to feel lukewarm about attending this second wedding?

[RobinsAreTerritorialFuckers]

Yes, I feel like a horrible person. But:

My friend got married a couple of years ago. Initially, she had quite big plans (wedding here and in Canada where she's from, big dress, etc. etc.), but she had to move the wedding forward a few weeks because of her job, and along the way she ended up with something a bit simpler. I was there and, with another good friend, we organised a hen do and (on the bride's response to us asking what she'd like) paid for someone to come and do her hair and makeup, and we did all the other things you do. It was a small wedding party - family and close friends - although I thought it was lovely.

At the time, she said she might organise a reception in Canada for friends from home who hadn't been able to make it. It was clear at this point that I would not be able to travel for this, for what it's worth.

Roll on two years, and I have got a save the date card for her 'wedding' in late 2017. Which, apparently, is the 'proper wedding' she thinks she didn't get. There is a link to a wedding website, a large gift list (including the suggestion guests donate for people back in Canada who can't come over here), and an RVSP. Within a week I had a chase-up phonecall asking if I'd got the Save the Date.

I am in two minds here. On the one hand, she is a friend, who ended up having a much smaller wedding than she obviously wanted, and she will clearly be upset if I don't come. On the other, I feel a bit treated as a cash cow/prop in her weddings, and - if all goes smoothly - I will have a still quite new baby when her second wedding takes place. We're not announcing the pregnancy for another six weeks, but even if we could say that was the reason for turning down the invitation, I still feel fed up. Am I being unfair?

Bonkers, absolutely bonkers. I agree with LyndaNotLinda and I, too, would like a huge wedding. I deserve a special, magical day where I get to be a princess in a meringue . Screw the bloke - don't have one - but I don't need that.

If it was a vow renewal 10 years later or something id go but this hooha nah id tell her nicely to jog on

Go, get fed, no gift

I love this idea of donating towards the friends and family from Canada who can't afford to come.... How does that even work?

Do the bride and groom ask all their friends and family whether they can afford it and put together a list of the ones who can't?

What happens then? Supposing they get donations of £1000 and that would pay for one guest...... do the bride and groom rank the guests from their favourite to their least favourite.... "Aunty Ann is now coming! Just another £250 needed and Uncle George can join her"

Or do they randomly pull a name out of a hat? Or do they get a random friend to pull a name out of a hat and the bride and groom don't know until the big day? Surprise guests from Canada are kept behind a screen ready for their big reveal when the bride and groom get to see how many there and who they are?

Or do the donating guests get to pick online who they are donating to? So if you want to gift £100 you might put £75 towards the groom's best mate from college who is hilarious and £25 towards the bride's great gran who is rather sweet?

Or could there be some sort of online voting? Anyone can vote and when there's enough money to pay for one airline ticket the person with the most votes at that stage gets it?

This could be a great reality TV show

How do you know you will have a quite new baby in late 2017?

Death

Years ago I knew someone who restaged their whole wedding because the original wedding video was a bit rubbish. Apparently without the perfect keepsake video she felt that the wedding hadn't really happened.

attsca. What?!!!

Death. Fab but I wanted uncle Eddie because Aunty Ann burps and farts at the most inappropriate time so may spoil the video and we wouldn't want wedding part 3. It'd quickly turn into a horror movie - the do over day ones. Maybe the guests donating cash could get to post a vote on who they'd both like to have come over based on profiles of the individuals.

Not both I mean MOST LIKE TO COME OVER

Maybe the guests donating cash could get to post a vote on who they'd both like to have come over based on profiles of the individuals

Maybe the guests donating cash could get to post a vote on who they'd both like to have come over based on profiles of the individuals

I think that Freudian slip correctly predicted how many people would be donating....

In the nicest way possible , you really don't have to ask this question do you ?
Don't go unless you actually want to !

Indeed deathstare

Someone's been having an affair and is being made to pay

I think it's fine to just not go. I don't think you need to make up an excuse or anything. DH and I have mooted renewing our vows on our 10th anniversary but we are planning to do it Vegas style with just us and our kids. We may throw a party for family and friends but that will be a strict no presents/dress code/theme affair. It will be our celebration and I'd never dream of putting people to further expense. I always wanted a Vegas wedding but had the white wedding shebang here because it was what our families wanted. But it was still my choice so why should others have to foot the bill for my do over? Crazy.

Yup Whatsername17, DH and I have talked about a Vegas-style vow renewal too! That's the only second wedding idea that appeals.

But redoing a whole wedding day just because you weren't happy with the first one is total self-indulgent madness!! Unless you get married in Bora Bora with a handful of guests and want to do another 'special day' for anyone who couldn't make it, it just sounds like the most colossal waste of money to me.

I can't bear all this 'princess for a day,' 'money's-no-object-even-if-we-have-to-pay-it-off-for-the-next-20-years' bollocks. Surely the most important thing about a wedding is the marriage that comes after it?

(Can you tell I did my wedding day on an absolute shoestring? Think my entire budget was 2 grand. And I wouldn't have changed a thing...it was bloody brilliant)

Surely the only party where you'd have gift list, paying £xxx for accommodation and other expectations on guests is an actual wedding. A vow renewal/reenactment/whatever doesn't count so it should be a party that is hosted properly by the hosts like any other. Anything else is bonkers madness.

That's my view Sorebigtoes. We'll probably ask our guests to bring some booze for themselves to drink over the course of the weekend but that's normal for our crowd, they'd do the same for any party IYSWIM? But gift lists...nope. Beyond naff.

Although, maybe this is the new way to upgrade the kitchen/bathroom...renew vows complete with gift list whenever the house starts getting a bit tired

Sorry, I'm a bad person and went out yesterday, but thank you. I am very tempted to use a variation on the 'I have such treasured memories of helping with first/actual one' line. Great. But I will probably be boring and say something polite.

The money for Canada thing - sorry that was unclear. At the first wedding, the plan was she'd have a second reception in Canada for friends/family who couldn't make the trip. Which isn't very unusual, and seemed quite reasonable to me, although she'd been referring to it as the 'second wedding' from quite early on.

Now it seems the 'second wedding' isn't going to be in Canada anyway (begging the question why it needs doing at all), but we've been told that donations will be used to help Canadian family/friends make it over here (or get them over there, I'm not sure).

I don't follow why she hasn't just done this second wedding in Canada.

Tell her to pay for the transportation and accommodation of her own guests

How do these folk get away with this kind of grabby behaviour....

Was the first wedding a religious ceremony and if not, will the 2nd one be?

In france it's quite common to have 2 ceremonies as church ceremonies aren't legally binding (the whole separation of church and state), often both will be done on the same day, but also it's quite common to have the legal wedding first, then a long gap until the "real" wedding (which has the big party). There's also a lot of couples who do the legal bit only with every intention of booking a church wedding later on, then life gets in the way and never do.

It does sound like your friend always thought of her actual wedding as just the legal bit and at some point she planned to have a "real" wedding.

Unless you genuinely don't want to go and wouldn't want to go if she'd not had a first wedding already or if you feel strongly this is "wrong", go but don't get another gift. I wouldn't even mention it. She knows you went and got her gifts the first time round.

Oh and to the "why" if she's not going to Canada for it, it could well be that if she had thought in the first place there wouldn't be a Canada ceremony/party, she would have refused to have the cheap/low key wedding when she did - but insisted on waiting until they could afford a big do, and now with more of her life in the uk it actually makes more sense to have the big wedding in the uk.

Was there immigration issues that pushed through the timing of the first wedding?

The whole Canada thing is unbelievable.

The real question is - is this one doesn't live up to her expectations does she get another go?

dino - sort of. It was a registry office wedding and she is religious, but her husband is an atheist and I don't think this will be super-religious either.

banana - oh, trust me, it is true! And I dunno.

Politely decline the invitation and think no more about it.

Pah, what nonsense!