To not go to a long haul wedding

[Ihatebunting]

Have name changed for this. DH's sibling is recently engaged and they have decided to get married in a v far away destination in 2019. We are already paying to attend a close friend's wedding abroad in 2018. The kitchen is on its last legs and my car needs replacing. Having priced up the wedding, it will cost us approx £3-4K for us to go (DH, me and kids). The place they are booking is one of those areas where all hotels are 4 and 5 star all inclusive places, so staying cheaply isn't really an option and flights are expensive. We've done the sums and could just about afford it but would have to sacrifice a lot over the next 12 months. We'd have to put a lot of plans on the back burner. Is it acceptable to decline a sibling's wedding invite on these grounds?

I would think it UR if you went to a friend's destination wedding but not a sibling's ...however I am also struggling to think of a place that only has 4 or 5 resorts.

Just to weigh in with overseas wedding reasons. DH and I from different countries. Neither families would travel to each others country which would have made it one sided and awkward. We descided to get married in Vegas as neither of us wanted a big wedding. We didn't tell anyone but a couple of friends (three) guessed via the choice of destinations and came out.

Couldn't afford to pay for friends and family but didn't expect them to pay up for our nuptials. 12 years and 2 kids later - no regrets.

I wouldn't go and I wouldn't worry about going to the friends but not the sibling either. The friend asked first, you accepted first and that may have wiped out your budget. You can't decline to spend that money elsewhere (it may not even be possible if you've bought flights etc). So yes it's fine and no it won't look bad that you're going to the friends wedding abroad.

Don't go.
Destination weddings are just that. A destination .
If you want to go there and make it a holiday-fine.
If not- don't.

People choosing an overseas wedding cannot get offended if people decline due to cost or inconvenience. Even for family. Bride and Groom are BU if they don’t accept this. Even more so for a long haul, outside Europe destination. Do either of the couple have a family connection to the wedding location? I always think it’s strange when people get married abroad and then get annoyed if folk can’t come particularly if there’s no real family connection to the place they’ve chosen I.e just some random resort complex in the Caribbean. Each to their own!

Sorry @WooWooSister that should be only 4 or 5 star resorts.

Friend's wedding is in a long haul location but somewhere it is possible to do on the cheap and we booked it long before the sibling got engaged. We don't tend to holiday abroad often so this was going to be our big holiday, with the following couple of years spent doing cheaper, UK based holidays.

and also had the best man invite his girlfriend of 2-3 months without asking us first.

Have I read that right - you asked guests to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to watch you get married somewhere none of you even live and you didn't automatically include a plus one in the invite? Did you really expect people to attend a destination wedding solo?

OP as others have said, you can turn the invite down, YANBU. Since you're going to a friend's destination wedding your DH should explain to his DB why you can make that one but not DB's. Maybe see if there's something you can do for them here that would be a bit of a marker of their marriage - a special meal with family when they return, perhaps?

YANBU but think carefully about how you word why you can’t go - if you say “we can’t afford it” and then buy a new kitchen just before the wedding, it could be perceived as choosing the kitchen over sharing in the joy of the special day of your loved ones —bleurgh—

If people do LH weddings they cannot be remotely surprised if family/friends don't go.

Perfectly understandably why OP's H wouldn't want to spend £££ and leave travelling to lovely destination without his wife and children.

I think you're perfectly entitled to not go. Overseas weddings are really expensive and just because the bride and groom can afford it doesn't mean that everyone can.

However, the problem I foresee is that you've agreed to go to another overseas wedding of someone not as close. I wouldn't be surprised if you get a lot of aggro from family along the lines of 'Well you can afford to go to X's wedding, so why not DH's db?' You'll have to have your answers ready and both be on the same page. Any wavering from either of you and you'll find you've somehow agreed to go.

@boomboomcousin They knew we wanted a small ceremony and actually wasn’t really fussed if anyone came - only really invited The snall amount of people we did because I thought my mother would have killed me and included the best man because we know he loves the city as much as we do, he is reasonably well off, and has family nearby he visits. He was single at the time and was constantly proclaiming he wasn’t interested in a partner as he was too busy, and we had already invited his mum and sister. I didn’t actually mind him inviting her, I just think it was polite to ask us first, to which the answer would have been ‘but of course’.

You don't have to go at all, your DH could go solo and share a room, you do what you want and what you can.

There's nothing wrong with destinations weddings, they can end up a lot cheaper than a big thing locally and prevent all the drama about work colleague, cousin unknown and the MIL neighbours not being invited. There's nice weather, the couple loves the place. Many people get married in this country without any connection with the place whatsoever, they just liked the venue.

The invitation is not a summon, just make your excuses if you want to.

For my sibling, I would make the effort if I possibly could and make a full holiday out of it, even if they were getting married in Australia. Personally, I would think my kitchen can wait and a holiday is a lot more important, but you do what you want.

People have destination weddings because it's cheaper for them and pushes the cost onto their guests. However if you do this you have to accept that some people will decline. They can't expect people to sacrifice necessities for their wedding.
Yanbu

pushes the cost onto their guests.

Not really , if people don't want to attend they won't. Frankly, I'd rather be invited to a wedding on the beach somewhere than a wedding in North Scotland - nothing against Scotland, but I am in the South of England, so that's quite a trek and it ends up being very expensive!

Don’t go. Tell them now that you won’t be there and why. If enough family/friends say no then they might change their plans, or organise a “reception” party at home when they get back.

It’s a lot of money to find and it’s not really any of their business if you choose to spend it on a kitchen instead so yanbu to say you’ve committed to another wedding (doesn’t matter who it is, you’ve connitted!), need a new kitchen and potentially a car so you won’t be able to attend.

I don’t understand why anyone on here thinks you should feel guilty about choosing to spend £4K on sonething you choose! Don’t lie, say it as it is - they’ve made their choice and need to accept the cons with the pros.

Also, if they were desperate for you or anyone else to be there, they’d have paid for you or booked a more accessible wedding venue.

We always decline weddings abroad, it's an invite not a summons.

However his brother may feel that he was willing to travel abroad with the whole family for a friends wedding but not for his. I'd be declining the friends wedding and prioritising his siblings.

We've already paid for the majority the costs of the friend's wedding @YellowMakesMeSmile, they invited us over a year ago.

It’s not just the money: we ‘budget’ our leave from work to cover childcare, a (cheap) family holiday etc. We can’t be using days to go abroad for gratuitous ‘destination ‘ weddings.

When we considered a destination wedding, we presumed we would be paying for the flights and hotel for both sets of parents, both siblings and the bridesmaid out of our wedding budget. Anyone else would be "nice to have", if they wanted to being +1's, they would have to pay the extra. (In the end we got married in U.K.)

If your DH's sibling really needed him there, they would offer to pay.

You can't really afford it if you need an new car and new kitchen and you will have to go without to pay for this.

Explain, with a 2019 wedding, they have time to change it to uk/Europe if they realise few of their "must have" guests can make it.

We have a standard policy that we politely decline invitations to weddings abroad. It's just too much bother and uses up holiday allowance from work.

No one gets married long haul away and wants lots of people to go.

I knew someone who very much expected all her guests to dutifully trot off to join in the destination wedding, and who threw a serious hissy strop when people understandably declined. I also knew the sister, who filled me in on the monumental family argument that followed when her family tried to help the bride understand that if you have a wedding abroad people may choose not to attend. Seems she got it in the end, wedding was moved to the UK.

I think expecting guests to fork out a tenth of what attending this wedding would cost is pushing it.

I'd decline.

DH has popped round to talk to sibling about it. Hope they are ok with it. Honestly don't want to upset them, we get on very well. I think it will likely be MIL who has the issue with us not going, sibling is very reasonable and I don't think they expect loads of people to go.