As far as I’m concerned, it would be waaaay out of line for the bride to get her panties in a wad over someone not coming to her wedding after this. Even if the wedding had gone as planned, the bride has no right to question those who’ve decided not to come, unless they’re particularly close to her and had planned to attend. She should assume if they decide not to come that there’s a good reason (even if there isn’t) and just let it lie.
If I recall correctly, it’s considered rude to inquire about additional details if someone has declined an invitation to be social. If it’s a close friend or family member, the bride probably has more leeway into inquiring what happened; however, if it’s not, she shouldn’t ask. As to why - I’m guessing it’s because someone might decline because they a) have a personal problem or issue they need to address but don’t want to discuss; b) dislike the bride but don’t want to say so outright; or c) may be forced to lie about either a or b.
1.) Your sister should not have scheduled a date for the wedding as long as she wasn’t yet sure what she wanted.
2.) Your sister was right to call off the wedding once she did finally get her shit together and realize she didn’t want to get married.
3.) Your sister is not obligated to repay anyone for their cancelled travel arrangements.
4.) Your sister may invite to any weddings she may schedule in the future but should not expect the attendance of anyone who had to cancel their travel plans. (Wow, that sentence is hugely awkward.)
This is where the communication break-down is, I think. I would never take on a “real financial hardship” to attend a wedding. I just wouldn’t. No one in my family would. If you take on a “real financial hardship” to go to a wedding, you have no emergency resources for times when you really MUST go: “serious financial hardship” is for when people are in the hospital, or a funeral when there are survivors who need support. I understand, intellectually, that to some people weddings are on par with those sorts of events, but it’s hard to understand it emotionally. If anyone is eating rice and beans all this month and driving around on dangerous bald tires and leaving the AC off in August so that they could go to a now-canceled wedding–I guess I see why they’d be pissed, but I also don’t understand why they made that sacrifice in the beginning.
I mean, if someone gave me a big expensive gift but I found out later they had made those types of sacrifices to do so, I’d be appalled.
Just to be clear about this particular wedding: So far as I know, no one did anything like eating ramen for a year to afford to go. I agree with those who say that kind of sacrifice is unreasonable. If someone had done that, I’d say “Wow. Bad choice. Sucks to be you.”
First, if I had bought travel tickets to a place, for an event that was then called off, I’d look at taking the trip to the place anyway, for the sake of travel to a new place. I’m pretty good at finding something to interest me anywhere, and I think that’s very often worthwhile in its own right.
Whether or not I did that, in a specific situation like the OP, I wouldn’t expect reimbursement from a couple planning a wedding. But I would feel no great impulse to then also attend the actual wedding, if and when they got around to having it.
From my travel agent days I can tell you that there exists, in fact, a “use it or lose it” bargain fare on most major airlines. They farm the tickets out to travel sites like Expedia, Hotwire, et cetera- and you get zip for cancelling- but these are relatively rare clearance fares and usually accompanied with BIG RED letters stating all bookings are final.
Outside of that exception, very few standard fares are refundable as in getting your money back. As Diosa said, most airlines allow you to retain credit for the value of your ticket less the change fees.
I agree with the majority. If you assumed the cost of the trip to attend a non-mandatory social event, then it’s your dime. I would be cheesed, though. I don’t have a travel budget and it is nearly impossible to get time off work. It’s even harder to give it back if you do happen to get it. In those shoes, I guess I’d stick with the trip and treat it like a little vacation without the pesky wedding to attend. Maybe find a concert or museum in the area, play tourist, and invite the dejected bride (or groom) out to commiserate. No way would I ask for money.
Any time I book through such sites, I opt in for their nominal travel insurance (trip assurance, whatever they want to call it) fee- $10 or $15-- covers last minute cancellations for any reason, lost luggage, etc. I think everybody should do this, because even on a $200 ticket or $50 hotel, it’s a nominal fee for peace of mind. If you didn’t. . . well, this is the type of thing trip insurance is for.
Innnnnteresting. I buy probably half of my tickets directly through airlines and the other half through travel depot websites (Orbitz, Kayak, etc.). I’ve never run across this (even the airline bottom line tickets that are “OMG NON REFUNDABLE” usually say they’ll exchange it out in tiny tiny print, from what I’ve seen), but I’ll definitely defer to you here, since you were an agent!
I agree that she doesn’t have an obligation to pay people for their travel expenses - but that she shouldn’t expect a lot of people to show when she DOES get married. Functionally, you get ONE big wedding in your life, most people’s friends and relatives really aren’t patient enough to do more than one.
My husband canceled his first wedding about three months out. While they hadn’t sent invitations yet, they had chosen a date, and it isn’t unbelievable that some people may have bought plane tickets. When we married a few years later, almost no one from his side that wasn’t in an “easy drive” came to our wedding. I had been married once before - so it was a pretty ‘simple’ wedding - and several of my relatives skipped it since I had done the “big wedding” before.
For me, getting time off is a challenge, so there is a good chance I’d have to make a vacation of the dates in question even if I got a refund on everything else. Given that I thought enough of the wedding to go in the first place, that probably isn’t a big deal.
If it was my sister, I would have to plan for the wedding the next (several) times she scheduled it and flaked as well, with each progressive flake making me more pissed. If I was doing this for a friend, you blew your chance the first time you flaked (unless sudden illness or other major life event was the cause). At that point, I just mail you a gift.
A invite to a wedding is very different then a call to the maytag repair man. One has to assume that her heart was to have the wedding, but there are very good reasons to call it off even at the last possible moment. Many wedding ceromonies have the calling ‘if anyone has any reason that this couple should not be married let them speak now or forever hold their piece’. This should indicate that weddings, by there very nature, may not go through and the guests should expect that possibility as part of being invited to a wedding. It also does not mean that the person should be abandoned, as we all need help, esp at such times. The person should be comforted, and not additionally put down by having to pay.
I’ve been to and in a metric crap-ton of weddings and more often than not I have observed that most people see it as an obligation than a pleasure to attend. Still, even if you really did feel like you had to share with the bride and groom you can do that in other ways.
You can wait until they are back from their honeymoon and settled a bit and invite them over too look at their photos and video that most people don’t want to see
Although I wouldn’t expect her to reimburse travel for this time. If she thinks I’ll be paying to travel to her next wedding/new date she is very very wrong, she can pay if she wishes but otherwise I wouldn’t be going.
I don’t often agree with you, but in this case I do.
Weddings occasionally get cancelled. You take that risk on when you book the tickets. If you do end up losing all the money (which doesn’t sound likely this long in advance), and you really can’t afford to lose it, then that sucks big-time, but sometimes life just sucks. You know, like how cancelling your wedding must also suck.
If someone is going to beggar themselves to travel to a wedding, they aren’t sensible or responsible. And there really isn’t much you can do for or about such people.
But I’m not talking about anyone doing anything of the sort in the case of my sister’s wedding. So you can construct a fantasy about how X would be true if Y were true, but Y ain’t true.
Seriously: if you found out a friend ate ramen noodles for a month to come to your wedding–where you only got to see him for maybe 5 minutes and were pretty distracted even then–would you feel flattered and respected, or would you feel guilty and ashamed? I’d feel guilty and ashamed, and I think most people would. And then, 30 seconds later, I’d realize I didn’t make that choice for them, I’d never have asked them to make that choice, and in fact it wasn’t a good choice to make, because it hurt them and didn’t bring me a whole lot of joy, either. And I’d probably actually resent them for putting me in a position where I felt guilty and ashamed because of a choice I had no part of.
It’s just basic manners–never give a gift you can’t afford to give with a whole heart.
It doesn’t matter. You said you would do it. It is unethical to value or disvalue someone based on their financial decisions, Thus you are going to be socially chastised for suggesting that, so that, hopefully, if the situation does actually arise, you will not make the same error and judge people.
Plus Billfish is basically being attacked for having the opinion that being out the money for the wedding and being out the money for a non-wedding are not equivalent, and that the person who caused the problem should attempt to remedy the situation. Of course he’s not going to be nice.
You haven’t even tried to apologize or otherwise communicate that you were not attacking him, so he has no reason to think you weren’t. He made a claim, and you didn’t counter it.
Finally, I’m not sure that being sensible includes always valuing your finances more than your loved ones.
