AIBU to ignore the "honeymoon registry"

[NotAHappyBunnyHugger]

School friend is getting married this autumn. We are now in our mid-20s.
My partner and I are invited to the evening do, which starts at half 5. On the invitation and wedding website, there is no mention of an evening meal, just cake and welcome drinks, then a cash bar.

In the envelope with the invitation, they have included a card asking people to contribute money towards their honeymoon rather than giving physical gifts. I resent this a bit, when I'm paying for transport, accommodation, and a new outfit to fit the wedding's "theme", and not even getting an evening meal when I'm there. It feels a bit cheap.

I had already bought the couple a gift (a household item, but a really nice version that's handmade in the city I live in), but now I don't even want to give them that! The whole thing reminds me of kids at school who'd invite the whole class to their birthday party to get more presents.

I haven't been to any weddings before. Is this just normal? My partner and I are getting married in a couple of months and we've been careful to only invite the number of people we can afford to host properly (i.e. with plenty of food and booze). We wouldn't dream of asking our friends to pay for our holiday!

YABU - honeymoon registries are normal and acceptable. Get with it

YANBU - asking for gifts is tacky. People should pay for their own holidays

As I explained: it’s acceptable in your social circle so you assume that applies to the whole country, as have no experience of circles in which it is not. Generally MN discussion on the matter is divided fairly equally - and it is not defined by who cba to post about it on this particular thread.

Generally on MN, weddings are an offensive imposition and the only way to do them right is to get married in a muddy puddle while wearing a bin bag and not do anything celebratory or enjoyable or else you're clearly a shallow materialistic princess who isn't really in love and will be divorced next week.

Ah, ok. Sure, you can bring in the any imaginary other people who agree with you but just aren't on this thread if you like. It doesn't make it any more convincing that yours is anything other than a minority view.

The trouble a PP had trying to find a venue that would allow them to not have a cash bar given that it is such a normal feature is a fairly strong one.

This is a very small sample. I’m telling you it’s not acceptable among sections of the population. What you choose to believe I really don’t care.

Oh, I absolutely believe that you don't like them. Whether you speak for significant numbers of the population is another matter. They happen a lot in the UK, though, so it does seem silly to take them personally.

Oh I believe you. But those sections are very small ones. The sections where it is fine are far bigger.

If you like to imagine it’s imaginary that’s up to you. I really don’t care whether you’re convinced or not.

I can see the corporate wedding industry in this country is driving the practice but that doesn’t make it ok and there are plenty of ways round it.

For someone who doesn't care, you've posted a lot on the matter, and at times very heatedly.

If it really were so self evident that huge swathes of the UK population find cash bars offensive - and it would have to be self evident, if it's true - why would we need so much telling?

I don’t care what individual posters think, the part I care about is that I think it’s a shame that principles of good manners and good hospitality that are still strong in other countries are eroded here, and that people are naive and mercenary enough not to question it.

We had a cash bar and 17 day guests! Best. Wedding. Ever. My guests were not offended by the cash bar, but if they were to have been they wouldn't have got an invite!!

Why am i being naive and mercenary when I say I'm happy to pay for a couple of G&Ts after being invited to a wedding where I've been fed, been given a few different glasses of wine and fizz and generally had a lovely time? I like weddings. I like the people I know well enough to have invited me.

I'd rather get to go to enjoy more friends' weddings because their guest list extended to me than miss out on them because their desire to pay for everyone's G&Ts on top of everything else meant they could only afford a smaller event.

But if it's very common and established, to the point where it's hard to find a venue that doesn't do it, then it's not bad manners or bad hospitality. It's the norm, expected. I've never been surprised by a cash bar because I know they're very much a thing and not unusual.

You don't like them, fine, but that alone doesn't rule out the established practice and automatically make it rude, inhospitable and inferior.

@DappledThings And with these "we will pay for everything" wedding, I do wonder who actually is the "we"?
Is it the bride and groom, or parents?

I’m so over this discussion, you’re happy that’s great. Next time I have friends I’ll give them a meal and charge them for their G&Ts and see how they react.

Hosting friends at your house for dinner is the same as a wedding? OK then. At any rate, I don't think any of my friends would be offended if I had them round for dinner and asked them to bring a bottle. I think they would anyway.

I just tried to look up cash bars on Debretts but I can't find anything. A quick look through various UK wedding websites and forums, though, very much gives me the impression that most people think it's absolutely fine, though some think it's better to communicate it to guests ahead of time. Outside of the UK is a different matter, but within, there seems to be a pretty clear consensus.

I suppose one could bewail how dreadful and inferior it is for there to be a norm that doesn't meet one's personal preference - although nothing is stopping you from doing what you want at your own wedding, and nobody is saying that picking up the tab is wrong, just that cash bars aren't a problem. Or you could just accept that when something is a social norm, then by nature it's not an insult and so there's no point taking it personally.

If you really object that much to buying your own booze after 6pm, if you really think it's so classless and beneath you, then do the couple a favour and don't go.

It has become an accepted practice relatively recently in this country along with the fashion for opulent weddings outside the couple’s budget, charging bridesmaids for their dresses, charging guests incl family for massively overpriced rooms as part of a wedding package, that if the guests were to decline the couple would struggle to afford the venue etc. All of this is equally ghastly imo. But to misquote L Mencken - no-one ever lost money underestimating the taste of the British public. And so it will continue.

If you really object that much to buying your own booze after 6pm, if you really think it's so classless and beneath you, then do the couple a favour and don't go.

As I said, I’ve been to 100s of weddings and never thus far been charged for drinks. So it’s never come up.

Anyway I’m done on this subject.

Well, I'm sorry that British culture is so very beneath you to the point where its existence offends you. But it's unlikely to bend to your finer sensibilities, so for the sake of your blood pressure, I suggest you just accept it for what it is and stop taking it personally. Nobody is trying to offend you, it's just how things are done here nowadays.

Still, I somehow feel that there might be more going on here than the tragedy of British culture not being the same as elsewhere. Like the poster who decided all evening invitations are insulting, cynical ploys to get more gifts, after finding out via one that the bride wasn't as close to her as she thought.

It might be because they're a bit scared of what would happen otherwise!

Every wedding I've been to in Ireland has a cash bar too. Seemed similar to the UK in this respect.

one for hyperbole aren’t you? 😆

one for hyperbole aren’t you? 😆 @NonPlayerCharacter

@Mirabai

you have not been to “100s of weddings”

not. a. chance.

Evening invitations usually don’t include a meal and this is very normal. Usually a buffet at some point in the evening for everyone since it’s been a while since meal etc. but that’s not a meal for the evening guests. Just snacks really. Nothing wrong with ignoring the suggested/requested gift and going for something you bought yourself. Just give the gift you bought.

@trackertoo why have you pegged @NonPlayerCharacter as an 'odd character?' Because her clearly expressed and helpful ( to me) explanation of how etiquette helps lift the tone and mood of a wedding doesn't chime with your view that guests can turn up in a potato sack? She has assessed misery guts Mullins perfectly. If that's odd.. I'm here for it!!