Should we be paying for both brides?

[ohbaby70]

Friend getting married next year. Both women. They want a joint hen do abroad. They have asked us not to cover their costs because there are two of them. Maid of Honour wants us to pay anyway. Everyone else agrees. AIBU to think it’s a bit much? It’s an extra £100.

If it matters, there are 20 of us going and it’s for three nights in Greece.

Better not change your mind or you'll have to Cancel The Cheque!

If they've explicitly said not to then you shouldn't be badgered into it by MOH. If anything you can say I can chip in £20 or whatever but sadly my budget doesn't extend further what with the cost of the trip.

I wouldn’t pay for them anyway, but they have actually asked you not to so it’s easy to just not.

😂😂😂

but that would be direct discrimination, not paying for a straight bride…

CoL crisis, what CoL crisis!

10 days, October half term. Just before the season closed.

The problem is you don’t understand what a ‘cost of living crisis’ actually is.

It’s utterly bizzare that you think you can’t ask your friend to go for dinner and watch a movie without feeling obligated to pay. That’s not at all a normal social convention.

At £1000 I wouldn't be going in the first place, let alone contributing to the two brides' costs. I'd rather put my money to a holiday of my choosing.

And for just 3 nights! It's insane.

Its so annoying how these things become customary. I got married 10 years ago, and my hen was a picnic in the park, a meal and drinks. I think all the girls paid for my dinner, but that was split across 10 of them so was a couple of quid each. I think they probably also got me some drinks later (can't remember for some reason 🤣). A trip away, covering the brides, destination weddings are fine but only if you accept you will have people who can't come and you don't guilt them.

I think you should treat LGBT people the same as you would treat anyone else.

I must be old or out of touch. Bride/s decide to have an expensive hen weekend abroad and the expectation is that everyone else, despite having to take annual leave, pay for themselves, and pay for attendance at the wedding, is to pay for them to attend the hen they wanted?! Fuck that for a game of soldiers! I’d rather not go than pay. Hardly
like chipping in a tenner to cover a dinner out

That’s a shocking amount of money to have to spend on a hen do! People have totally lost the plot when it comes to Ben and stag events! Yes, as people are saying, you can say no, but it does feel awkward. At least the brides in this thread are understanding of the fact that they’ve already asked a lot of their friends already, and that’s why they have said nobody should pay for their own portion. So the organiser who is going behind their backs and suggesting people still should is way out of order. If I was the bride I’d be quite cross with them.

I'm sorry but I cannot get my head around the fact that this hen do is costing 20,000 Great British pounds.

But surely you would only be part of the celebration because they are your friends!

If you can afford to drop £1000 on a hen do then you can afford another £100
Otherwise you’ll be THAT person if everyone else is happy to pay the £100

I’m in my fifties and I think this cultural expectation creep around hen dos is yet another example of how expensive things have got for younger people these days and not a good thing.

The move from a single night out and everyone paying for themselves to weekend+ destination trips, with planned activities and the bride not covering their own costs was only just emerging when me and my friends were getting married (and we didn’t adopt it, other than stay in a hotel for one night as left home town).

Yes, it is a bit much to add another £100 on top of your already high costs but…it all seems part and parcel of it. The brides may genuinely not want people to pay for them (I certainly would not want people paying for me and would rather treat my friends on my hen do to what I could afford rather than the other way round) but if the person organising it is going to override that…I wouldn’t want to be the person saying no (would be more likely to decline the whole thing than that).

Lol! 🤣 you can't be serious??

@TheFilliesWillRiseAgain you really think they’d think you were homophobic if you didn’t pay for both of them?! Don’t you think the fact that she’s a good enough friend to be invited on the hen do is evidence enough for the brides that she’s not homophobic? 🤣

If you can afford £1,000 for a hen do, you can afford £1,100

£1,000 ? I just would not be going, that's silly money for a hen do.

I'm going to go against the grain here. Why would anyone assume others would pay for them. You will already be paying for your own costs, attending the wedding and gift presumably. Surely that's enough. If people have to have a hen abroad they should cover their own costs.

The young people have a choice with things like this, however. It's not like rent or food prices.

It seems that a fair few of them are rich enough to spend eye-watering amounts of money on a 3 night (that's only 2 full days) for a pre-wedding shindig.

That's not "going against the grain" - many of us think the same.