Pissed off at friends birthday plans

[Alarmingghhh]

It's a big birthday and she wants to rent out a space in a poshish bar, I had heard all about it, sounded good, I told her was available to come etc.

Well she's just sent us all our invites and she is charging a fee basically to cover the cost of reserving space. You do get something for the price aka your "ticket" includes 2 drinks, but I just think its really cheeky?! She has savings so it's like use your savings or else lower your expectation?!

You don't get to dictate how the birthday girl chooses how to spend her birthday!

But you are always free to decline any invite

Well don't go then.

Then she can ask. Generally you can have something else if you wish. It’s not like they say wine or give us your money for nothing, it’s a min spend thing making it easy for them. I suspect she does drink wine, and hence why the birthday girl used that drink,

But £15 for two glasses of wine is nit unreasonable surely?

How are they any different? I'll spell it out in short sentences.
She wants to do a specific thing - it's not relevant what the thing is.
The thing costs money
You'd expect her to pay for everyone in some instances but not in other instances
Where's the logic?

So she's asking you to pay £15 which covers the area and 2 drinks for yourself but that's unreasonable
But if she had just said 'let's meet at the pub' you'd be happy spending that money on drinks for yourself AND would have been happy to spend more money buying her drinks?

Either way you spend money and get drinks and somewhere to sit.
Why is one cheeky and the other completely reasonable?

It's £10 a glass of wine here, not even anywhere specifically posh, so that sounds a bargain and I'd be happy to pay it.

£15 for a friends birthday is fine.

It's certainly not worth all the outrage or a MN thread.

Only issue I see is that it's wine when I drink cider or perry.

Exactly! It's £15.

If they had gone to the pub instead (which OP thinks wouldn't be cheeky), unless it's spoons or somewhere, it's very likely 2 drinks would cost that or near enough anyway, plus with the bar it's a nicer venue AND they have a guaranteed seat AND it's in a private area.

The irony of calling someone else tight while resenting spending £15 on a night out!

If my friend invited me to something I didn't want to do I'd just say 'No thanks, but you have a nice time.' Not get worked up about their incredible effrontery to the extent I decided to vent on MN about it. But then I actually, you know, quite like my friends, which seems to be unusual on here.

To be honest most places that offer that sort of deal offer some sort of alternative as well, albeit might just be a soft drink.

But if OP had said 'I don't want to go because I don't drink wine,' I'd think that was completely reasonable. But OP was happy to go to the venue before the friend said they'd all need to pay. So 'I don't want to go because I think it's cheeky to be expected to pay for my own drinks in one venue when I'd happily do so in a different venue,' is ridiculous.

It is if you don't drink wine.

You didn’t have to you chose to. I’m not saying you may find it difficult to say no if she is a strong character or mean or whatever or you are an ardent people pleaser but you can say no.

It sounds like thats what the venue are charging to reserve. Yabu. Its fairly standard

When you say space do you mean just an area of the bar so like a few tables or whatever?
All you're being asked to do is pay for drinks up front to guarantee that you turn up.
If she'd said were going to X bar, see you at 7 and there was no reserved table and you all paid your own drinks would that be OK?
Fairly sure no one will have to drink wine, you'll be able to swap for something else.
I'm in the North West. Our local pub is prob 7 quid for a glass of wine so how posh can it be?

I think you are a people pleaser, one who does stuff they don’t want to and then seethes and it eats away at them inside how much they are taken for granted and dumped on from a great height whilst not self reflecting that they people please for a reason and get something out of it (often because of trauma).

The more I see posts like this, the more I think people are finding ways of weeding out the friends who don’t actually like them.

Why on earth should this ‘friend’ pay for a party for you to attend and provide free wine when it’s obvious you don’t even like her?

I think I’ll do this. Then secretly put a load of money behind the bar for those who deemed me worthy of £15 😅

I think that’s right, it’s never about the thing the op originally posts about is it.

I think the challenge is that we all know this (well those of us with an ounce of emotional intelligence) but the op seems not able to see it, so her comment about “having” to pay for the dog for example.

the post is really about a generally entitled woman and the op’s iniability to step away or say something she’s getting more and more resentful .

It would rub me up the wrong way. If she can’t pay she doesn’t get to organise it.

Frirnds sometimes club together to put on a “ pay your own way” celebration. But if she’s doing the inviting she should pay. This isn’t a business, it’s a private party.

Yes, agree the OP IBU if she would choose wine. A soft drink would be a pretty poor offering unless it was a wine bar that only sold wine or soft drink though, in which case I wouldn't go. I wouldn't want to pay £15 and also buy my own drinks.

Although you are being very rude to respondents that don't agree with you, I would have laughed if I received your friend's invitation. It sounds like she has form for being a cf. I think go if you think it'll be fun, just knock the £15 entrance fee off her birthday gift or next vet bill!

Jury’s out here.

I think the wording of the invite is odd ("charging the fee?) but I know that a lot of places are asking for minimum spend on drinks as a condition to hire, so the friend is probably trying to make sure everyone turns up/ spends enough.
She could have explained, saying something "I'm sorry, you have to pre-pay for 2 drinks as the venue requires it" or something. £15 would cover 2 drinks nicely.

All the comments about her being a cheapskate and trying to sponge of everyone are odd. Seems like the whole group have issues with money/ don't like her very much - discuss her spending and what she is doing to save etc. To me, £15 is not a lot, I'm aware of a large group of friends where you are expected to bring £100 to any birthday, especially if its held in a restaurant (they are Eastern European ))

Nope, my days fine thanks. 😂

No-one should have to pay and if she wants a party it should be her treat. Very mean and tight to be honest. I would have said it to her that it is not the done thing to charge people to go to a birthday party.

Re contributing to her dog's treatment.
Read a memorable quote recently in the NYT in response to a reader's letter on the same topic: never care more than the owner.