would you "pay " for a place at a wedding ?

[BahrainB]

My cousin and his long term girlfriend are marrying at the Ritz in London in the summer and at Christmas asked us to save the date and for our boys to be involved . Most of her family live in Austraila
I booked flights from our home in Dubai and a extortionately inflated ( Olympics are on at the same time ) holiday let .
Today I recieved the official invite which along with Harrods wedding list details was a little printed note - I want to give an extrodinary day surrounded with all our beloved friends and family I am asking for the more fortunate amongst us to contribute £500 per couple so everyone can be here .
We promise exceptional wines and a lovely time . Ax

OMG - Am I livid .
I'm being asked to fund other guests travel ? or pay for our place at a wedding
that is really too OTT in my opinion .
I'm too embarrassed to discuss with my husband .
What would you do ?

This is probably the most outrageous wedding AIBU I have ever read. Just disgracefully rude and entitled. I am seriously gobsmacked.

I wouldn't go.

Yes! Reply

"Thank you so much for thinking of us and our high costs for attending your wedding. As there are 4 of us (?) we are happy to accept £250 each to cover our costs. How kind and generous your friends must be"

They are definitely taking the piss, you've paid probably much more than their £500 request for flights, accomodation etc for your family. Ignore it, bin it before your DH sees it.

If they have the gaul to ask for it, say bluntly that they asked you to come to be part of the wedding and your "contribution" was more than used up getting here and paying for accom (during the olympics, wtf were they thinking?). If anything, they should be refunding some of your expenses from this "contribution fund".

Oh yes, do that!

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha < bonk > That's me laughing my head off.Sorry to be so flippant OP,but dear God are they royalty or some kind of Russian oligarchs or just very entitled.No advice though sorry.If you tell them to do one YANBU.If you go along with their request then YABU. Mx.

Yellow it's rude whatever way to ask for money like that from guests. They obviously have champagne tasts on beer money , their fault not yours. My dh would be livid, and we would not go

100% in agreement.

That is pretty rare!

I agree with proudnscary. I would definitely say something. This is so far and away beyond the realms of reasonable behaviour you really ought to.

Something like "To attaend you wedding it has so far cost us :
x on flights
x on accomodation
x on present
x on [other stuff]

Now you are seriously sending a begging letter for an additonal GBP 500! I am quite outraged. If it was important to you for certain people to attend I suggest you ought to have booked a cheaper venue or ealse saved up YOUR OWN money like the rest of us had to when we got married"

What everyone else said! Shocking!

Yes pigletmania exactly. They call them bridezillas for a reason.

My MIL, normally a level-headed, kind, lovely woman, asked if she could PAY us (DH and I paid for everything at our own wedding) to add 10 guests to the guest list! As if tickets to our wedding were for sale!!!! I almost lost it but tried to calmly explain that we had limited the guest list to 100 for not just monetary reasons - we wanted a medium sized wedding. And if we were going to have 10 more people, there were a lot more friends of ours that we would have invited first before her 10 friends or eighth cousins twice removed or whatever that DH and I had never even met!

Oh my goodness, you obviously move in different circles to me!

Dreadful. I wouldn't go at all because it's begging. Yuk.

Cross posted with everyone - I didn't read it that the note was asking to fund the wedding but to fund for people to attend who otherwise wouldn't be able to. I don't think, in principle, it is wrong to ask for this instead of a present and for the amount to be at your own discretion.

If it isinstead a request to fund the wedding then ya definitely nbu

I have an Italian friend who said that in their family they ask all guests to contribute to the cost of the meal because the families are large and they want to invite everyone. That said the price they gave was per person, cost per child AND it applied to everyone AND no presents were expected or given.

This I have to say, smacks of a total lack of morality.

I presume in addition to the inflated cost of flights, you have the inflated cost of accommodation - send that to him.

I'd discuss it with everyone, get to everyone in your family and make sure he knows how low you think it is.

Who is the invite from, and who is ** - parents and bride?

I am stunned anyone would think it was okay to ask for this amount of money to go towards a wedding - and then to send a gift list too!!! Wow!

I'd be tempted to phone to reply tbh - direct. With a resounding no!!!

What will they do if people just don't pay up but still agree to come?

YANBU, Nothing wrong with being skint, having just a meal in a restaurant that you invite people to which they pay for. We have thought of doing this as we really want to get married and our families would be devastated if we did it without them there. I think we will just have a BBQ in our garden though. If we did go with the first option we were going to absolutely insist that nobody even thought about getting us a gift. But this situation. Is totally different, shockingly crass!

I definitely wouldn't be giving £500 towards anything. It's rotten to presume that someone has £500 to give up, no matter how "fortunate" they seem- it's naive to simply assume that the money's spare and not being put towards plane tickets, mortgage, schooling or anything else. Just because a couple seem to earn well doesn't mean you can casually insert some note asking for cash and abandon all manners.

If I was one of the people who couldn't come unless I was helped financially I would be mortified to know that the only reason I came was because people had been put in a position where they felt they had to cough up. I'd rather not go at all.

Yes phone her actually, she needs to know. Otherwise they might get lots of 'sorry can't attend' replies without actually knowing why. Just be blunt.

How dare they!

(and let us know what happened!!)

Yellow - I think it is rude to ask regardless for this kind of wedding.

Fine - if the are having a really informal wedding and then asking if people want to join you for a meal out afterwards at a local restaurant, inviting a handful of guests and it is all discussed in person beforehand, not expecting gifts, not asking people to fly hold way across the world to attend, etc

Who is ** that they want to give an extraordinary day?

Oh. My GOD!

This kicks 'asking for money for wedding gift' threads into touch!

Unbelievably rude and cheeky.

OP I am going to be soo cross if you don't now come and update us.

This does win the wedding AIBU thread prize.

Go with Everybody Sleepy's suggestion.

THe couple sound exceptionally immature.

Are the parents involved in organising? And if so are THEIR friends invited? In which case you may want to give them the nod that this has gone out.

Bahrain - but why have it at the Ritz if you can't afford it and if the Oz family are, ahem, 'feral' anyway?

Extremely posh venue + dodgy rellies = recipe for disaster

wow, this is the most outrageously hilarious thing I have read in ages! Please do update us with yours and then their response!