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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Tell me about your CF stories involving weddings/parties

19 replies

Lorddenning1 · 07/09/2019 09:10

Inspired a little bit by the cringes wedding stories thread but also by an invite I got recently,,,,
A friend of the family gets married abroad and my sister, who is her best friend takes her family and goes as she is her bridesmaid, all fine other than they hardly saw them for the 2 weeks they were there, they get home and throw a party to celebrate with all their friends and family who couldn't go. The venue is a generic labour club place, which I think is free of charge to use, and starts at 7pm, at the bottom of the invite it says "no buffet will be provided" I'm like wtf, I have never seen this before. So basically she wants us to go to celebrate their wedding and bring a gift but not to even feed us, is this the height of CF, is u can't afford a buffet then don't have a party, I have decided she can get stuffed I'm not going.
She has also sent a message to the bride maids asking if they can help her set the room up with her,,,

Do you have any better CF stories?
Let's share

OP posts:

Lockheart · 07/09/2019 09:11

What's your AIBU?

JoyceDivision · 07/09/2019 09:15

Not sure what's wrong with above! Party to celebrate being married, it's a night out at a cheap venue so drinks will be cheap.

You don't usually get fed for free whenever you have a night out, it's not the wedding, it's just a party.

Did the invite say gifts were expected? If not, just take card.

Jimdandy · 07/09/2019 09:21

Yes, similar to your story a friend got married but didn’t want to pay for anything. She was asking around for a free/cheap DJ only wanting to pay £50.

She kept dropping hints about buying the food and then “just paying someone £100 to do it for us” when no one took the bait they decided not to have a party and just have the ceremony and go straight off to Legoland all this would be fair enough, but the CFery comes in that despite not even getting as much as cup of tea they still put a poem in asking for cash as a present!!

Fair enough don’t have a party just invite to the ceremony but then to do that just rude/grabby

Jimdandy · 07/09/2019 09:22

My sisters friends provided envelopes for cash and numbered them so they knew who gave what ☹️🤐

thisshitgotreal · 07/09/2019 09:25

I went to a wedding where on the gift table they had a little note set up saying if people still wanted to give a gift, but hadn't brought one along, here are the bride and grooms bank details

emilybrontescorsett · 07/09/2019 09:26

I don’t see what’s wrong in the ops senario.
The couple married abroad.
They had a do/ get together upon their return.
Drinks would be cheap and those who want to celebrate with the bride and groom can do so.
You don’t have to take a gift.
You don’t have to go,
Personally if you can’t be bothered to go on a very cheap night out with close friends to celebrate then I’d say your friendship won’t be missed.

FrangipaniBlue · 07/09/2019 09:26

Friend decided to throw a surprise party for her DHs landmark birthday.

Booked the venue, sent out invitations and arranged for the venue to do the buffet but then asked all the guests to pay for the buffet themselves

Original poster

Lorddenning1 · 07/09/2019 09:28

I posted it in AIBU for traffic and to see if I am being unreasonable for not going and is this a normal thing to do

OP posts:

Original poster

Lorddenning1 · 07/09/2019 09:31

The invite says you have been invited to an evening reception to celebrate the wedding of .......
(No buffet will be provided) maybe I have been raised differently but I have already been taught that if you are hosting a party, birthday/christening/baby shower etc you always feed your guest, no matter what, and you normally get a small gift or a token present in return, is how these things work isn't it?

OP posts:

Ash39 · 07/09/2019 09:32

A friend's 30th birthday. Booked a fancy restaurant for 20 guests. Was told in advance meal plus drinks ( all in) would be £40, and we would all pay for ourselves. We were all fine with this. Arrived for a drinks reception before the meal, servers handing out glasses of champagne etc.

Meal was ok, loads of wine, fancy water bottles etc. Some guests had to leave earlier but coughed up £40 and left.

Bill at end of night came to £130 each!!! It turned out the drinks weren't included after all and we also had to supplement the ones that left early...

We were all a bit shocked...

Original poster

Lorddenning1 · 07/09/2019 09:34

And there is nothing on the invite asking for gifts but like I said, if I was going to a party, I would normally take a gift, I wouldn't show up empty handed, some people are going to the party and taking a hamper and some people are ordering a pizza, I'm still a bit

OP posts:

Original poster

Lorddenning1 · 07/09/2019 09:37

@Ash39 did u all pay :(

OP posts:

burnttoastandjam · 07/09/2019 09:58

We went to a foreign destination wedding where the wedding planner went around the tables several times with a bucket, asking people for cash!

We were

LagunaBubbles · 07/09/2019 10:15

You don't usually get fed for free whenever you have a night out, it's not the wedding, it's just a party

Well exactly it's a party. And food should be provided at a party. People expect to pay for their own drinks but not to put on any food for your party guests is poor.

Sparklyshoes16 · 07/09/2019 10:41

Went to a wedding a few years ago as a church and evening guest only. We've known the couple before we got married and used to see them often (a group of us that we're not all day guests decided to go to just the evening part as didn't want to drive that far and hang around in the grounds whilst they had their wedding breakfast for 5 hours for the evening part to start (would have considered it if there was somewhere for us to go but was in the middle of nowhere plus DH was abit miffed as they were all day guests at ours).

When we got to the entrance there was a town cryer type person at the door shouting a random poem in old English basically saying min £20 'donation' the entrance was that narrow we had to queue single file so couldn't avoid the poor lad who looked mortified stood with a donation box! We had already spent £50 from an amazon wedding gift list). We got inside to find it was just salad and some weird bowls of nut mix and breadsticks for the evening buffet that everyone kept digging their hands into. I would have totally understood if they were short on money but they are definitely not couple wise and family wise!

For half a pint of coke £3, pints starting at £4.50 and single spirits at £7 plus mixer we know they don't set the prices but we were abit at the prices!...ended up leaving after a few hours (as we were starving) and going to a McDonalds on the way home to find to find about 30 other guests in there!

Witchinaditch · 07/09/2019 13:44

Don’t worry Op, this is MN where they hate weddings and you’re not supposed to spend more than £30 on your entire day! I agree with you OP it is cheeky to not at least provide a buffet! MN is not your audience for this though.

HotChocolateLover · 07/09/2019 13:53

They definitely should have provided a buffet. Considering you can do a buffet from somewhere like Morrison’s for about £5 a head to include basics such as sandwiches, sausage roll and pasties then they were being tight. If they’d pushed the boat out a bit then they could have got loads!

Deadringer · 07/09/2019 13:55

I agree with you op, food is pretty standard at a party. Not a wedding and no one else in my family thought it was cheeky so maybe iabu but, it was my nephew's 21st birthday and we were all invited to a restaurant, set 3 course meal, it was made clear that we all paid for ourselves. No problem with that as my db couldn't afford to pay for us all but, when I went to order dessert (that I had paid for) sil told me that the restaurant had provided a cake instead of desert. So not only did we give our nephew a gift and pay for our own meals, basically paying for his party, we paid for his birthday cake too.

Sparklyshoes16 · 07/09/2019 16:26

@HotChocolateLover that type of wedding is one of the best weddings we've ever been to! They had bought loads of tasty platters from Morrison's and then we all had to bring a homemade dessert/savoury each (instead of money/present) absolutely loved it. The bride and groom had saved very hard for their dream honeymoon and didn't have much left to invest on the wedding no issues and was happy to give a little money to them too! To think of it it was really lovely as everyone chipped in their own little way such one of my friends was the photographer another upcycled and added beautiful beads and things to the bridesmaid dresses, cars from start up co. etc

OP they definitely should have provided food YANBU.

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