weekend catching up? She didn't reply for a long time, then said how disappointed in us she was. Needless to say we didn't go to the wedding either (I can't remember if we were invited after that!) and things were never the same. A year or two ago she got in touch about something f and wanted to meet up and I kind of couldn't be bothered. Which is sad as she was a great friend at school. But basically either your friend will totally get it - and you should expect this of her - or she won't in which case maybe she's not your friend. And remember. This isn't her asking, it's her bridesmaids.

bagpussbear

Definitely say no if you can't afford it.Wouldn't be surprised if some others felt the same too and may follow suit.

lika_86

I think it's difficult. Saying no to spending upwards of £150 on the whole thing is much easier than saying no to £5 for your friend (which most people could probably save by cutting back on something elsewhere). The annoying thing about hen dos is obviously you're going to have to see all these women at the wedding and to an extent maybe it's better to get on with them than not (for the sake of £5). However, in agreeing to pay I would put down a marker, say you opted out personally because it's already a lot of money for you and that you expect that there won't be any further little requests now.

Oakdene

I dont think it is a problem, a lot of people I know (both stags & hens) have two stag/hen parties, one away which tends to be a night or two away somewhere, then also a home stag where you do the last night out as an un married person...

Manilla1

I agree that the pressure to organise a 'bigger and better' stag/hen do than your peers is omnipresent these days and rather depressing. In Elisecas' case, I'd say that if you were honest with your friend and she still was 'disappointed in you' well that's her loss, and we don't need people like this in our lives, who only value others by what they do for us!


However, maybe we need to be a little more honest with our friends about money. I had a similar situation with long-standing friends who wanted to celebrate that we've known each other 25 years. We have different earners in the group, incl a pensioner and someone earning over £100k (not me unfortunately), but I was the first to say I couldn't afford a £200 per night hotel for a weekend away, so would prefer a nice meal instead. All it took was for someone to remind everyone that we're not all huge earners, and we opted for the lovely meal instead, and it was a huge success.


The morale to this long (sorry!) tale is that we need to be honest, and if we're honest and our friends still don't understand, then surely we should just remove anyone that toxic/selfish from our lives and move on.

pollypenny

Absolutely. These hen/stag 'nights' are now expensive weekends, it seems.

Then people complain that they can't afford to buy a house.