30th birthday dinner, who should pay?

shandi59

My partner has her 30th birthday at the weekend. We live in Manchester, my partner is from Berlin, and we are travelling to Berlin for 3 days to celebrate her birthday which will end in a Sunday dinner for 20 of her family and friends.

This has been in the planning for about 3 months now. Recently as we were discussing various details about the dinner, it came to my realisation that the expectation was that I would pay the entire food bill - friends, family, everyone, which will come to around £800! You can imagine my shock when this realisation hit, as my understanding had been that everyone would pay their way, although her Mum was going to kindly pay for the drinks during the meal.

My partner said that she thought we had discussed this and agreed ages ago, however we had not. It seems that there had been an assumption on her part from the start that I would pay, and this assumption had not been picked up on by me until further discussion yesterday. I would never have agreed to pay such a bill, I simply do not have that money spare.

After discussion and embarrassment on my partner's side, it looks like we will now pay £400 each. Which is better than £800 sure. But it is £400 that neither of us had expected or budgeted to be paying. I have already spent £250 on gifts, which I've been happy to pay and I feel is generous and suitable to what I can afford.

So my question is - how reasonable would it be to ask the guests to pay at least some way towards the bill? (£10/20?) Given that the invite has gone out ages ago with the message that everything will be paid for and guests need not put hands in their pocket?

At least I can be thankful that this detail has come out now, and not at the end of the dinner when I get handed the total bill!!

LilElvis

Half German husband, a German MIL and I lived in Hamburg as a child so I've been to a fair few big family shindigs in the country and it's always been my experience that the host pays in full - all food and every drop of drink. I do hope you get to experience some of the great schnapps drinking games, plus you could look up Cowboy und Indianer - it's a great song in the same vein as Agadoo, with lots of actions for you to copy.

Soundgirlrocks

I think, the horse has bolted given the invite has gone out.

WibblyGirly

Is there any chance of moving to a cheaper venue? Is it cultural expectation that you pay for all the family? If my partner sprung this on me thinking I knew all about it, I'd have to refuse. £400 is a lot of money! My partner paid for my birthday meal with 3 of my family members but it was only mains, I think 3 of us had one alcoholic drink each and only 2 of us had dessert so came to £100ish in total and I was so surprised when he offered to pay for all of us! But he did that as part of my gift and because my family usually treat him when we go out.
I think £400 is just too much though. Is that even with the MIL paying for all the drinks?

Oakdene

LilElvis wrote: »

Half German husband, a German MIL and I lived in Hamburg as a child so I've been to a fair few big family shindigs in the country and it's always been my experience that the host pays in full - all food and every drop of drink. I do hope you get to experience some of the great schnapps drinking games, plus you could look up Cowboy und Indianer - it's a great song in the same vein as Agadoo, with lots of actions for you to copy.

I always ended up with a sore head the following morning after these :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

shiny76

shandi59 wrote: »

So my question is - how reasonable would it be to ask the guests to pay at least some way towards the bill? (£10/20?) Given that the invite has gone out ages ago with the message that everything will be paid for and guests need not put hands in their pocket?

Completely unreasonable, given the bit I've highlighted.

pphillips

I personally would not put guests under any obligation to pay towards their own meal but would instead ask for money gifts of any amount that I would afterwards put towards the overall cost.

74jax

If the invites have gone out, there's not much you can do.

I had a meal/party for my 30th and paid. I'm Irish and the host tend to pay. However it's well known in our family etc, to have this landed on you is, well, I'm not even sure what to say. £800, our of the blue..... wow.

barbiedoll

There’s some lack of communication between you and your partner, that’s for sure! Do you live together? Why would she think that you can afford to spend such a sum if you wouldn’t normally have that kind of spare cash? And can you return some of her gifts? Spending over £200+ on presents when you’re also expected to feed and water her entire social circle, seems a bit excessive....she can’t have it both ways!

But....if you marry her, or even if you ever have a similar party for your birthday, you will receive it back in spades. In my experience, Germans are very generous. I once obtained a couple of tubes of skin cream for my German pal’s mum. Mum was so grateful that every time she saw me (at least once a year) she bought me a present. I’ve had exquisite schnapps glasses, lovely wine, amazing German chocs and so on, the cream cost me around £6!

You’ll have a great time, they party hard!

LilElvis

Be thankful it's on such a small scale! When husband's aunt celebrated her 70th birthday and golden wedding anniversary as a combined do in Hannover it was for well in excess of a hundred guests, 4 course meal plus cake and a lot of drink as it started at 5 and the party girl only retired to bed 12 hours later. And she took around a dozen of her closest family out for another meal the next day.

shandi59

Thanks for all your replies and good points.

Our communication is usually very good and open, but for some reason this detail and expectation has managed to slip by overlooked. It seems like there was an assumption on my partner's part and I had no reason to question until now! My partner is as embarrassed and deeply apologetic as I was shocked, so this has come as a surprise to both of us.

Thanks all, we have to discuss a few things, but we'll be sure to enjoy the party!