A colleague at work is getting married later in the year. There is some bad feeling about her at the moment and most members of our small team (of six people) have said they are not prepared to chip into a collection to buy her a gift.
As background. Two and a half years ago she got married for the second time. We collected over £150 for them and gave them the money as they wanted to buy a new household appliance with it. They received a lot of money from our management too and some of the customers also had a collection for her. At the reception her new husband took all the money from all the cards and put them aside without even looking who had sent them. He then started using the money to buy alcohol with. They didn't thank anybody for any of the gifts and they didn't buy the new appliance. They did spend a lot of money on alcohol and ran up a lot of debts with rent and council tax etc as well as borrowing money from friends.
Just over a year after they got married the new husband died (pre-existing heart condition) and we had another collection, close to £200 just from us, again more from the management and customers. Our colleague also made about £15,000 from the sale of the house she had owned with her first husband. She paid off some of the debts and finally bought the new appliance and other furniture and made a downpayment on her second husbands grave and headstone. She took several months off work to recover and we covered her work as best we could, a lot of extra work for everyone but in the circumstances it was the right thing to do. People made a big effort to look after her, taking her shopping, giving her things she said she needed, driving her about to appointments and the cemetary, inviting her for Christmas etc. One man even left his wife and children on Christmas day to collect her from someone elses house and drive her to the cemetary to visit.
What we didn't know is that within less than a month of her husband dying our colleague was living with his friend as a couple, although she kept this secret at first.
When we found out we felt a bit shocked but it's her business. They are planning to get married later this year, less than two years since her second husband died.
The bad feeling has arisen because since then she has borrowed money, ran up more debts, her new partner doesn't work and she recently asked to reduce her hours to 16 per week because she wants to claim carers allowence from him (but he does not need a carer and she may not get it, he had a biggish operation but is otherwise back to full health and can walk, use the loo, dress himself etc with no problems, he goes out to the pub etc.) She reduced her hours at such short notice that someone else had to cancel a holiday to cover for her. Other people have had bereavements and partners who have been ill or lost jobs in this time and she has never once shown the concern she received.
She expects a lot of favours in regards to picking and chosing the best hours to work etc or having people swap shifts with her if necessary but doesn't do the same in return. She spends a lot of time complaining about everything.
Last week she told us that she wants to buy a new bed and so could we just give her the money again when she gets married rather than use it to buy something for her. We are not invited to the wedding, none of it. Not the hen party, not the service, not the reception or the evening piss up party. Even colleagues who have worked with her for over 20 years have not been invited.
And so my colleagues have said (privately) they are not going to buy her anything or give to a collection. One of them is new and already has had several run-in's with our colleague because she is bossy and hard to get on with, one has two children and her husband is only getting sporadic agency work and one is saying that she is not giving money for a new bed when she knows full well it will be spent on gin (as per last time).
I've known the colleague a long time and even I feel that I don't want to give to a collection.
Would we be more unreasonable to tell her so in advance of the wedding or should we just leave it and see if she says anything when no collection money is offered to her. It doesn't seem to have crossed her mind that we won't be doing a collection for her at all.