Asking guests to pay - AIBU?

[Juliajuju]

Fiance and I have recently got engaged and have been deciding on wedding arrangements. We've not long bought our first home, meaning that most of our savings have been spent for now and although getting married is very important to us, having a large impressive wedding is not.

We are both keen to marry by next year and we've therefore decided on a low key church ceremony with family only (50 guests), followed by all of us going for a meal at a nice small restaurant nearby, which as confirmed they are able to host a private dinner for us all.

As much as we'd love to pay for everyone, on top of the other wedding fees, we simply can't afford to pay for 50 lots of three course meals and drinks. We've come up with the idea of asking guests to pay for their own meals rather than giving us any wedding gift of any kind.

Upon mentioning this to DF's parents, they were horrified and felt this would be the height of rudeness. Are we being unreasonable?

Sorry but another one for BU here! It’s fair enough not to ask your guests for gifts but a contribution to honeymoon / life together (personally I don’t like this and we didn’t do it but it is really common now) so you can assume you will get some of your costs back if you take that route. However, I think it is unreasonable for you to ask your guests to pay for food. Sorry! I would say go smaller or more low key.

Completely unreasonable. Host the wedding you can afford, not the one you aspire to.

I know it's not the done thing but it wouldn't bother me.

YABU, sorry.

I went to a similar one, Ellisandra. BBQ after a gorgeous outdoor wedding. Bridge and groom layed on loads of homebrew beer, lager, ale and plenty of wine, plus meats and desserts. People brought tons of food and more beer and wine :). There was no 'en lieu of gifts' because they didn't mention gifts on the invitations. It was a wonderful day.

Of course YABU.

Gifts are not an entitlement at a wedding. Asking guests to attend a dinner that they have to pay for in lieu of a gift suggests you expect all guests to otherwise pony up with a gift to the same value as a three-course restaurant dinner (and drinks?!).

A wedding is an occasion where you invite people you love to share your joy at a lifetime event that is important to you. It's your event, you pay for it. It's not a budgetary trade-off where you can get your guests to cover some of the party costs in exchange for not giving a gift that is entirely voluntary in the first place.

Do the village hall buffet option.

In which case it is perfectly OK to say it is a party, ask people you know to bring a bottle, bring a dish, or have a pay bar.

Ellisandra - I have been to similar weddings - a lovely lovely wedding in a village hall with a BBQ at the end that we all brought some stuff for, and then they set up the speakers in the hall and pushed the chairs aside and everyone was encouraged to stick their iPod on with a playlist. It was a bit like a house party.

DH and I couldn't afford a proper wedding so we didn't have one. Immediate family only for the ceremony, and a cream tea afterwards. Perfect. 50 people sounds quite big to me.

Sorry but another say YABU.

If you can't afford a sit down meal, you can't afford that. Cut your numbers dramatically, or can you do more of a buffet /tea in the church hall afterwards? Not a big do, but can be delivered a lot cheaper. I would be happier to be asked to bring a dish to a buffet style do rather than pay for a meal.

Don't do it, it would be the height of bad manners. You need to have a small village hall style reception where it would be more acceptable to ask guests to provide a dish. Even so not sure how that would work in practice.

50 guests is a fair number. Not really low key.

Go through registry office with both sets of parents, and siblings if necessary. Then go for a nice meal afterwards just the small group of you.

I’m agreeing with others really that it’s a bit rude. Church ceremonies still can cost hundreds of pounds so you could instead have a registry office ceremony and use that money for a reception. Another option particularly if a church important would be to have a reception in a village hall type place and do your own food, even something like an afternoon tea would be very cheap then you could go for a meal with just family after.

Have a smaller wedding or delay it and save up for it

You don’t need to have a 3 course meal for everyone. Restaurants have set menus that you could do. BBQ is also a great option.

If you are really skint, get married at 2 in the afternoon and host everyone for tea and cake and be done by 6. That way you don’t have to serve a full meal in between lunch and dinner.

Or cut your guest list to what you can afford.

The ceremony is about the couple, the party is a thank you to the guests for coming to the ceremony. It’s inappropriate to make them pay for their own thank you.

If you cant afford it why should your guests pay to attend your wedding meal?

Have local hall, buffet and decorate it yourself. Ask guests to bring a bottle. Or wait till you can afford it.

We actually found a meal was cheaper than hiring a hall, doing a buffet etc, when we started to factor in decorations, catering etc. Different maybe if you can do it yourself, but the stress of it all filled me with dread.

Instead of a three course meal, could you just do two courses be ask the restaurant to do a ‘per head’ price. Also, do not do unlimited drinks. Either pay for a welcome and toast drink, or buy x number of bottles of wine/ whatever, and guests can buy additional drinks if they like.

No way!!

Bride, sorry! There was tons of food!

At a village hall type reception you can also ask people to bring a bottle; be cheaper for people than buying drinks at a normal reception and I’ve seen it go down quite well

I would be more than happy to pay. I don't see the issue. I'd rather that than get invited as a tag along evening invite

Yeah you can't ask people to pay. That's pretty awful. One wedding I went to was in a rented hall and was bring a dish instead of wedding presents. Another the bride & groom laid on picnic baskets and a bottle of fizz per couple; reception was at a local cricket club.

There are ways round it but you can't expect people to pay.

Definitely unreasonable, sorry! If a big impressive wedding isn't what you want, go to the registry office. Either have a smaller wedding that you can afford, or wait longer and save up.

I suppose if it was close family/friends asking, and there were extenuating circumstances (like their house burnt down in between setting the date and the wedding itself, or they don't have long to save because a close relative is very unwell) then I'd suck it up. But we're cutting corners on our own upcoming cheapo wedding, and are nowhere near in a position to put a deposit down on a house, so I think I'd feel fairly resentful about being asked to subsidise your big day. Sorry.

If - like us! - you can't afford a 3 course sit down meal for 50 then you need to either invite fewer people or do a stand up buffet at a village hall/rugby club/posh friends' nice big garden.

Also we're doing the full works with 60 guests so I think 50 is pretty big

50 people is not really that many, presumably it's close friends and family. I wouldn't have an issue if i was close eno7gh to know the situation. If I was a work colleague for example I might just not bother