birthday celebrations

[Bennois]

I'm going to book a large UK country house for a long weekend for myself and some of my girlfriends (say 10 of us)
AIBU to ask them to contribute towards accommodation?? I am happy to pay the bulk of it, but then there is obviously food/drink/any excursions etc to take into consideration. It's kind of like a hen do I suppose (which I've never had) but a milestone birthday instead. The accommodation at the moment is looking like around 1k, but i don't know where to start in terms of what i pay for, and for what i ask people to chip in for..... I don't want to piss people off before we even get there!!

YABU. Sounds a bit self indulgence tbh.

We’ve done a few of these and it’s been pitched very much as a weekend away with friends that happens to coincide with birthday, so everyone split accommodation cost as they would normally.

The only thing that would make me question that is if the 10 people are from disparate friends groups. We’re a group of eight who all know each other and get together once a year anyway so it’s a bit different. I’d be a bit less keen to pay my way to do a weekend away with ten where, say, I only really knew you and a couple of others.

Orange

It's the assumption that people will be happy to contribute for a birthday celebration away which won't just be accom costs. There will likely be extras and travel/possibly childcare to consider. As PP said if it's a collective thing (and IMO if others had suggested it first) then I think that's different.

I might just be being anti social this early in the morning

I would say you pay for the accommodation, and in the invite outline the rough estimation of all the other costs. The problem with the dividing the cost is:

Unless you are all one big group your asking people to pay to spend time with people they aren’t really friends with
You have chosen the place and budget, and then asked to be reimbursed, that would get my back up
If someone drops out or says no are you dividing their cost amongst all of you, so the cost risks going up.

If you can’t afford to pay for the accommodation than do something else.

I've recently been asked to do something similar for a friends milestone birthday. £150 pp just for accommodation. It seemed ridiculous to me!

It probably is a bit self indulgent tbh, but I've had a shit year, so would like to do something for myself. Like I said, I'm not wanting to offend people, hence asking here first, and am happy to cover majority of costs myself as it is my idea in the first place. Good point about disparate groups though - thanks for that.

We've just done this for a friend, it was a milestone birthday for her. We all chipped in for accom, food and drink. It was brilliant fun!