AIBU for not staying at the wedding venue abroad?

[Sam9769]

DH and I were invited to my relative's daughter's wedding.
It was being held in Europe so we had to take time off work, put the cats in a cattery, park the car at the airport and pay for parking for the weekend and fly to the wedding. We also bought a gift from the wedding list for £270.
The wedding was being held at a country house venue.
When we received the invitation, I phoned the venue and asked to book a double room in the main house. Unfortunately the rooms in the main house were reserved for the wedding party and close family members.
The other options were to book a shepherd's hut for £200 per night or a small cottage for £400.
The huts were tiny and a cottage for the two of us was too much so we booked a B&B close by the venue.
When we arrived at the wedding it became apparent that my relative's DH was furious that we hadn't stayed onsite because it transpired that he rented the whole place for the weekend and hoped to recoup some of this from people staying at the venue. This wasn't relayed to us. When he met us at the wedding, he said hello and then immediately turned his back on us. He only spoke to us once during the wedding asking us if we stayed in a hut or a cottage knowing full well that we didn't stay in either. As a parting shot, when we were sitting by the dance floor, he came over as the music was playing, turned his back to us, bent over and shook his rather fat arse at us and then went off. It also became apparent that he had told anyone who would listen at the wedding how angry he was with us and why.
Since this wedding I have not spoken to my relative and hope I never see him again. AIBU?

We had this with a wedding. They’d hired the whole venue and wanted all guests to pay and stay there thus subsidising their wedding. I think guests had to pay them for their rooms. They were put out with those that either didn’t come or stayed elsewhere too.
clearly you are not in the wrong about where you stay. He sounds vile.
the thank you note is fine.
up to you about how this impacts your future relationship with them.

Should have taken the gift home with you!!

I hope you have the sense to spell out to your relative the appallingly rude way in which their husband treated you.
It all sounds very low class.

Well, obviously lots of people didn’t book the onsite accommodation or else it would have been all booked up. There is no way there’s like 40 shepherds huts. Was he angry with everyone else?

The thank you was fine. Bride and groom have 12 months from the wedding to send thank yous. Our gifts from the wedding list arrived in one big delivery two months after the actual wedding. Until then I didn’t even know what, if anything, anyone had given us, except for the few people who just gave cash in a card. But I had to wait to send all the thank you cards together.

You are interpreting everything anyone said or did as a pop at you for staying elsewhere. My guess is that a vast majority of people at the wedding neither knew or cared where you stayed.

Am I the only one that wouldn’t have gone at all?

The costs alone for travel, staying over and the cattery (dog kennels for us) is extortionate and if it was my wedding, I wouldn’t reasonably expect people to come.

Anyway, I wouldn’t have paid for a shepherds hut or the cottage at more than £200 a night on top of what you have already paid, and would have just settled with a B&B too.

Not sure how he’s “booked out” the venue though, if you’re having to pay for the rooms?

I have a wedding to go to next year, it’s about 3 hours away and we are only there for the evening. It’s £140 for bed and breakfast, £50 for diesel and about £150 for spending. If it’s costing me more than that I’m not going. Don’t go to my sisters wedding in Mauritius 🙄 it cost too much, but she was aware of that when she decided to get married there

The reason I went is that the arse's wife is my cousin who I grew up with in the sense that her mum was my mother's sister and we socialised as a family as we grew up. I don't often see her but when we get together it's great to reminese about years gone by as sadly our parents are no longer with us.

You should have kicked his rather fat arse

It's true that many others didn't stay in the onsite accommodation as there were empty huts and cottages. I didn't see him taking it out on anyone at the wedding.
Even a friend of his and his wife decided to leave the next day instead of staying for a second night which they had initially planned. His wife said that the hut was tiny and she had to sit on the floor and dangle her legs out of the hut to put her shoes on.
I suspect that his anger wasn't the loss of a few hundred quid as a result of us not staying but probably the loss of thousands of pounds because the expected number didn't stay. Maybe he took it out on us because we don't live in the country and would be heading back to the UK and not see them again for some time? Who knows?

If you can't afford the wedding yourself then book something you can, you are perfectly reasonable to book where you like.

Holy God, this is a bloody strange family.
I can scarcely grasp what that oaf’s problem was, but your just letting his rudeness pass without attempting even a polite explanation (never mind the merited blast of anger at him), is probably worse.
As the incredibly irritating modern idiom has it: use your damn words!

Weddings with such heavy obligations woven through the invitations should just die, asap.
Bad enough anyone is rude or entitled enough to expect guests to spend loads of cash and time just getting there, but then to carry on and make clear that there’s a minor money-making deal going on involving the flipping venue too puts things way beyond The Pale.
Plus, it’s very hard on cats, who are discommoded and shoved into a cattery!

I’d be having a cool chat with that cousin, asap. (She might inject a bit of common sense into all this, retroactively.)
But for 2026, I’d give any family bash a very wide berth. including anything over Christmas. Who needs more angst?

It should have been made clear on the invite, or further communication afterwards, what the accommodation arrangements are available/recommended at the venue.

Nonetheless, what you do, or where you stay after the wedding is no one's business.

Once the wedding is over, it's over.

Thank you for your post. For some context. He's a big man, tall and broad. To say that he was seething is an understatement. There was no way at his daughter's wedding, I was going to risk him going apeshit at me and I feel that it wouldn't have taken much. Had I known before the wedding that he was going to behave in this way there is no way we would have gone.
One things for sure though, I never want to see him again.

LOL! Even the thought of it makes me happy😀

Fair enough; and apologies for sounding a bit too stroppy. That whole damn wedding pressure culture really infuriates me.

Sounds like an absolute TWAT - be grateful it's your relative who's married him not you!

LOL! He makes my husband look good😀