Have you ever not been to a wedding because it's too expensive?

[Maybeshesbornwithitmaybeitssertraline]

I've heard people complain about the cost of going to a wedding but I think most people suck it up and go.

Dh's relative is getting married 5 hours drive away. we have been invited to the church and the evening do. If it was local we would have gone but the petrol money and the cost of doing something in between the service and the evening do was just too much. Plus 10 hours driving in one day because we can't afford a hotel. We've got 2 dc at uni so we are already spending more time than we would like driving up and down various motorways.

I was fine with not going and I don't really think about the wedding but my inlaws have been round today and they just keep going on and on about the wedding. Some of dh's other relatives are the same. They keep talking about what they are wearing, what a nice young couple, where they are staying etc. They don't talk about anything else and it's really annoying. If we were at their house we would have just left but at our home it's harder and if we say no wedding talk please they will say we are jealous. I wouldn't mind if they just talked about it sometimes like normal people but they are telling random people about it, talking about it constantly and it's like it's a royal wedding or the only wedding they will ever go to.

I was invited to a wedding which took place recently - the invitation came out in March. It was a fair distance away and would have meant staying overnight. After much consideration, I explained to the bride and groom that I would prefer to take them out for a meal a few weeks before their wedding. That way I got to talk to them properly and not just a passing hello along with a hundred other guests and they also got a wedding present. It cost me half - even with a fairly expensive dinner - of what it would have done if I'd had to travel, stay overnight, buy an outfit and so on. Everyone was happy and my conscience was totally clear.

Couples should either invite people to the whole day or just the evening. Trying to dress an evening invitation up as a full day thing is silly. I'm guessing they have gone for a big fancy church and don't want it to look too empty. Do they really expect guests to walk around a tourist attraction in wedding clothes?

Even if I could afford it I wouldn't pay out to attend a reception unless it was in a place I really wanted to visit. The only guests we invited to the evening were people who lived locally.

There may not even be a tourist attraction. They might have to hang out in the nearest Costa

Yes twice. Once when I was just made redundant and couldn’t afford the 3 hour train fare and hotel, the groom was really put out and we didn’t remain friends. The other was about 4 hour journey on train (I don’t drive) which was fine, but the venue was in a barn nowhere near the station, and there was nowhere to stay except camping, most guests lived locally. So, no thank you to that one.

And this is why there was no evening do at our wedding, everyone got invited to the whole thing!!! Evening invites are ridiculous… we like you enough to come to part of our wedding but sorry you don’t make the shortlist to come to the whole thing 🙄 No way would I go OP, unless it was just down the road… but a five hour drive each way? No thanks!

I had evening invites to my wedding. It took place in my hometown and the invites were for friends of my parents and siblings. It was nice they could relax with their own social circle after the formalities of the day were over. Most of them could talk or take a short taxi ride.

Absolutely, either invite people or don't.

Yeah but you don’t get invited then sent home til after tea time 🤣

Sorry to derail

After the wedding my brother called me to tell me off for not going, because " mum would have paid".

I told him that she would have paid for his family, but not me.