Asking guests to pay £50 for a birthday lunch?

[birthdayquandary]

I'm trying to decide if this WBU... I've namechanged as it may be outing.

I have a big birthday coming up. It is at a crap/ difficult time of year which means historically I've very rarely celebrated on the day with friends. This coming birthday it happens to be on a Saturday and I'd like to celebrate it. However, given crap time of year obvious things like hosting a party at home/ in the garden or even an evening party aren't an option.

What I'd like to do is 'host' a big lunch (up to 40ish people) in a private room at a nice hotel that does great food. Then people who want to stay over can and those who don't have time to get home (my friends live in various locations, all within about an hour of where I'm hoping to have party). I love a big, cosy lunch with friends and this is how I'd love to celebrate my birthday. However, I can't afford to pay for the whole thing. It's looking like it'd be at least £50ph for food, plus drinks and possibly a 'room charge'. I can cover some of the cost, but not all of it. Would IBU to ask people to pay £50ph to cover their food, and then I cover the booze, service charge, room charge, etc?

The only friends who've hosted big meals like this for birthdays have been able to afford to pay for the whole thing. Everyone else I know who has held a party has done an evening thing at home or out in a bar (where they either have or haven't covered all or some of the cost). I can't host the lunch at home because I don't have enough space, and also don't want to be cooking or cleaning up on my birthday.

What do you think? Is it gauche (or plain cheeky) to ask people to stump up £50 (or thereabouts)? I think it probably is, but given the particularly crap date of my birthday a lunch thing is really the only option...

Would an Air BnB owner be happy to let their property out for a party for 40 people?

Hire cleaners?

Honestly - have a party at yours - no one who is worth caring about will give a shit about anything other than having a good time

I wouldn’t dream of charging my friends to my birthday . £50 is too much anyway .

If you can’t afftit, you can’t host, I wouldn’t pay to come

I always celebrate my birthday the closest Friday or Saturday to the day, because I don't want to cause hassles and inconvenience to people I like.

On the day, your nearest and dearest give you a card and gift (if they live with you) and a phone call or text message if they don't.

I do not understand the desire to inconvenience everyone and cause issues to have it on the actual day, not at all. It just doesn't matter.

But anyway, the point is that you should have the party you can afford, and if you won't do that you will be the subject of gossip. Up to you.

I don't think it is too much, just tacky to ask. Would be very different if someone was organizing it for OP and asking for everyone to chip in 50 for costs.

You can ask for permission in advance and presumably agree to pay for any costs incurred, it’s not unheard of.

Right. She's going to have the same problem with cleaning up, though, which she doesn't want.

Distance

You can’t ask them to pay. Have a catered cream tea with a glass of fizz in a church hall or whatever fits your budget. Or provide food and ask them to bring a bottle as a birthday present.

No you can’t ask people to pay! Host something less fancy that you can afford, or invite fewer people.

Whi ch would be paste sandwiches and jelly😂😥

Yea but what do they do between lunch and bedtime?
So they pay for the lunch, then their dinner, the hotel room and breakfast?
That's am expensive trip for a friend's birthday.

£1.5k is £37.50 per person. That's a pretty healthy budget. Pick your poison. Either do the very fancy place and cut the guest list down a lot, if the hotel is the most important thing, or if it's more important to invite all 40 and compromise a bit on the venue. Golf clubs can be good for private functions.

if you have a budget of £37.50 per head, you really don't need to be the person asking guests to pay £50 per head. I bet you can do something lovely with that budget and it'll feel so much better than an event where you charge people and have to worry about chasing them for money, or have lots of people decline.

However maybe I'm bringing too many of my own pre-conceptions to this. How many events have you attended where someone has asked you to pay £50, and how have you felt about paying it? If your answers are "many" and "fine" then you're good, go for it.

27th December is my guess.

I'm fine with buying my own lunch to celebrate a close friend but I seem to be in the minority.

Op are you talking about Boxing Day 2026?

Tbh £50 a head / £100 a couple seems a lot. Would these 40 people actually know one another?
I think I'd go for two seperate events cosy night for 2 and a budget party on the day.

That's my thought

Must be Valentine’s Day then. It’s a Saturday next time.

She's said it's definitely not

Her birthday IS on a Saturday, so not sure why you made that point? It's one of the reasons she wants to celebrate - because it's on a weekend.

Boxing Day is a Friday. I think it's 27 December or 3 January.

Now 👀 as thread gets derailed by guesses and demands for the date.

This. Don't charge your guests. Just have a smaller party or host or some other option. I understand where you are coming from but there isn't any solution unless you pay.