Does anyone remember the bride in Wales charging £££ for hotel rooms?

[cousinswedding]

I don't know of any of you will remember me. I posted months ago when my cousin was planning her wedding in a Welsh castle hundreds of miles away from where we all live. Her wedding is a three day event starting on a Thursday and she asked us to pay to stay in the rooms (£160 per night). When other pulled out she contacted us and said the rooms had gone up so were now £180 so at least £360 for accommodation but more likely three nights so £540. Just for accommodation. My mum is pressuring me to go and we have booked it and waved goodbye to the prospect of a family holiday.

Anyway- cousin and I (used to be close she's been a nightmare in all this) got together today as she wanted to come over and see my outfit for the wedding (in two weeks). She got really frosty with me as my dress is a nude colour- is this a thing?? She's asking me to change it and wear something else. The dress is new and was bought specifically for this occasion and I do have an old green one I could wear but I have worn it to another family wedding and I don't like it that much. The dress I've bought is not cream, more like a pale peach. The bride is wearing white.

I'm loathe to waste more money (can't take it back took the tags off) and resent being ordered around like this. Is nude ok for a wedding or AIBU?

If I was getting married I would have a nice tea and scones breafast after for anyone who came, and tell everyone to save their money and enjoy themselves in whatever way they would like

There is another thread where the bride is doing just that, and her godzillamaids bridesmaids are trying to force her into having evening meals out for everyone and stretching the just-a-nice-length service and reception into the early hours of the morning.

Her wedding looks as though it will be amazing - I wish I was going (and taking tupperware ), and I hope she manages to stand fast against the Monstrous Regiment of Bridesmaids because what she is doing is what she wants, isn't excessively expensive for the guests, and sounds lovely in every respect.

(I was going to do this for my next wedding if there ever is one, then I saw someone had suggested having the guests dressed as the cast of Cats, and having the reception in the Super Bowl (funded by guests, obviously) and suddenly, that was all I wanted . . . )

Oh - sorry Fuzza - just re-read and saw the "Cats" was your idea. Didn't give you credit for what is going to be an amazing celebration.

muthafuzza says it all.

I've never been asked to help pay for a wedding, except for my son's! My niece is getting married this year in a fancy castle which I am sure is costing them a fortune, but the invitation included details of a Travelodge and one more expensive hotel, and as far as I can gather they will provide transport to the venue which is a bit out of the way. So although there will be 5 of us going it won't be as expensive as any of the bridezilla events mentioned here.

I remember that another niece was annoyed that we hadn't given her a wedding present - she got married abroad and we didn't even know about it!

I just cannot understand this stag and hen night business, why would you want to spend hundreds of pounds to go abroad for either when you have the expense of the wedding too? Madness.

But even madder is the much older bride, often not getting married for the first time, who insists on dressing up as a meringue in a virginal white dress costing thousands of pounds. Often her children are there dressed to the nines as bridesmaids and pages. Personally I'm not a fan of small children at weddings...

"Nobody enjoys having To go to a wedding."

Speak for yourself. I love a wedding, but then I have never been to a wedding that in any way resembles anything posted about on MN. Every wedding I have been to has been a reasonable affair with no expensive hen dos, bridezillas or crowd funding to pay for an expensive venue.

The nicest wedding I have ever been to (even nicer than mine, which was quite stressy for me!) was a lovely wedding where the wedding breakfast was a proper english afternoon tea party with little sandwiches and the wedding favours were packs of traditional english cottage garden seeds. No booze because the bride and groom had met in AA.

Friends of DH who I did not know very well. It was in summer. It alternated rain and shine and we had to squeeze into the tent in their back garden. Loved it. Because it was just a joyful, happy glorious event. I still think back about that wedding very often.

Hubby is a wedding entertainer and he has very plush venues that start at £14000 on his books...but others at certain dates can be Much lower.
I'm suspicious op cuz is actually using the guests to pay off the hire of the venue.

I love weddings too I am! But I've only been to more relaxed ones, my favourites being ones where most things were handmade and full of love. They felt like big hugs!

Just to counter a popular myth - brides don't wear white to signal virginity. Queen Victoria wore it to make sure she could be seen by everyone and it became fashionable. In part to show off the fact that you could waste money on a dress to only wear once!

I love a wedding, but then I have never been to a wedding that in any way resembles anything posted about on MN

Me too. I've been to some lovely weddings.

Family ones have always been held at our family home, which has space to seat up to about 70 inside to eat if people don't mind being a bit squashed & scattered over the hall and the sitting & dining rooms. We can squeeze more into a marquee in the courtyard. Family weddings have always been everyone pitching in to help - doing flower arrangements,. making the starters & puddings, and wedding dresses are always home- and hand-made. My mother made all ours with aunts & cousins helping. I have sewn several sets of groom & best man waistcoats (just to add a bit of difference to their morning suits). I think we've all had fairly traditional weddings though, and my male relatives all own the right kinds of suits already so no hiring used ones.

HRH that sounds lovely.

I think some of you are being a bit harsh about people paying for rooms. I would certainly not expect a bride and groom to pay for my overnight accommodation and food on top of the wedding celebrations.
If paying for a room at the venue helps reduce the overall bill then I'm happy to do that for my friends. I wouldn't be happy to be ripped off and it's even better if there are other options to suit different budgets but I'm shocked at how many of you are saying it's so distasteful to be asked to pay for a hotel room. I think it's rather more distasteful to expect not to.

Even if you are charged 150% more than the standard room rate?

Even if the bride said your dress was too cheap?

Even if you travelled for hours and expected to stay 3 nights?

Get out of it!

I wouldn't expect the bride and groom to pay for a room for me to attend a wedding, but I would be annoyed if they expected me to pay for a room in an expensive venue to offset their expenses.

When OH and I got married it was inevitable that some family members had to stay in a hotel. We come from different ends of the country for a start, so his family stayed in a hotel. We picked the hotel for them because it was good value. We had the reception at this hotel because it was convenient for the church as well. We all walked from the church to the hotel as they were close to each other.

I remember the original thread! Wow

I think there are a couple of things going on here, Ivor (FANTASTIC name... just got it!!!! BRILLIANT )

If we're invited to a wedding that more than an hour's drive away (I'm thinking about 2 specifically) then the B+G put in with the invite (or emailed us quietly) some suggestions of local B+Bs, Travellodges, etc. In that case, to me, it's saying "we want you to come and stay for the whole thing, I hope you'll be drunk [at our expense]... Here's somewhere you can crawl off to at the end of the night" And, also, thinking about a 3rd wedding "we live 3+ hours away from you, we want you to be there, would you like to stay with x and y, our good friends who'll also be going who you've met many times before and have said they'll put you up so you can be there".

This is all different from MY WEDDING IS GOING TO LAST 6 MONTHS AND YOU NEED TO BE THERE FOR ALL OF IT AND YOU NEED TO STAY HERE AND IT WILL COST YOU EVERY PENNY YOU WILL EVER EARN AND A KIDNEY

Does that make sense?

sorry, I should say, that in the examples given in my 2nd paragraph, we were expected to pay the cost of our rooms. But the point being that our invitation only extended to as long as the wedding lasted. We weren't invited to breakfast the next day or anything. It was for our comfort and convenience. We could have chosen not to book rooms in those places and to have driven home.

I would certainly not expect a bride and groom to pay for my overnight accommodation and food on top of the wedding celebrations

I'd hope that no reasonable person would - if I choose to attend a wedding knowing that it will involve a hotel stay then I expect to pay for it, along with transport, food, an outfit and all the rest

What I don't expect is to be told where I'm expected to stay, or a massively inflated bill clearly and cynically designed to offset the wedding party's costs

I would certainly not expect a bride and groom to pay for my overnight accommodation and food on top of the wedding celebrations

Why not? If they have a modest wedding fair enough. But if like in the OP they choose a expensive venue which costs several hundred pounds to attend: they want that they can pay for it. I wouldn't fork out hundreds of pounds for anyone's wedding.

I think the polite thing to do is to give people a choice about where they stay and how many nights they stay for, if you are not prepared to foot the bill yourself. Too many people assume that their friends and extended family have nothing better to do with their money and their annual leave than spend it swanning to the opposite end of the country or even the world for someone else's wedding. It's the height of spoilt narcissism and entitlement to plan a destination wedding and then get all marry when everyone is reluctant or non-committal about falling in line with your plans.

It's the same if you want bridesmaids to pay for their own dresses and shoes. Unless you are allowing them to choose exactly what they want to wear and giving them the option to choose something they might wear again then it's just rude to expect them to pay for what you want. Contrary to popular opinion, being asked to be your BM isn't such and enormous joy and privilege that your friends are all delighted to fork out for a dress in a colour and style that doesn't suit them, just because it suits your sister and your cousin.

mardy not marry!

"If people have to stay overnight for a wedding they shouldn't be pressured into staying somewhere out of their budget in order to fund the wedding."

Exactly.

Theres a definite line wrt to when guests should or shouldn't be expected to pay that comes in when guests are being told where they have to stay or that there's no other choice locally.

I suppose the only acceptable way of getting around that one is by specifically not requesting gifts and acknowledging attending the dream wedding is costly enough on its own. But still then it needs to be sucked up that people just won't come.

Im happy to put myself up.in a premier inn etc nearby. Stately home at £500 for 3 nights....on your bike.

What I can't get my head around is how some of these venues present the appalling idea about passing the wedding costs onto guests ... do they just come out and say it, or is there some ridiculous, simpering script along the lines of "we just know your friends will want to help you; it's what everyone does these days"

Either way, the real horror to me is that enough people would even consider this - but they must, otherwise the venues wouldn't risk offence by suggesting it

Just think what all that money would buy you over the years.

A holiday every year for a few years. Or house full of New furniture. Or new car. Or money off your mortgage or to your deposit.

Nah. £25k just for a castle for one day. Money well spent.