I got an email from an old friend. She has been planning her wedding for the last eight years. Now she announced that its in St. Maarten next July. Apparently I have to save the date. I like this person and would love to go to the wedding.
What I am not sure I want to do is shell out that kind of cash to schlep all the way there in the middle of the summer for it. The beach has always been somewhere between Sudan and Iraq on my list of potential vacation destinations.
So do I suck it up and go or do I bail on this affair?
Bail. But do so without judging her for having HER wedding where SHE wants it to be. It’s not about you. She also shouldn’t judge you for choosing not to attend.
Don’t go if you really don’t want to or can’t afford to. I would think that most people who do destination weddings understand and expect that it is difficult for people to find the money and time to travel.
Yeah I agree. She’s done something nice by inviting you, “save the date” is just a phrase, it doesn’t literally mean that she’s ordering you to attend.
Also this sorta piggybacks on a recent thread but you don’t have to RSVP now, you do that when specifically asked to RSVP. So you can sit on this until next year and see if a great airline deal comes up or you win the lottery or whatever.
Agreed, as a friend it would a nice act to watch the airfares etc to see if a deal comes up to make this more palatable. Basically put out a tiny bit of effort to see if its possible. However you are not under any obligation to attend, and a noted by sugar and spice a save the date does not require or even invite a response, so you have some time to consider the options.
If you don’t want/can’t afford to go, send your regrets and don’t feel one bit bad about it. When people choose to have a destination wedding, they should accept that people don’t necessarily want to spend a lot of money or their own vacation time attending a wedding at a locale they didn’t choose.
In fact, I’ve known a few people who chose a destination wedding because they didn’t want a lot of guests to attend. It was their way out from having a full out fancy schmancy wedding at home.
I generally make it a policy these days not to attend weddings when it would cost me more than the entire amount I spent on my own wedding unless there are strong mitigating circumstances. If I planned to take a vacation there anyway, sure. Otherwise I’de send a nice gift and my regrets.
I would love that approach Mrs. Cake, unfortunately my wedding was nothing. 14 people at the registry office. I would never attend another wedding again.
I have spent far more on weddings than I ever took in. When I got married, I was penniless slob and so were my friends. And none of them could come because I wasn’t living in the US at the time.
Now 13 years later, we have all grown into upper middle class snobs with the desires that go along with our socioeconomic status. I have gone from buying small kitchen sets back them to some utterly ridiculous nonsense today.
I will admit that my own experience probably colors my view of these elaborate affairs.
I was going to take the opposite approach. I’m not really a beach person, either, but a few years ago I travelled to the Caribbean (more for the journey than for the destination) and once I got there it was beautiful. It’s not just a beach; there’s a culture there (food, music, sports, people) that deserves to be known like any other.
So maybe this is a GE&H moment for the OP; a call to do something he wouldn’t usually do, and maybe find out that he likes it.
It’s all good and wonderful that “its about her” (logical because you state “It’s not about you.”), but there’s no excuse for wanting to be such an attention whore.
What’s wrong with getting married in a “normal” place? You know, one that’s easy for most people to get to? It seems to me that she’s putting an inordinate amount of pressure on people, not to mention guilt for those who can’t go; kind of selfish of her, really.
I ended up having a destination wedding close to where my husband and I live. Why? Because, no matter where we held it, the vast majority of our families would have had to travel and stay overnight to make it. We considered a beach destination wedding originally, but went with the location we chose due to its proximity to theme parks and other touristy stuff. I don’t see how choosing one over the other would have made us more selfish, but the location we chose gave our guests more options for post-wedding activities.
It’s not as normal for everyone to be from the same hometown or for everyone to have stayed where they grew up these days, hence the popularity of the destination wedding concept. I think your reaction is quite ridiculous, as you haven’t the first clue as to why the person chose the location or whether a “normal” place was even an option. Location of the wedding does not an attention whore make, nor does sending out “save the date” cards.
You’re not being invited to go the beach with her; you’re (near enough) being invited to her wedding, which happens to be on a beach. If you can afford it, go. You’ll be going there for her, not for a tanning session on the beach.
This is a tough call. Its definitely not about money. If I couldn’t afford it, there wouldn’t be a question about going.
I was a mildly irritated at hearing that this was going to be that this was a destination wedding as I guess its called. If I lay out $2,000 for this thing, my only motivation for doing so would be to avoid the inevitable guilt trip that would ensue.
Anyway, I know one or two of her friends and one of them insulted my wife last time we were in the same room. So I suspect that we would be out on our own trying to figure out what the hell to do most of the time outside of the actual wedding.
I was in Bermuda for about a week about six years ago. Worst vacation that Mrs. Slug and I ever had. By the end of day four, we were so hopelessly bored. Ended up watching a session of the Supreme Court in Hamilton because we had visited all the junk shops, art galleries, museums and aquariums that we could find. No desire to lay on the beach. No desire to go swimming or smorkeling or any of that stuff. If Mrs. Slug wasn’t around, I would have chartered a boat and gone fishing, but she gets horribly seasick.
I suppose we sound like the two most unfun people around. If you drop us in New York or Munich, a month isn’t enough. Drop me on the beach and I start wishing that I still got high.
