Bride causes outrage after charging guests ‘tacky’ fee for wedding attendance

Jul 12, 2024
The situation has sparked a heated discussion about wedding etiquette and financial expectations. Source: Getty Images.

A bride’s outrageous move to charge her guests $65 to attend her wedding has set the online community ablaze.

The revelation came from an anonymous guest who took to Reddit, sparking a heated discussion about wedding etiquette and financial expectations.

“One of my closest friends is getting married and is charging her guests to attend the wedding,” they explained.

“I always knew she was cheap, so in one way I’m not surprised. But this is really not the norm in the country I live in, although it seems like 90s kids like me have started to charge for their weddings more and more which is just embarrassing.”

Detailing the payment breakdown, the friend explained, “When you RSVP, you have three options: attend the wedding ($65 fee), attend only the ceremony, or not attend.”

“It doesn’t even say what the fee is for but after googling it says it includes, food, music, decorations and venue. So they literally want their guests to pay for decorations.

“The evening before the wedding, they also have a dinner which you need to pay for (don’t remember the price but cheaper than attending the wedding). If you want to sleep over at the venue, you need to pay around 100 dollars (I’m not in the US so the conversion is not entirely accurate). This applies both for the night between the pre-dinner and wedding day, and the night after the wedding. So that would be 200 dollars in total. I guess these prices are more OK since nobody is forcing you to attend that dinner and/or sleeping over. But if I’m INVITED to a wedding I shouldn’t have to pay to attend the actual wedding?!

“It’s just unfortunate because we’ve been friends for 12 years and it’s sad to only be able to attend the ceremony because I absolutely refuse to pay.”

Fellow Reddit users were quick to respond, with one saying, “The bride is out of her freaking mind. Unless the OP is specifically leaving out important info about culture that would be relevant, I’m taking this post at face value.”

Another suggested a straightforward solution, stating, “Just decline. Say you’re busy that day. You won’t be the only one.”

The backlash against the bride’s fee-for-entry scheme continued to pour in. One user remarked, “They’re shooting themselves in the foot. I always give $100-150 in the card at a wedding but, did I choose to attend this wedding, would be paying my $65 and calling it a day.”

In a witty comment echoing the sentiment of the friend who shared the dilemma, a Redditor humorously added, “$65 would pay for me to attend an awful lot of events guaranteed to be more enjoyable than a wedding.”

Another labelled the move “tacky and in poor taste”.

“I hope someone told her so she had time to change that before she had an empty wedding,” they added.