For not wanting to attend a friend's destination wedding?

[emilydispleased]

My close friend is having a destination wedding, and while I'm happy for them, I really don't want to attend due to cost and time commitment. AIBU for not wanting to go?

Could be worse…..

My friend invited us but expected us to leave our tiny baby at home. In the end they arranged a random teenage babysitter nearby the venue (in another hotel across town) and DH insisted that would be fine.

The above said obviously in an empathetic way, so that we can all share stories and help the OP. I’m not after a gold medal in the Abroad Wedding Tales of Woe olympics.

Just politely decline the invite. No biggie

Given your sarky attitude on here, for the sake of your 'close friend' I hope you don't go to the wedding and ruin it with your ill temper.

Unless you pay for your guests' outlay, it is shockingly bad manners to have a destination wedding. Same goes for hen/stag dos. It is also shockingly bad manners to have a wedding list or a paid-by-the-guests' bar at your wedding. Cut your cloth accordingly. If you can't afford to pay for all this, either don't do a wedding/hen do, stag party, or opt for a smaller, more modest event.

I hope you will so 'no' and won't feel bad about it, because it is the inviting party who should be embarrassed to have a destination wedding without paying for the attendees.

Would you really want her at your wedding, so rude..............

Ouch OP!

No need to be rude!

How bloody rude. Poster was empathising and yes it is different and much more difficult if it's a sibling. If that's your attitude to people in life, I'm surprised you were invited at all. You seem utterly horrible.

I think what people dont comprehend when they decide to get married abroad, is that in some cases, they are putting their guests in a position where they need to sacrifice family holidays, dip into savings or struggle with their bank accounts to go.

Even a decade or so back, with destination weddings, it was less elaborate with only a few key family members invited. Nowadays, friends and extended family are invited out too. I would even go as far as saying if you really want certain people there, you should be paying for flights and accommodation.

If I did get married abroad, it would be more like an "elopement" then a party at home where everyone can attend somewhere locally.

I know if it was me invited, I would probably decline as I prefer to spend money on holidays with family.

Weird you've picked my post from the hundreds of others telling OP she was rude 🤨
Pretty sure, given the posts in this thread, that I'm not the one in the wrong.

I think TreadSoftly was just sympathetising.

My best friend had a destination wedding. Apart from perhaps my sister and my other best friend, she's the only person in the world I'd even consider going for.

As it happens, I was only ABLE to go because I was in-between jobs at the time. I'm a primary school teacher, so a week off for a mates wedding in the middle of term time would never have been approved!

I went, and it was a nice holiday, and I'm glad I was there to see her married. But I also think there's a very precise time in life where you can get away with it. If you're one of the first of your friendship group to marry, so it has novelty, and you do it quite young, so everyone is pre-kids.

I can't imagine any of my friendship group being able to do it now.

My friend said her destination wedding was an excellent way to cut out all the people she wasn't bothered about inviting. Cousins she hasn't seen for a decade etc. Basically the family members you only ever see at hatched, matched, dispatched.

Wow, you are rather unpleasant aren't you? The thing about MN is people are allowed to reply as they wish. You don't get to dictate who replies to what.

Rude

@zingally ”hatched, matched, dispatched”. Never heard that before, love it!

I went on one destination wedding years ago. After lots of thinking about the costs, we were too wet to say, we can't afford it, sorry. We wasted a a few thousand, attending. I look back on myself now and think, what wet drips we were! We basically spent half our savings! We have since turned down other destination weddings. I'm never wasting thousands again, just for one day! People can have their destination weddings, but they can't assume everyone is happy to spend their savings for a wedding that isn't theirs!

YANBU, if you decide to have a destination wedding, you must realise that a lot of people will be unwilling or unable to commit the time, money, etc to come.

I reckon we've been rumbled by thehourwaslate

You could say thank you very much for the invitation but unfortunately I can't afford to come at the moment.

In which case you're just getting married at home! Not at a " destination"

I have been to several destination wedding both before and after daughter was born. And my own wedding too.

i have been to several places i would not necessarily have visited but without exception we have always had a great time.

I had a destination wedding ( only had autumn half term and all the U.K. options were expensive and crap).
I was fully expecting 10-15% of invitees to pull out. We actually only had 2% which was nice and luckily the venue could easily cope.
But don't assume they are expecting you.

I'm off to read the Ops comments now. She sounds er ..fun!

I read it again and still think you're rude.

Maybe your friend will be glad you decline.

Because it was only a few down from the top?

Honestly I’m pretty shocked that people think “I’ve got it worse” is an appropriate way to respond to someone with an issue

Wow, I seem to have started a right row with my response. On reading back I certainly could have empathised more, so apologies for all caught in the cross fire.

It's really doing my head in that I either have to not be at a siblings wedding or spend rather a lot of money and had spent two hours just before posting trying to find cheaper accommodation and flights to try to make it all work. Not helped by the fact that they've also chosen a wedding venue up in the mountains several miles from the nearest urban centre and have said "local taxis are limited".

So I do empathise with the OP, it's really hard when it's a good friend or family and you really do want to attend but either you absolutely can't or your head is telling you it's a batshit use of your money and you are probably going to really resent the imposition.

No. One of my close friends got married in Australia shortly after I'd had my second baby and bought a house. I felt awful, but I really couldn't go. There's just no way we could have afforded the minimum £6K it would have cost us to go. She understood, though.

But perhaps I am really just very shit at writing empathetic responses...