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

brewerdave

Forget the cost of hen dos/stags - my s-i-l and daughter were pressured to attend a wedding in Greece recently -the flights would have been £ hundreds even with Easyjet -add on a couple of nights accommodation, food,drink and a pressie and it would have been approaching £1000 !:eek: Fortunately they stayed strong and didn't go!

REJP

I don't get the connection between friends being unable to afford extras for beauty treatment for the bride and students obsessing about university fees.
If they spent less money in the Student Union bar, they might not worry so much about fees.
Entirely different thread isn't it? Not everyone is a uni student or graduate paying back fees.
The discussion is about the way extra costs are being passed on to friends for something that is a personal matter for the bride, and the way that hen do costs can get out of control.

wymondham

No worries at all with not going. If she really wants you to go then she'll be more than happy to pay for you.

Maybe you can go to her next hen night when she's reigned it in a bit through experience, as those who concentrate on the expensive celebration/days often are the ones who fail at the day to day marriage thing.....

clairebearwales

I actually think it is perfectly acceptable to put your foot down on this matter - the only decision you need to take is essentially whether you hand across the £5 and then say "and no more" or whether you say "no more" now, explaining that this has already gone way beyond the budget and description already given.


Are the bridesmaids going to name and shame anyone who decides not to contribute? Unlikely. The difficulty with a lot of this is that it's not so much what the bride wants, but rather seen as a competition to be the best bridesmaid organiser.

JBR*

Make an excuse and don't go!

heartbreak_star

As I said above, can people please remember it's usually not the bride that organises hen dos? Don't blame her!

HBS x

Pollycat

brewerdave wrote: »

Forget the cost of hen dos/stags - my s-i-l and daughter were pressured to attend a wedding in Greece recently -the flights would have been £ hundreds even with Easyjet -add on a couple of nights accommodation, food,drink and a pressie and it would have been approaching £1000 !:eek: Fortunately they stayed strong and didn't go!

Yes, a lot of those people who decide to get married abroad are just shifting the cost of the wedding from themselves onto their guests.

And that's fine as long as they don't expect people to pay to travel to attend the wedding but when they pressurise people - simply not on.

unholyangel

ACE1 wrote: »

Is there something wrong with the groom if his bride is so ugly she needs £££s of beauty treatments?

More likely down to a society that usually only tells a woman she's pretty/beautiful when she has a face full of slap (and therefore, looks nothing like herself).

As for the hen night, we tend to be mindful of people with less money and have on occasion clubbed together to either help them pay it or pay it in its entirety. We also tend to have a few hen nights - one might involve staying overnight/a few nights, one will just be a night out and one will just be a night in the house. The first two options are usually done being mindful of costs and the latter....the only cost they have is a bottle (if they dont like what the brides providing).

It is kind of crazy how much you can end up spending when you're not even getting married though. Especially when it all stems from a 1 day event.

iclayt

I think I would say "I'll pay the £5 as it is for the bride, but won't be able to afford anything else after this as it's getting a bit expensive!"
In the grand scheme of things it's an extra fiver but I would hope it stopped me being expected to pay for anything else.

Mojisola

heartbreak_star wrote: »

As I said above, can people please remember it's usually not the bride that organises hen dos? Don't blame her!

But it is for the bride's benefit - if I had had a hen do I would have talked it through with the organiser and made sure that she realised that not all my friends had money to spare and to keep things reasonable.