people to pay at wedding?

[lenovowarrior]

Dear MN, I need your help!

DP and I are getting married later this year when all restrictions are gone. As everything was somewhat uncertain, with Boris' announcement we've suddenly had to plan like mad.

We have a main wedding (MW) abroad which is fancy, 5* hotel, small number of guests, expensive. Booked and sorted. None of this is legally binding.

In the few days before MW we are getting legally married in London. Originally it was just us two and witnesses, discreet. However, with COVID we just want an excuse for a party. 95% of our friends live/work in London. So we are now thinking of making this a small casual and informal event. A lot of the people invited will also be those who can NOT come abroad (due to kids, money or just lack of invite). We want to put no pressure on people to feel the need to attend.

We've decided on a nice informal cocktail bar / drinks event, a bit similar to after work events in the City, where work puts x amount behind the bar, everyone enjoys a bit of a drink after work and then goes home. However I'll be in a white dress.
We've found a private space in a fancy hotel to accommodate around 30 people (maximum). Realistically there would be around 25. The minimum spend to guarantee the space is £1500.

Technically we can afford it, but it would come at impact to our honeymoon and our savings. My ideal would be that we pre-pay for £750 worth of food and drinks and the rest is ordered by other people. This means I'd need at least 25 people to spend £30ish.

Questions:

1. is this a terrible idea?
2. would you be pissed off at paying?
3. would you just leave when bar tab ends?

And for the AIBU poll:
YABU - people won't want to or will just not pay towards it and you'll have to foot it
YANBU - people can easily spend that.

FWIW all our friends have higher paying jobs and regularly spend this amount (more) on an evening in the pub after work.

After the last year everyone will want to be there with bells on chucking money and booze down their necks.... do it your way. Share the costs, people understand.

I would come and spend that and I don’t even know you! X x

That was meant to say I think you could put a little less behind the bar

@lenovowarrior

"I've said people from work who have asked for an invite can join in the evening when it will be paid for (without explicitly saying)"

Is it for fear they might get a free drink? I think this demarcation line is a bit much. So now the eve party is a list of invitees who get in first & then the '"can join"s to boost the takings & get you up to tge £1500. You might need a bouncer to manage the door for any 'too early can join' arrivals & anyone not on the list. I hope it goes well but if I understood what was going on with the tab & being added in to boost the coffers, I'd be a 'no show'...

@Chocolo

Why would you expect people to bother taking time off work, organising child care, paying for flights and accommodation (with the added risk of pandemic) to go to a wedding when you’re already married?

This.....

I would just have a more casual affair, where it wouldn’t be expected that you pay for allll the drinks/food

Most marriages abroad have to be legalised in the UK with a registry office ceremony. These couples also tend to have a second reception at home for those who couldn't attend the abroad wedding. All that is happening here is that the OP and her fiance are going to do it the other way around! Just because you wouldn't do it that way or don't view the abroad ceremony as 'the real wedding' doesn't mean they don't 🙄 OP I don't think you have anything to worry about. There may be a small amount to top up on your initial £750 but not by much. I'd expect a glass of wine at a swanky London Hotel to cost me quite a bit more than I would usually pay where I'm from, but these are people familiar with London prices celebrating with you both I'm pretty sure they would expect to budget at least £30 each anyway. Enjoy your celebrations and congratulations in advance.

I would just put the £1.5k in and tell everyone that once the tab is gone then further drinks will be paid for by them. You can't guarantee that they will pay enough and it just takes the stress out of it.

I would NEVER EVER EVER ask for money. How embarrassing and unacceptable!

But this is exactly what you are doing but without holding out your cap. Just cough up and be done with it. You'll make it back in a day or two.

@DogsnKids

I went to one of these in London. It was nice, very casual 5-9 I think and people invited to come and have a drink after work. There was small eats, asparagus, cheese etc and I think enough for about two drinks behind the bar. It was so casual and after worky though that people literally just showed their faces and left after one drink. I had a diet coke one asparagus spear and left.

Diet coke and an asparagus spear? You know how to live!

@lenovowarrior - thank you for mentioning that, sorry you felt the need to though!
But people won't give up - as I said, there is a vast number of posters who feel that their way is the only right way and they'll never be swayed by other people's experience.

I hope it all goes fabulously well for you!

Christ, some of the messages on here! Imagine how pompous you'd have to be to get this affronted by being asked to pay for some drinks at a celebration!

I've already posted to say I'd absolutely be fine with OP's plan, sounds normal to me. But having read the tone of most messages from the 'absolutely not' brigade I'd go a step further and recommend taking this approach for all events, wherever possible, to keep this lot away!

What happens if the amount the guests pay doesn't total to £1500. Would you have to pay the remainder. I don't think it's too bad as long as the guests have had food and drink provided by yourselves and thereafter if they want to continue drinking more they can pay

Christ, some of the messages on here! Imagine how pompous you'd have to be to get this affronted by being asked to pay for some drinks at a celebration

I know. Can you imagine the chat at the party?

Where's ? I haven't seen them.

Oh, they didn't come. They don't go to parties where you have to buy your own drinks.

See how insane that sounds? In the real world, people look forwards to having a drink and a chat with their friends and family, would probably hope to be fed as part of the occasion, maybe be given wine and water for the table, but expect to buy drinks from the bar as part of the deal too.

@TatianaBis

It's your day, and isn't your responsibility to pay for people's drinks.

I think this is the fundamental divide here. I don’t think it’s a class thing because I’ve been to weddings from all different backgrounds in the U.K., France, Italy and Russia.

Some people think their day all about them. And they expect other people to fund their dream if they can’t afford it.

Whereas others think the event is the host’s responsibility: the guests’ refreshments and comfort is on them.

Particularly so with a wedding where they may have forked out on outfit, travel, present, maybe staying a night somewhere etc.

It's just beyond crass to invite people to celebrate you and then not provide hospitality. Tacky to the extreme.

I don`t think anyone will mind as long as you let everyone know in advance

@MiddleParking

Oh, another manners expert who happens to be needlessly rude and obnoxious.

A lesson on manners from someone who calls people names on mumsnet. The irony.

@Dontlikeveg OP has said all along that this is more of an after work drink sort of thing and that none of the people going have children. Christ, the non-reading opinionated types are out in force on this thread!

The British have such fixed ideas about weddings, it's weird. I'd pay £30 no problem, OP. In Spain they find it weird that the majority of people at British weddings give gifts of a relatively small monetary value. Weddings in Spain are generally all expenses paid, but you usually give the price of the meal per person in cash as a present. For a family member, you'd give more. When me and DP go to a Spanish wedding we give 100€ each as a present. Your London party is cheap for us 😂

Cancel the abroad ceremony. Pay for your guests and have a normal holiday (honeymoon)

@MaskingForIt

You don’t charge people to come to your wedding, it is terribly bad from.

You can afford to pay for it, but you’re paying for a fake ceremony holiday abroad for yourselves instead.

Harshly put, but basically true.

Why should they cancel the abroad part? It's where the bride comes from. Her home country. I'd imagine it's pretty important to her. The majority of people aren't entitled like so many on MN who expect to go to a wedding and everything to be paid for. The rest of us live in the real world and are happy to celebrate with our friends, even if it means paying a bit towards what we're going to eat/drink.

This makes no sense. You are thinking that after drinking the £30 worth of drinks that you are providing each guest will stay on to drink another £30 worth of drinks? That's a huge amount of alcohol - unless all of your friends have serious drinking problems it seems highly unlikely they will average £60 worth of drinks.

I think you should look for a venue where you have put what you want behind the bar with a lower minimum spend. Or where they will let you spend £750 on hot nibbles and, say, two glasses of bubbly each, and then offer a cash bar for other drinks.

Where I live it is the norm for family and friends to pay for the meal and drinks at wedding. People want the feeling of celebration but don’t expect the couple/ family to fund it. Different cultural expectations.

The vehemence of some posters that paid bars at weddings being the norm got me doubting whether I live in a parallel universe where some have paid bars, some partially paid and occasionally it’s all free.

In spite of their protestations that it’s awful to make guests pay, they must live in some narrow social circle and/or not get invited to many weddings because is appears that only 20% of weddings in the U.K. are “all inclusive”. Their insistence that to do otherwise is greedy and not the done thing is untrue and makes them sound like bitchy school girls.