It’s an unrealistic expectation of you. Even if you were well-off financially, it’s still an imposition. A wedding should be an event that takes place within the greater metropolitan area of where you live (or a bit beyond), and a thing that costs you as a guest couple probably a couple of hundred bucks between you as a cash gift or for a present. In return you get a nice evening out at the reception. Beyond this, and the couple getting married have three options:
Pay for your tickets and motel.
Not bat an eyelid when you politely decline.
Be utterly surprised and fucking grateful that you’ve turned up.
In other words, she wants to have her cake and eat it too. Lovely.
10 years ago, good friends of my husband and I decided to fly off to St. Thomas to get married. They were eloping, but wanted he and I to be their best man and maid of honor - and they insisted on paying our way for everything, down to most of the meals.
Especially since you’d already told her what a tough financial situation you’re in, she is being selfish and in that “Bridezilla” world where stuff like that makes sense. Hopefully she’ll wise up and realize what she’s really expecting.
I’d also send my regrets. My family’s split between England and America, with my siblings and parents living in the States and the rest in England. When my cousin fell in love with an American, she knew not everyone would be able to attend the wedding, no matter which country she got married in. As a result, she held the wedding in New Jersey, where she and her husband live. A year later, she held a reception in England for the relatives and friends who couldn’t attend her wedding. I couldn’t make either one, for a few reasons, but there was none of this, “If you truly loved me you’d _____!” nonsense, and it wouldn’t occur to her or me to force one of us to pay for something he or she couldn’t afford. I’m with the others who’ve said if you’re being matron of honor is that important to your cousin, she should offer to pay for airfare and hotel at a minimum.
If it was important to her, she would pay yuou the ticket andaccomodations, knowing your situation.
You were right.
Childish behavior.
Your financial issues should take precedence over the egoistical pleasure your cousin would have thinking she’s special enough for people painfully saving enough money to attend her fucking marriage.
No
Tell her she’s right to be so financially responsible, and that you’re going to follow her example by not attenting her marriage (Not really, of course. No need to escalate the situation)
The world doesn’t revolve around her “special day”. However, if you actually didn’t explain her your financial problems, I would be more lenient regarding her attitude. Though you don’t need to explain them in detail, “I’d love to attend your marriage but currently we just can’t afford the trip and the accomodation” should suffice.
If she’s unable or unwilling to understand that people in financial troubles don’t have a duty to save every dime for one year just to attend her “special day”, sooner or later, you’ll run into other probems with this princess, anyway.
You can’t sacrifice everything just to make every self-centered relative or friend happy.
You poor thing ! Another vote for the Bride being unreasonable.
You made your position clear from the begining. She seems to have ignored you. You may regret not going in the short term but she is being selfish.
Thta’s some wedding gift you’re all contributing to by agreeing to fly out for her wedding :dubious:
If you really want someone at your wedding - you make it as easy as pôssible for them to come. That’s the bottom line.
Ponster & I getting married in September ( ), in Paris. But hey, we live here. Guests will be coming from the UK, Ireland, the US & Italy. The date was set taking into consideration the weather (a lot of people are using the wedding as an excuse for a short break in France), the price of flights from the States, the departure of some cousins of mine for Australia … so we’ve ended up with a Thursday. This is far from ideal, at least two friends of mine will be coming without their partners who can’t get or can’t afford time off work. I undertsand and feel bad for them; one is having to take unpaid leave - we’ve said we’ll pay her accom. costs. After all it’s a mere drop in the wedding ocean! (I was a bridesmaid at her wedding a couple of years ago - which entailed at least three trips to Wales - I was not expected to pay for my dress or accom.)
I repeat, if you really want someone at your wedding - you make it as easy as pôssible for them to come. You don’t force them to spend money they don’t have !
When we discussed this again last night, she said that her family (my aunt and uncle, both remarried) will help me pay for the trip. (I wonder what “help” means?) I also wonder why the hell she didn’t mention this in the first place to avoid all the BS. I think she likes me to feel guilty. She knows how much trouble I am financially. Everybody does.
Well, I might not go anyway. I drank a little too much last night and I told her some things I meant and some things I regret. She has always been a selfish person, bridezilla aside, but I shouldn’t have said what I did. But it’s been a long time bottled up. So, now she’s pissed at me. More leverage for her, great. More guilt for me.
My mother is furious at this whole thing. She is mostly pissed off at my aunt, who is basically holding the reins of the thing. My mom also thinks the wedding will never take off and that the groom will flee the scene. I doubt it, but I guess it’s possible. He’s a bit of a hothead. My mom has told me that she and her husband are not going, by the way.
The only reason I might still go is because we are more like sisters than 1st cousins. We are the same age, grew up together…Oh and did I mention? I am also her only real friend. She has trouble making and keeping friends…I wonder why? As I think more about this I REALLY don’t want to go, I am starting not to care at all about her stupid ceremony. She’s having an after island reception party here anyway. (As well as an engagement party and a shower, but who’s counting?!) But, we have a very small family. Something like this would not be good, I would never hear the end of it, and I might have to kill someone. So, I don’t know. I guess it depends on if I really get some help to pay for it or not. I can’t go further in debt for this, if that is what it would amount to. I will feel bad to leave mr. meow home, though. He’ll be disappointed. Maybe by then we can swing his airfare.
Thanks for easing my why do I feel guilty feelings…What a shame that when I think back about her wedding I will remember this.
Sorry to break it to you, but the ‘destination wedding’ thing is a trend (at least in the U.S.) and has really taken off in the last decade. I had one. They are not necessarily fancy expensive weddings, either, although obviously some or all guests are going to have higher travel expenses than they would otherwise.
However, part of the deal is that you don’t make unreasonable expectations of your guests. This was lost on the bride in question here.
To my knowledge, there is no social obligation to pay for the travel expenses of your guests, no matter where you get married. This is not a “fancyass wedding” issue. If you got married in your hometown in Kansas when your groom is from Nevada, would you pay for your husband’s family to travel there? If you get married in Nevada, do you pay for your Kansas family and friends? What if you both live in Chicago?
I do agree with others that the correct thing to do is to either pay for the wedding party or be kind about their need to decline the travel expenses. I think the bride here is wrong, but it’s not because she so inconsiderately wanted a fancy wedding (didn’t the OP say the wedding was low-cost anyway?), refused to get married in a major metropolitan area, or have a reception at the Knight of Columbus hall.
Sounds to me like the only reasons for going would be:
Guilt piled on you from every direction.
Desire to go on a vacation.
My solution:
Tell everyone to fuck off. Only bat your eyelashes and tell them a sob story and make them feel guilty for harassing you.
Save up for a vacation the two of you can afford.
Yes. However, the one couple I knew who did this did not invite guests. They treated it like an elopement–a combination wedding/honeymoon, just for the bride and groom. They were on a budget where they could afford a really nice honeymoon or a wedding that only her family could afford to attend (he’s Argentinian, but they live in Minnesota). It was a really nice and relatively low-key solution to the problem. Both families had small parties for the couple later on–one in Minnesota, the other in Argentina the next time they visited.
It wasn’t their dream wedding, but everyone cooperated and came away happy. When budgets are limited, that’s just what loving families have to do. Meow meow, you should feel free to make a compromise based on your budget. Satisfy your own standards. She has no right to expect anything from you.
But neither the bride nor groom live in St. Thomas (I’m assuming?), nor do they have family there. It’s an entirely arbitrary choice that seems set up only to inconvenience their families and show how high-class and snooty they are. In a word, fancyass.
I do like the combination wedding with no guests/honeymoon idea.
That’s it exactly. An acceptably fancy wedding here would mean they have to shell out for some of it. A fancy wedding there means that the parents can cover it all.
And St. Thomas? I’ve never been there, but what is so great about that? I guess I am not an island person. I would have been pretty excited to go to Costa Rica (because I’ve always wanted to go) or even Ireland (where our families are from).
Well, ok, it is not my wedding after all. I actually *wanted * to have my family at my wedding, and had it here in NJ, where most of them are! mmmm bitterness.
So, If what she says is true, (It’s ridiculous that I can’t even bring this up with her anymore. She says she is too stressed out to think about it anymore. She has a frikkin wedding planner. What’s to think about?) and I will get help to go, do I just sit back and wait until somebody talks to me about it and buys my ticket?
It’s not selfish of her to have a wedding there,
it is selfish of her to expect other people to attend.
Financially it’s going to cost you more than airfare. Hotel? Car rental? Food? Time off of work?
My brother got married in Hawaii earlier this year. It was his wife’s and her family’s idea. Of course her whole family was there. The only person that went from our side was Mom. No Dad, or 3 siblings.
He was totally understanding and never expected any of us to attend.
Bridezilla on the other hand thinks our whole family is cheap and/or we hate her.
Yup. She can have her wedding any damn place she pleases - but she can’t expect/guilt people into attending. That makes her a bridezilla. I can certainly understand the appeal of a destination wedding (we thought of having one!) but you really can’t expect people to fork over that much money. The biggest reason we didn’t have one was because we knew so many of our friends wouldn’t be able to afford it, and we’d rather have them there than have the wedding elsewhere.
And next time she tries to guilt you with, “If you cared you’d find a way to come!” say, “well, if you cared about me coming, you’d have had the wedding somewhere I could afford to go!”
Don’t go if you can’t afford it, you’re not being selfish in the least.
Hampshire, I can’t believe the bride thinks that you’re all cheap/hateful because you all didn’t fly down to Hawaii for her wedding. (actually, I can believe it perfectly well, but it still surprises me that people are this petty) With family that far apart, the only sensible thing to do is what my friend did. Elope and have a party in each location. Then, only two people have to spend big bucks to fly around.
Deny her the power. Reach in, rip that “guilt” out of wherever it is lodged. Or plaster it over with the knowledge that you are right.
YOU ARE NOT DOING ANYTHING EVIL
YOU ARE NOT REFUSING ANYTHING NECESSARY
This spoken by someone who has travelled and covered his expenses on his own dime to weddings in Guatemala and Kentucky, from Puerto Rico.
BTW, what with the stupendous cost that many regular in-town weddings are running these days, “destination weddings” are NOT a Rockefellerian extravagancy any more. Just another way to blow a few thousand dollars.
But even if I were to do a “destination” wedding, it would be as in the example a little bit above, a pseudo-elopement, a small intimate thing, and then we’re having a big, fun, party for family and friends in our hometown(s) so nobody feels excluded. (Not that I’d be likely to even be dating anyone who’d expect her nuptials to be the Social Event of the Year)
