Help… Drowning in constant hen dos, weddings, party invites & birthdays

The whole hen dos, destination weddings, baby shower, opening fridge door celebrations are just ridiculous!!
Tell your friends you cant afford it.. there is no shame in that.
And if they are TRUE friends they will understand and accept that fact... or even better give their heads a wobble, calm down and arrange something more realistic and inclusive.

If they have objections... you then know thekr worth...

This is so true. It’s easy to spend over £100 in a crap local town as well, especially if you have food and pay for the bride. I’d much rather pay £400 and go abroad.
Your friend should graciously accept you can’t afford it but I can understand how they might be a bit peeved if they’ve attended all your events with presents but now you can’t go to theirs because you’ve bought a new car and chosen to work part time.

This.

I think it is ok to decline things but does seem a bit rude if you expected your friends to come to your wedding/baby shower/hen party etc.

Totally get not wanting to spend £400 but you said they spent £80 on yours so you obviously expected them to spend money on you in the past.

Omit the bit about your own hen do budget, which is both irrelevant and so self-righteous it’s likely to make the recipient irritated.

I am weary of people thinking up expensive ways to celebrate themselves.

OP, I’d stick to what you can afford. UK weddings only, no hen do weekends. Small gift - baby outfit from M&S or next for a baby gift. Stop feeling guilty!

This is my view as well. This is madness! My hen do was a night out in our city. Simple as that.

That's utterly ridiculous. To me the pram is something that the parents themselves buy, or sometimes the grandparents if they want to contribute. Far too much for friends attending a baby shower to consider shelling out. Baby showers are ridiculous anyway. You are right to have just bought a nice outfit for the baby.

As far as the rest goes, don't feel guilty about declining invitations to hen does that will cost hundreds. I always think it is so unfair on those for whom money is tight these days. A nice, sensibly priced gift or voucher for the wedding is plenty.

Over the years when I was having my three babies and looking after small children I was actually relieved to have a ready made excuse to decline invitations I couldn't afford and didn't want to attend. The "no babysitter/childcare" one definitely had its uses, whether it was true at the time or not!

I didn't even have a hen do myself as they are my idea of hell anyway.

Don't feel guilty. Personally, I think this is a combination of you all being at rather different phases in your lives and also of others not understanding and thus expecting too much.

My budgeting for my own hen do was to keep it to £80 a head because I'm conscious that it's expensive.

I think this is a bit passive aggressive tbh. No need to mention your own hen do, just that you can't make theirs.

If you are a group of mutual friends, do try and make sure your partner doesn't go on all the stag dos though! It ought to be done as fairly as possible - if he does 2, you do 2 or whatever.

£300+ is fairly pricey so I'm sure you won't be the only one not to make it.

OP this is not the norm!

I've been to a lot of baby showers (sadly!) and the norm is a little gift here. The max I bave spent is a meal out, the minimum was one hosted at a house with snacks.

It is nice to celebrate events so if theres the option of attending a day of the hen do for example you could try? Or do something separate with your friend

I have been lucky I think as all the hen dos I have been to have been UK based and reasonably priced. Some I have heard of are crazy expensive!

"I'm really sorry I won't be able to come to your hen do. My budgeting for my own hen do was to keep it to £80 a head because I'm conscious that it's expensive. I'd love to come to yours but I simply can't afford your budgeting especially when I have multiple invites, a young baby and I'm on maternity pay. I have to prioritise things and I'm having to say no to anything with a big budget regardless of how special and important that person is to me. I'm really sorry".

A good friend will understand and appreciate this as a response. Someone being an arse will throw a tantrum and demonstrate they aren't a good friend so you shouldn't feel guilty about not going as they weren't a good enough friend to spend a fortune on in the first place.

I don't. Enjoyed it in its time but definitely don't miss going to two or three weddings a year.

If friendship groups operated that way nobody would ever do anything.

I'm very glad my close friendship group does operate that way (doing things which are affordable for all), and still does 30 years later. Probably why we are all still mates from schooldays to our fifties.

My hen do was wider than that immediate group and there was even more consideration about location and affordability as a result.

YANBU - I was in a similar position to you, having DD1 just before I turned 30. I did manage to go to most things in the next few years but it was just local nights out or a reasonably priced overnight stay, not holidays costing hundreds of pounds.

Even having a professional job and even if I'd not just had a child I wouldn't have wanted to spend that much.

One of my good friends was heavily pregnant and couldn't make my hen do, so I went out for dinner with her instead.

You may not have the luxury of lots of time either but perhaps you could do something thoughtful rather than costly, like a photo and messages book that you can collect from all of the hens/baby shower attendees? That way you're not spending a fortune but the hen/pregnant friend knows you've gone to lots of care and effort?

Totally understand the FOMO too but you're in a certain phase of life right now. You'll soon come out the other side and be able to enjoy the next tranche of celebrations

Don't feel guilty, go to what you can afford and be a good and supportive friend in other ways.

It all stops around forty and you kind of miss it when it's gone.

No one is forcing anyone to join in. You choose to go or not. So what if times change, isn't that what happens with everything? People can afford nicer houses, nicer cars, nicer meals out, nicer clothes. Isn't that all relevant? So what if some people have decided to celebrate big, go or don't go. Simple as.

An invitation should not be regarded as a command.

😂

Yes, people all over the world have always celebrated big events and that's a wonderful thing. It's just gone way too far. Everything mortal thing has to be celebrated in an expensive, extravagant and over the top way. Nobody used to do anything much for their 30th birthday, the big milestones being 18 and usually 50. Now 30th birthdays have got to involve nothing less than a masked ball. Likewise baby showers. This is an American "thing". Nobody had ever heard of baby showers in the UK. The big celebration was a christening but, if you didn't have that, people would send cards and maybe buy the baby a gift after the birth. They didn't have to chip in £200 to hire a venue, pay for afternoon tea in a posh country house or buy a pram. They'll probably still be expected to attend the Christening as well. All of this is driven purely by social media and the race to post instagramable photos and splah it all over Facebook. I think it's all rather sad and loses any real meaning.

I am more than twice your age and to some extent it was the same when I was 30. There was a year or two where we had to say no to weddings for cost reasons. In those days we didn't feel obliged to stay the night , travel abroad to weddings or hen dos , buy new outfits for each occasion etc either. A little something for the baby once born and something off the wedding list that was affordable was the expectation. I think it is really hard for your generation to manage these requests.

If they are true friends then they won't mind at all. I am honestly surprised by the figures you mention: £345 and £400 for hen dos and £100 each for a pram. I don't participate in any of that. I earn well but honestly I look after the cash and save it. Perhaps if they were real friends those sorts of amounts wouldn't even be thought of!

Yeah and 30 years ago a man raping his wife wasn't illegal
Times change
As per the MN saying, It's an invite not a summons. As long as the bride doesn't expect people to attend, she's entitled to have the hen do she wants.

If she wants an expensive hen do and enough of her friends fancy it to make it worthwhile, it's ridiculous to say she shouldn't do it because someone might feel left out if they can't make it (for whatever reason, not just affordability). If friendship groups operated that way nobody would ever do anything. I'm sure OP would be even more upset if she wasn't invited at all!

Some of the friends might be single so that is their main holiday for the year - others just love travelling/partying - so rather than resenting it they will genuinely want to go on the hen and would be disappointed if it was downgraded for a night at their local, just the same thing they do on a random Thursday.

Nobody seems to bat an eyelid or judge couples having more frequent and more expensive holidays these days, nor families (going to Disneyland used to be a once in a lifetime experience that many couldn't afford, and is now almost a yearly rite of passage!), nor spending a fortune on Christmas for the kids (even ten years ago there were no winter light shows, Christmas eve boxes, decorated stately home visits, elf on the shelf, etc.) but when it's women spending their own money doing something fun together suddenly it's excessive.

Yes, I agree.
My hen was a meal in a pizza restaurant and a few drinks afterwards, and my best friend's was a house party ...everyone brought a bottle, and we had great fun. Several of the women there were single parents and had very little spare cash. They would have been excluded had there not been a virtually free event.
I don't see how someone either not earning or on a very reduced salary could afford even one £70 meal out, let alone several.