People keep saying you can opt out like it’s totally no biggie, but then they also say stuff like their attendants had “over a year to scrape up the money” and “if it is someone you care about” and “it seems like it would be important enough to you to spend a few hundred bucks.” Declining to be in someone’s wedding is a Very Big Deal fraught with perceived significance about how important this friendship is to you. There is very, very much a perception that if you truly loved the bride/groom, you’d by golly find a way to make it happen. I mean, gosh, you have a year to save up the money. Surely you can scrape up the money over the course of a year. Of course, scraping up said money will mean a few sacrifices, but isn’t the bride/groom worth it to you?
Nobody’s going to send the goon squad to break your kneecaps if you say no, but saying there’s no obligation and it’s not emotional extortion is, frankly, a steaming load of crap.
And yes, I think it’s very tacky to dictate that someone wear a specific costume that you picked out so they can be set decoration in your extravaganza and then expect them to pay the bill for fulfilling your vision. It is, however, a tackiness we have a tacit agreement to not mention in company.
Having one nice suit and being able to wear it to all formal occasions instead of needing a new dress everytime is up there with being able to pee standing up as one of the perks of being a guy. Asking your groomsmen to get a specific tux for a wedding is a perversion of the natural order.
Thank you so much for saying this. This “you can always say no” stuff is making my stomach churn. People can always say no to everything. But societal conventions often make this the unfavorable option. It’s considered a big honor to be in a wedding. Who would turn down an honor? And who is brave enough to tell someone, “Hey, I’d love to be one of your maids of honor, but I’m trying to save up for a down payment on a car and pay for college. I can’t really afford any extravagances at this time.” No one would say this. So they end up saying yes and keeping their complaints and worries to themselves. Like good friends are expected to do.
The friends who would say no are the ones who wouldn’t be asked in the first place.
I think it’s very tacky. The fact that it’s common place is only indicative of how tacky behavior can quickly be accepted when it saves someone money (i.e., bride and groom’s having more expensive weddings than they can avoid).
The problem is that often you can afford it, you just don’t want to. I mean, if you have several thousand dollars saved, earmarked for a down payment or something, and someone asks you to be in a wedding, you can’t let them pay for it, and then see you buy a house the next season. But god, it’s a lot to ask someone to use a chunk of their down payment to be in wedding, putting off buying a house for another six months or a year so that a third party gets the wedding of their dreams. And if that’s your real reason, any other excuse sounds like an excuse, because it is, leaving them to wonder what’s really going on.
All I am saying is that being in a wedding party, especially when you have to travel, is crazy expensive, and it can be very awkward.
I have never been in a wedding, so I don’t know how this works.
But if someone asks you to be in their wedding, is it considered gauche for you to ask what the expenses are going to look like?
If it’s considered inappropriate to be so candid, then a person who says “yes” is doing so without knowing what they are getting into.
And I think MandaJO’s point is that not all the expenses are upfront. A person might say yes, thinking only about the dress and shoes. But not the other obligations and incidentals that might crop up. Sure, a person could bail out at any time. But as you said, it’s a committment. No one wants to flake out on a committment. By the time a person finds out that a wedding is too rich for their budget, it could be too late to do anything.
It doesn’t help that our society has a taboo against talking about money and expenses. People really are uncomfortable telling other people they can’t afford something, especially if the “something” is presented as something they should be obligated to do by virtue of a friendship. And the expectation of reciprocation isn’t compelling, IMHO. Lots of people don’t do the traditional wedding thing. Yet for what other social occasions are people expected to shell out hundreds of dollars?
If you’re asking someone to be a member of your bridal party, then it seems like the person would be important enough for you to spend a few hundred bucks on him or her.
I felt like my bridesmaids were doing something lovely for me, not the other way round (specially since one of them loathes weddings and wouldn’t have done it for anyone else). It meant a huge amount to me to have them there beside me, and it would’ve completely squicked me out to demand that they pay for doing something to make me happy.
Being asked to stand up in a wedding should be an expression of how much you care for that person, that you want them to be publicly with you at one of the most important events in your life. There shouldn’t be ANY costs for the people you care about that much. It should be a non-issue, because its free to them, because you love them that much.
And I echo the idea that’s it almost impossible to say no, barring some extreme like excessive travel issues or job issues. To turn someone down is a huge slap in the face. I had to find $500 or else my cousin would have been greatly disappointed, in a very real way that would have effected our relationship.
I just don’t get it. It’s petty and greedy and terrible manners.
I think because it’s a societal custom, people are able to look the other way. If your friends and family did it this way, then you don’t feel so bad following suit. Perhaps especially so. If you spend $500 for a friend’s wedding, then maybe you don’t feel so bad making her pay the same for yours.
If you never hear anyone complain about it and everyone seems fine with the arrangement, then it would be easy to assume that there’s nothing wrong with it. So I don’t blame anyone for following the custom. But the reason why no one ever complains is because it’s considered even more tacky to put money over friends.
Uh, hearing that no one ever bows out of a wedding because of money issues? No. It happens with relative frequency. It is a fairly frequent refrain of brides–“my cousin/high school friend/sorority sister/fiance’s cousin” or whoever “can’t be in the wedding! Now what do I do?”
Seriously. It happens a lot. Sometimes it ruins relationships! Most of the time, someone on either side is miffed, but they move on, because it’s not that big of a deal.
I agree that it can be very difficult to decline to be in someone’s wedding party, but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.
Most people don’t ask how much they should expect to pay to be in someone’s wedding party, but you would usually have at least an idea of how much it will cost you - if it’s someone local, and they have a local wedding, you know you won’t be paying for travel costs and hotel rooms. You won’t know how much your dress will cost, but that can be a later discussion - if the bride decides that her 15 closest friends must all buy a $10,000 designer dress, then you might need to have a discussion with her about how deeply you regret it, but you must bow out of her wedding party because you just can’t afford that.
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve only been to one wedding, and I was the best man. Unfortunately it was in the middle of nowhere in northern Ontario and I was living near London (the one that’s not in Ontario).
Fortunately, the costs for me were largely the travel, clothes rental and a bit of food and other entertainment. The bride and groom were already living with her parents, so I was staying with them for a week too. That meant I didn’t have to pay for accommodation (except for one night in Toronto on the way there) or even that much food. Most of the other events were at this house; there were barbecues and big box full of ice and beers that lasted the week (well the ice did - the beers needed frequent replacement). I also saved on a wedding gift because I had no money, and anyway my presence the best present they could have asked for. I don’t know if they saw it that way, but they said they understood. The total cost was still £1,000 though, and I hate to think what it would have been were there other expenses like bars and restaurants. I think the closest I came to eating out was sampling the local cuisine, poutine.
I was a student at the time - in one of the most expensive parts of the country - and what money I did earn from working mostly went on food. I won’t say I was living as frugally as I possibly could have been, but I wasn’t enjoying what I was studying so considered spending some money on small, unnecessary but enjoyable things now and then important for my sanity. He was very understanding and said it would be OK if I couldn’t go. But also he needed to know over a year before the actual date if I would actually be coming, so I had to make these commitments before really knowing if I could or couldn’t afford it. With this friend and the relationship we have, it could hardly have been less of a big deal for me to tell him I couldn’t afford it. But I still felt that, even with him - and especially with “over a year” to get the money together - there was a strong obligation to say yes. But £1000 over a year is still £20 per week (that’s around $30). To a lot of people, that’s the difference between having some fun over the year and being miserable. That could be the difference between going out once or twice a week (student style), or not at all. Or the difference between eating pasta 5 times a week, or restricting it to twice. It’s easy to say “if someone’s important to you it’s worth it”, but it’s not to raise money to save your friend’s life, it’s to indulge their most narcissistic side. In the end I had to pay for half of it on a credit card and just tell myself I’d work it out later. I don’t regret going, and it was a lot of fun, but it’s not always as easy to afford even a more modest wedding, or say no to even a more understanding friend.
I don’t regret going - I had a lot of fun - but I do resent the cost when I remember the bride and groom crowing about breaking even on the wedding by charging for drinks. And I feel sorry for their parents, especially those of the groom who helped considerably in that respect by paying for the catering or the photographer (I don’t remember which parents paid for which ridiculous expense) before paying for their own flights and hotel, plus the same again for the groom’s brother and his girlfriend to come too.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting everything to match. There’s something wrong with expecting someone else to pay for it. They want all the bridesmaids to have matching flowers, right? They buy the flowers. Should be the same for a dress, or a tux.
After reading through all the responses, I’m glad I’m not alone in my thoughts.
I’m in the fortunate position that I can pay for specified outfits, so I really have no grounds to decline being in a wedding party. But that doesn’t meant I want to pay for it (or should). I’d rather dress in what I already have, which I think looks much better anyway. And the whole matchy-matchy wedding party makes it look like a terrible costume party anyway. I’m glad this recent “innovation” is apparently on its way out. And it’s a silly extraneous cost, no one cares what the wedding party looks like anyway.
But as monstro said, it’s tacky to do this, but even more tacky to complain. Sigh.
Tux, hell - I was a groomsman at a Main Line wedding and had to wear a * morning coat*. Can’t even remember the cost. Gigantic formal wedding. Sad part, it was about the last money the bride’s family had.
I think it’s tacky as hell too. The only wedding I was forced to be in was a family member’s, thankfully, and she didn’t put too many impositions on me, but it was still more than I really wanted to spend. But it was an obligation on me, and to turn it down would have resulted in many, many hurt feelings.
The kicker? I will never, ever, recover that money. When I have my wedding, it will be tiny and there won’t be any bridesmaids or anything silly like that. (We’ll probably just do it with a justice of the peace and then have a party in the backyard). I will never ask her to do the things for me that she had no qualms asking me to do for her.
And that was just one! I know lots of people who end up in a lot of weddings. Whatever the reason they don’t say no, it is hard to say no and then they are spending hundreds of dollars each year.
I don’t even want to spend $500. Sorry. The only person I love that much is my other half. That $500 can go in savings, or go towards our wedding, or towards our house, or a new car, or a myriad of other things. Hell, right now I am accumulating school loans again!