Hen plans in tatters - friends have gone behind my back

[Dayna87]

I’m getting married later this year. Hen plans firmly in the hands of my best friend - location agreed with me but I’m not in the group chat and she’s leading on booking etc.

They’ve got to the point of needing to book flights/hotels and five of the attendees have said they need to pull out due to cost despite confirming initially they were happy with it. The price has not gone up other than it being agreed we’d book beds at a beach club I’m keen on going to which adds an extra little bit.

These friends all posted on the group chat at the same time so clearly have spoken with each other to say they won’t go now. None of them thought to speak to me first and let me know personally. My friend organising says this causes issues with the cost of accommodation now so we are having to re-think.

I am seriously pissed off. Would I be wrong to say they can no longer attend the wedding?

who in their right mind would think it's acceptable for others to fork out £££ on a blooming hen do? and you have a second hen do 'weekend'. I mean who does a long hen do abroad and a UK one on top.

I think you just need to accept that it is all ridiculously OTT and this circus isn't half as important to the rest of the party as it is to you.

I am seriously pissed off. Would I be wrong to say they can no longer attend the wedding?

If if was your friend, I would be relieved. Do them this favour!

Because life gets in the way. You agree to things initially and then realise that means forgoing a family holiday or things for your kids. She can’t be annoyed that people are not willing to spend a grand on her hen do. That is what it will be, minimum, when you factor in spending money and clothes.

I think it’s really selfish to be honest and it puts people in a really awkward situation. If anything, it should have been booked a year ago so people had more time to pay it off.

OP you’ll get a hard time on here because MNers generally hate hen dos, especially if they’re abroad. I can see why you’d be pissed off, especially if you went to their hen do’s abroad. I’ve been to Croatia, Marbella, Edinburgh, Barcelona and Ibiza for hen do’s. They weren’t cheap but they were amazing weekends with my friends. Now we’re on to 40ths and everyone’s loving the excuse to have a weekend away again! I would get the organisers to ask what their budget actually is and see if you can work something out. If not, go away with a smaller group. Yes it’s disappointing when you think you’ll have a big group going but you’ll still have a good time. If you were looking at a hotel, could you change to an air bnb to keep costs down? Maybe scale the activities down a bit? I’d try to work something out but definitely wouldn’t uninvite them to the wedding but I do appreciate it’s hurtful when they’ve said yes and pulled out en masse.

You're having two hen events? No wonder that they've decided not to go. The holiday might not have gone up since the idea was agreed, but a lot of people's expenses have.

"A qualifying round for the wedding" - that's absolutely spot on!

You have 2 hen dos?

you are being so obscenely unreasonable and self absorbed.

Why don't you just have the one UK based hen do?

It is rather self indulgent to expect people to spend hundreds on your hen do.

The cost of living at the moment is crazy … at least they pulled out before it had actually been paid for (if I’m reading it right ). Yes they should have said it earlier, but it’s easy to get swept up in these things.

The brand new car might be the reason your friend has less money … money’s not unlimited.

Have a lovely night out in town celebrating your friendships - the backdrop doesn’t matter.

Nowhere does it say anything about them pulling out "the day of" the booking. That's your assumption.

Flight prices aren't affected by booking numbers, and 5 minutes on booking.com will sort the accommodation.

Perhaps the person planning isn't the best for the job, as sorting this wouldn't phase most seasoned travellers.

Upset , disappointed, let down , sad frustrated = all perfectly reasonable reactions

banning them from wedding = they weren’t really your best friends if you can end a friendship so casually

if you are absolutely sure they can afford it and should be prioritising this as you did for them then I’d be re evaluating the friendship

The price has not gone up other than it being agreed we’d book beds at a beach club I’m keen on going to which adds an extra little bit.

So the prices haven't gone up except for the part where they went up?

Getting it back as food/drinks isn't the same either. Someone on a budget might have been planning on not partaking of too much of either themselves to keep costs low but will now be expected to pay it regardless and not everyone might benefit if some don't drink as much as others

Yup I was just about to say the same. Have you just announced the UK hen? maybe that's why they're having a rethink.

I had a weekend in Madrid for my Hen do 25 years ago (so not just a recent thing!) & have an annual girls' weekend away so not averse to the idea at all, but, it does sound like it's spiralling out of control and perhaps the addition of the beach club and who know what else has been agreed/planned on their chat PLUS expectation they will also come to the UK hen, plus wedding itself (outfit/travel & stay/gift) and some now realising quite how expensive it's all getting.

But don't do anything rash or dwell on it - just find a happy compromise or just go with 2 or 3 close friends still keen and see everyone else at the UK hen. Please don't lose friends over this.

I find it ridiculous to expect friends to pay for flights for a wedding, let alone a hen do. Uninvite them. It will be a huge relief for all of them.

I would have loved a mini break with the girls somewhere hot for my hen. My friends are decently well off - doctors, dentists, opticians etc.

But I could just tell people were getting a bit over such ott hen dos.

So I kept mine to London (where we all live) and did a bottomless brunch, Magic Mike Live followed by clubbing. Anyone who needed a place to crash was welcome to my sofa/air mattress.

I think it was a massive hit cause it was short and sweet and not too expensive

Wow so many posts I’m struggling to keep up, just to reply to some of the repeated questions -

-UK hen is mainly for relatives who can’t go abroad, it’s just a nice house for a couple of nights at a weekend and my parents have kindly covered the cost of it. I don’t expect people to go to both.

-There are still 9 people going to the abroad hen but the accommodation lined up would be too expensive and my friend is struggling to find an affordable alternative.

-My friends are mainly career women with good jobs and little commitments, I know abroad hens aren’t for everyone but at the stage we are all at in our lives it’s the ‘done thing’ currently and has always been popular.

-I know I can’t really uninvite my friends from the wedding, I said that out of frustration and I know they’ve already booked flights for it and accommodation so I wouldn’t be so cold for them to lose out on that.

Is the wedding in the UK?

also, 95% of people think you’re being unreasonable so uninviting from the wedding would be so out of line. Weddings aren’t about “who paid to go on my hen to prove their loyalty”

Absolutely.

Before you do anythin, think it through.

Say you uninvited them, is yourmpositi8n in the friendship group tenable or will you be excluded?

Because you're basically going to fall put with everyone if you uninvited them. Them, their partners, families. Does this impact your husband and his friendship groups?

Yes, That could be true. Also Indians in UK are different from those back in India. I got married in India, 2K+ people at my pre-wedding functions and wedding hosted by my parents over 5 days of celebrations, wedding reception hosted by my in-laws in a different Indian city. Some close family did gift money but that was given to us, the bride and groom and both my parents and inlaws refused to accept it, even though we would have been happy for them to use against expenses. So the gift money was not used to pay any bills, we used some of it for our honeymoon and rest into things for our home in UK and for savings.

So the OP's 'the price has not gone up for these extras we did not discuss earlier' is other people's 'costs are escalating'.

Things change. To you all your hen dos are important- and they ARE. But the reality is right now is that people are feeling the pinch. There is a COL crisis. I am quite solvent but I recently said no to a planned day out at Hampton Court (that is quite a few hours away from where i live) because although at the time it would have been 'fun' it then became an extra expense that after a broken clutch and a vet bill for a hormonally-challenged cat I simply could not squeeze a Nice Day Out into my budget.

Ohhhh wow. Even the wedding is abroad.

A lot of people on MN are understandably very against foreign hens. They are a massive cost and time consuming and exhausting. It does seem like foreign hens are normal in this friend group though, as OP has gone to them for some of the people who have now pulled out of hers.

It would really get my back up that they didn’t come directly to me and speak to me honestly about not being able to go. I’d be sad but I’d understand. 5 people sending a text into the group chat that they’re all now not coming would annoy me - they’ve all obviously spoken and coordinated and not one said ‘look I’m just going to call OP and be honest’. I find the way they went about it strange, it doesn’t seem like something close friends would do.

Saying yes initially to 'Oh, fun weekend, we can get cheap flights and the hotel will only be about £100 a night' is different to the reality of booking a not-actually-that-cheap flight, and four nights in a hotel, plus beach club, plus drinks, meals out, airport taxis, trips etc etc. And sometimes it's hard/embarrassing to say that you can't afford something. Surely you can understand that, OP?
Un-inviting them will reflect terribly on you, and will lose you five friends overnight.