Bridezilla- wedding accommodation.

[Bloodybrambles]

Inspired by another thread which was heavily in favour for accommodation being split by PP not per room.

This is going back a couple of years and I actually fell out with a friend. I’m now wondering if maybe she wasn’t being the CF I originally thought she was after reading a similar thread.

A friend was getting married in Scotland and the venue included a B&B. Originally we declined the offer of staying in the B&B (£350 for the two nights) as we were on an extremely tight budget, and was planning on staying in premier inn in the nearby town. After some persuading from the Bride, how she really wanted the ‘bride squad’ to stay in the B&B and after paying for taxi’s we’d not be saving that much money anyway… I felt pressured into agreeing.

Fast forward to a couple of months before the wedding, a text on the group chat says to make it fair, the cost of the B&B would be split per person, not per room. DP said immediately that he’s just drop out as logistics to getting to rural Scotland, especially midweek was less than ideal and it now being £500 for us both to attend was ridiculous. He always thought they were being CF for charging us going rate for the room anyway as they were technically included in the wedding package...

The Bride had also planned a meal the night before for the wedding party that DP wasn’t included in, and we were told that we had to help the day after the wedding to clear up meaning that we would probably not get back home to the early hours.

I called the bride to explain that I was paying for the room myself as I felt it unfair to spring £250 onto DP when he was only really attending as my plus one and there was no way I could afford the £500. I then said that I could bunk in with another bridesmaid (DP staying home) leaving one room free for another couple/attendees to occupy. This was out of the question as the vibe would change and it wasn’t fair to expect the younger bridesmaids to subsidise DP.

These sorts of threads make me feel immensely grateful for my best mate's wedding - she invited my Mum (we'd been mates since school) and invited our toddler son, and provided childcare / activities in a separate room for the small children so that they didn't get bored during speeches etc, and seemed pleased to see us!

@Kittycat1969 yep - I've been to a fair few like that -

To be fair I think this was a new phenomenon- the venue hires out the whole building say £6000 - if they fill all the rooms they charge a high price to cover the wedding cost - only it didn’t work as most guests found cheaper accommodation close to the venue and booked that instead leaving the couple unable to afford the venue - I think they were misguided and then found themselves in debt. I don’t think it was ever meant to work with guests paying for rooms and they underestimated the amount of guests willing to pay.

We did this for our wedding! Why would you want to put your friends out to attend your wedding!

Absolutely bizarre. You'd think they were on commission selling the rooms to people as self appointed travel agents?!
You should be allowed to book a room in that building at the cost the hotel charges. Even then I don't really see what's in it for you, seeing as you're appointed the unpaid cleaning team duties that seem to be compulsory for several hours after the event.
Basically it's a rip off and there's no point going as you'll just end up falling out with them over how conned you feel by the experience.

YANBU. A desire for the perfect wedding shouldn’t destroy family relationships or (especially long-standing) friendships. What matters is celebrating with the people you love. Not the perfect venue and images. That’s vacuous. Style over substance.

Your friend pressured you to pay for something you couldn’t afford and, to help her out, you agreed to things that didn’t make sense for you and your DP, such as travelling a long way in two separate cars.

You offered a huge compromise: your DP dropping out and you offering to share a room. But, that still wasn’t enough. She was too demanding and was childish/cruel to exclude you from her wedding because you wouldn’t shell out more than a thousand pounds, which you couldn’t afford.

You could still repair your friendship if it means a lot to you and she’d be a positive addition to your life going forward. She may be feeling regretful, in hindsight, about what happened. I expect she was very stressed at the time. So, you could try reaching out. But it’d only work if she shows some remorse and empathy as to why you were assertive (yet compromising) in setting cost limits.

If you said anything in the row you now regret and feel sorry about, you should let her know this. But, there’s no need to apologise if you were merely arguing you couldn’t afford it and that she was being unreasonably demanding by insisting you pay to make her wedding perfect.

They were greedy. They were trying to recoup the cost of their wedding venue by charging their guests. Quite naff.

And quite different from a group of friends sharing a rented house for a holiday.

Disgusting behaviour from the bride and groom.
cost of the B&B should have been included in their budget if they were insisting people stay there, to try and recoup costs is shameful.

out wedding didn’t cost anyone any more than a night out should have, we had it local so everyone could get taxis (we even covered these for those guests that lived the other end of the city), no one needed to pay for hotels.

I’ve had this a few times but it seems to be rare now. Weddings are so often in the middle of nowhere, leaving you with the option of expensive overnight accommodation (if I’m paying that amount I want an actual mini break out of it, not just somewhere to crash after a wedding) or driving, which tends to lead to people leaving earlier.

The worst one I knew of was people who OWNED the reception venue and still charged their guests to stay!

Oh my god! Imagine making a profit from your wedding!

When we got married (15 years ago), we had this option. We had a stately home sort of wedding, though the actual wedding was in the grounds and a barn. We could have hired the big house out too for accommodation, but opted not to. I didn’t want to be dealing with the drama of taking payments from guests (it was like 20 rooms, more than we needed for wedding party and immediate family, so people would have needed to pay). And it was more than I’d pay to stay at someone’s wedding, so decided that was not a good fit for us.

Instead, we blocked out all the rooms at the pub down the road, £60 a night. Or my family got a cottage nearby and my bridesmaid stayed there for the weekend (all paid including taxis by us). Cheap and cheerful and no drama and the wedding party didn’t have to pay a thing. My bridesmaid flew in from my home country and BIL and partner, bless them, flew all the way back from motorbiking around India. We were just grateful they made it.