AIBU to set a hen do budget that may exclude some guests?

[CheekyTealFawn]

I’m the maid of honour at my best friend’s wedding, and I’m currently trying to organise her hen do.

The bride wants nothing to do with the organisation or planning of it, or to even know anything about it until the day arrives. Though( she has given me a few must-haves, a location and a list of people to invite.

I asked everyone for budgets before I started. One said £100pp for accommodation, another £150pp. The rest said £300-500. The brides sister also refuses to share a twin bedroom.

After weeks of searching I’ve realised I simply can’t find anything I’d actually want to take the bride to within those budgets. Everything in budget is either miles from where we want to be or frankly a bit grim.

I’ve now found somewhere I think she’d genuinely love, but it’s £250pp for accommodation alone if everyone shares rooms. This is the nicest I can find at the lowest cost pp. I plan to keep other costs down by cooking for everyone and keeping paid activities to a minimum, which I know the bride would enjoy as she just wants to relax.

I’m thinking I should just book it and tell people that’s the cost. I feel really uncomfortable with the idea of excluding 2 people. But I don’t see how I can justify booking an awful place I know the bride would be disappointed with and potentially even disgusted by, or a nicer place in a more affordable place that she doesn’t want to go to. But then again, the bride really wants them there.

My boyfriend thinks I’m being unreasonable and should speak to the bride about changing her hen do idea so everyone can come. I think it’s impossible to cater to 15 different budgets and so someone has to compromise, but it shouldn’t be the bride.

Could you just contact them individually and say this is the £££ situation and ask what they’d like to do.

Also - make sure you get a fairly chunky deposit from everyone before you book and stipulate it isn’t refundable. People are very flakey when they have no money in the game

You 100% won't get the correct number for the easy option!

My money is on you getting 13...😂

Hahahaha yep that’s just the way of the world isn’t it 🤣🤣

When I was planning a friends hen, there were several people in the group who said they couldn’t afford it. I spoke with the bride about it and her response was an angry ‘people find a way for these kind of things, don’t they?’…

You should approach the subject with the bride but don’t expect it to go well. Unfortunately there’s a wave of brides (and grooms) who think that the world revolves around their weddings and subsequent events.

Ultimately, I ended up having to price people out so the bride could have her perfect, instagrammable hen party. We weren’t friends much longer after this.

@Phonicshaskilledmeoff I get why you would suggest this, but for OP's sanity I think she needs to set up a group (if she hadn't already), post the details and ask for everyone to confirm by the given deadline.

ETA: Full disclosure I have never organised a hen do but I have been invited to many and my day job is stakeholder management 😂

So it’s within budget for the majority. I can’t see the issue.

Agree - my sister recently paid in the upper hundreds to attend a hen party in an expensive european city. The bride looked round the table at the 20 odd women who had paid all this money to attend, sighed and said "it's such a shame Sandra and Susan didn't make the effort to come" 😲

This woman is 40+ years old with friends the same age with financial and childcare responsibilities. Just bonkers. My sister has gone right off her after the way she has carried on during her wedding and hen.

Some people just have no sense of perspective.

My concern with this is also in asking directly (like I said, only I know individual budgets so no one else would know) is that it will make them uncomfortable saying no straight to me and they then feel forced to say it’s fine. If it’s just a case of “oh hey guys this is the rough price. Can everyone still make it?” It’s less like financially confrontational? Idk I think I could be overthinking at this point. I find money really uncomfortable

Honestly after all this stress I just want an escape room and cocktails for my hen do whenever I get engaged haha

Sounds familiar. My friend spent a lot of the weekend sulking because people weren’t behaving in a way that she expected (either too quiet, too drunk, too loud). 20+ women spent upwards of £500 each. I was so disappointed with her.

I didn’t have a hen party because of the stress I endured planning my friends. It was awful. I wish I had stood up to her more and said no.

Just for accomodations before anything else?

I think you’re going to need an entire cocktail bar at this rate. 🍸

Ah sorry It was for 12 girls, just reread your posts and you are 15, I still think there should be something to work around £250 a person for most things included! Also if you’re in a big house and doing activities there you could be in a cheaper location in a nicer house? Rather than paying for a fancier location but not going out much.

It’s so hard to find something to suit everyone especially as it seems like you haven’t had much help from the others.

also cheap/free activities you can do in the house:
mr & mrs quiz
wine tasting/cocktail making at the house
scavenger hunt type thing
sports day
going for a walk/hike

Be very much prepared for the bride to this back on to you.

She wants her princess party before her princess day , and will stamp her feet until she gets it.

Hen do's often have a way of ' changing' the bridesmaid / MOH line up when people don't indulge in these ridiculously expensive parties.

What I guarantee will happen is that at least 2 of the guests will say yes under duress, and the drop out before the hen actually happens. This will lead to a falling out and an ' univite' to the wedding.

Tale as old as time.

You're going to have to be direct, otherwise you'll be dealing with uncertainty, which in the long run is going to piss people off if you end up having to ask them to chip in more money if/when people drop out. Or, you'll have to suck up costs yourself which you shouldn't have to do.

I know it feels uncomfortable but giving them all a deadline to confirm is the simplest way to move this forward and shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

Paying for a nicer hotel room which means you need to keep food bills and actual activities to a minimum is quite ludicrous, in my opinion.
Add the fact that some of the bride’s friends will be priced out…
Do it properly.

I think you went about this the wrong way. You asked the budgets of people so now they will expect you to consider that and feel slighted when you don’t. I did my cousins recently. She wanted to do the big house thing.

When I made the chat I said “this is what we are doing, the cost will be somewhere between £300 and £350 for overnight stay, food and activities, who is coming?”

for 15 people keeping within the £100 person budget and 1 wanting their own room? I can only assume you've not tried renting anything in this country recently. Bonkers prices unless you're prepared to look at a caravan or something very basic with dorm-style rooms

You need to talk to the bride. The guest list was an essential, so she needs to decide which is more important, venue or guests.

She needs to know nothing of the actual party.

Just a thought - have you asked the bride what her budget is personally or is she assuming you will all cover her costs? ie. is she being a CF ?

She has specified location etc. I would go back to her and say that after a lot of shopping around that with accommodation, food, transport etc it's looking like £XXX which will likely financially exclude some of her guest list. Before you ask people to confirm, you wanted to check with her that she has budgeted to spend that sort of cash as you know weddings are expensive [and it's not reasonable to expect your hen party to cover a weekend in Marbella or whatever she had in mind] so if she wanted to rethink there's a lower cost option for a lovely spa day at X with dinner at Y.

activities aren’t to a minimum? The area we’re in there’s so much to do for free, meaning paid activities aren’t actually required. The cost of activities is minimal. As for food, either I say to people “rough budget for food is £150-200 each to eat out” or I say “we can do pizza nights and fajita nights and picnics by the lake for a minimal cost”.

She said she doesn’t mind and will pay whatever we find! Honestly, I’m not sure where people are finding spa days cheaper than £100pp. The other thing is that that only works for local friends, of which most of the guest list is not. Everyone else is going to have to pay to travel regardless, but it means most have to sort out own accommodation and travel expenses to attend this spa day. It’s going to be equally expensive. It’s very difficult with everyone being from all over the UK and from abroad

Agree, my friendship has never been the same since I declined to spend a weekend in the USA dressed up as a mini hen so the bride could buy cheap bridesmaids dresses there as well as a luxe weekend away in a UK city requiring flights and hotel plus activities.
Still don't regret it. I had more important things to spend money on and spending £1000 to save her $100 was an easy choice to make.

I mean that’s crazy, especially if heading over from the UK. My personal opinion is that I wouldn’t do this either. Not even for my best friend, because there’s no way I could afford it. I wouldn’t be upset with her for doing what she wants even if I can’t attend, because the trip isn’t about me, but I would also expect her not to be upset with me either for not being able to attend