To think that invited guest at a cancelled wedding should NOT ask for their money back

[toolly]

My poor sister has just cancelled her wedding which was due to take place in a European country in June. Two of the couples have asked that she refund their deposits or airfares. Am I not justified in thinking that these so called friends are insensitive, money grabbing unmentionables? I don't want to further my sister's woes but I am seething on her behalf. Am I justified to think that she should just say fuck off to these people and

I've been in the position of the guests who asked for their money back....

One of my mates cancelled her (ludicrously extravagant, at least to us) wedding, at three days' notice. As it happened, the wedding was postponed - bridegroom had cold feet.

We'd paid,not just for flights, hotels, etc., but for two family banquets at her pricy hotel, at £45pp each per meal.

While I was extremely hacked off, not in a million years did anyone consider asking her for a cheque.

But I was a bit taken aback when a great many people - including the bride's parents - went on the 'holiday' anyway, leaving the lady herself slumped in gloom in the UK. Us mates dragged her out to lunch on the day it should have been, but still.

Oh, and when the couple finally tied the knot they went for a Waitrose buffet in their front room. I think they realised no one would be up for spending another £800 each.

IMHO:

In general, the fuss people make about having the perfect wedding, and putting people to lots of touble, the more I worry about the actual marriage.

When booking anything that isn't a package holiday, I try where at all possible to either book v v cheap flights where I wouldn't mind the loss, or to book both flights and hotels that can be cancelled or at least have the dates changed up to about 2 weeks before the date.

I would never ask a bride in this situation for my 'money back'. How I felt about the whole situation would depend on my thoughts about the proposed wedding and marriage, and how the people in question had acted while preparing the wedding and now.

If I were in (any sort of) similar situation to the bride, I would offer tactfully as much as I could afford to anyone I thought might be in a very hard situation, and if I couldn't afford anything I would explain this and acknowledge that people may have been inconvenienced. But I would also be put out if they had booked without any of the precautions I mentioned above.

One of my friends had a wedding list with (I forget the name) the wedding list people who went bust. She sent an email explaining this and saying they would not receive any gifts, and therefore we may like to try to reclaim our money. The email made it clear she was not asking for further gifts and was incredibly embarrassed and sorry about the whole thing. I think that strikes the right note.

I know things have moved on but just wanted to answer rainraingoaway's response to my earlier post

"But then Flowerybeanbag, if it is the wedding of someone important to you, you would want to minimise their suffering. And surely then in this instance you would grit your teeth, try and make the best of the situation and NOT make your friends situation any worse."

Absolutely, I totally agree. I certainly wouldn't ask for money, and if offered I would refuse it. But I do think something should be offered.

If, as it now seems, the 'friends' literally responded to 'the wedding is cancelled' with an immediate 'can we have our money back?' in the same conversation that is very rude and insensitive.

But I think in toolly's sister's situation I would be saying 'Unfortunately we have had to cancel the wedding, obviously we are both upset that our relationship has broken down and that we have had to cancel this wonderful occasion we were looking forward to so much. We understand people have gone to a lot of expense on our behalf to attend the wedding and would like to make a contribution towards any expenses or deposits that cannot be claimed back from travel companies or insurers.'

Very sad for your sister and totally understand you seeing it from her point of you. Not really sure about the rights and wrongs of her particular situation, but it does raise questions about why it has suddenly become so expensive to attend weddings. We are invited to two abroad this year requiring flights and accommodation for four of us (haven't even considered the hen dos as that's another few hundred quid for a weekend away). I take the point that guests could use the flights and have a holiday, but the reality is that most people will have only booked for a few days which isn't really a holiday is it? I think your sister's case just highlights the very high expectations that couples have when it comes to wedding guests shelling out for their invitation - there's usually an extensive wedding list as well as if paying several hundred pounds to attend weren't enough.

Aarggh - should have previewed. I would be put out if they had booked without precautions and then asked for their money back for the whole thing. In fact I would be horrified if anyone did ask. But then I think I would have tried as far as possible to help/save people money in the first place.

Remembering my own cancelled wedding FB,when I had to find aflat and a FT job etc at short notice,I couldn't have possibly even offered to cover peoples air fares.

He had everything sadly, though it was worth it to be rid.

Yeah - the key issue is the expense of weddings nowadays.

Maybe it's because as marriage declines, the wedding somehow feels more important to people. I wonder why?

Whatever, but who can help noticing the length of a wedding is in inverse proportion to how long the marriage lasts, although maybe that's my inner sleb-chat-slut coming out.

what flowerybeanbag said

When people book weddings abroad I usually assume that they don't really want a big wedding, and want to keep it quiet and small, going miles away for £££ is a good way of guaranteeing that

Right children are settled I should have 10 minutes or so to clear things up.

I misstyped in an earlier post. They got engaged June 09. Wedding set for June 10. Arrangements for the wedding have been ongoing until the last two months since the crisis in the relationship. This blew up very quickly and they got emergency counselling. It's only been definitely off for a week and a half now.
PS It has been an odd day
DD really has locked herself in the loo, I had to get my dad to help extract her hence my long absence, DS2 woke up from nap and needed seeing to and is generally not impressed when I am typing and he want attention and I had to collect DS1 from school. This is why I do a lot of lurking on the site, during the day its impossible to keep track of a thread and post relevant info when other poster ask it.

There is a bit of a tendency nowadays for people to get married abroad because the cost of the ceremony and meals etc is less (generally cheaper than UK for food, accomodation etc, plus hotels will often eg free hotel room to the bride & groom as they know their guests will fill up the hotel and spend money there), so it's cheaper for couple, but transfers the cost to their guests.

When I got married (10 years ago) people went abroad to get married, either on their own or with eg best friend, parents, possibly siblings. Not this more recent thing of inviting 70 guests to Italy.

The point is, I suppose, if they'd cancelled in the UK, guests wouldn't generally lose money, the couple would. By having an overseas wedding, possibly to save their own money, they have involved other people's money to a greater extent and at an earlier stage. So perhaps they do incur an obligation to repay people.

sorry if responses upset you, I dont think any were malicious but the usual blunt honesty combined with peoples own perceptions! plus wedding are SUCH an emotive topic clearly. Dont get upset on Sisters behalf, she will never know! Sounds like these guests are nasty ppl which informed your reaction to them

over and out!!!!

Hi Toolly and sorry if I half implied you might not want to answer things earlier. I didn't think you were lying, just that there might be more to the story iyswim.

glad dd is Ok!

I think in the circumstances, people would probably not have booked their tickets until very recently - which would mean really that your sister would have been right to explain to them the relationship was not going too well, and that maybe they ought to hold off getting their trips booked until things were certain.

The fact she waited until now was obviously not the brightest thing to do, considering that people may feel rather disenfranchised, not having been considered close enough friends to have been warned this could happen when things blew up in October.

But I can understand why she didn't want to say anything if she thought the counselling would resolve the issues.

I do think that she needs to take some responsibility here. She had time to do the right thing initially but chose to keep it quiet. I'm not really surprised if people feel cross about that tbh...after all if they were real friends she would have told them there might be a problem earlier.

But anyway...it all sounds like a steep learning curve for her. When you know people might be booking things you have a responsibility to keep them informed of anything that might seriously jeopardise the event.

I hope she gets over it quickly and can move on.

"after all if they were real friends she would have told them there might be a problem earlier." If they were real friends they would be supporting her rather than demanding money from her at a time when her life has just fallen apart.

I am horrified that people think that her not automatically offering people money is bad manners - what about the manners of those who have been demanding a refund? Edam has it spot on - "money grabbing, back-stabbing bastards."

Why does everyone keep saying claim it on the insurance? You cannot claim through travel insurance if you decide not to travel. Whether it be you not fancying the flights anymore or a friend cancelling their wedding. They would get laughed at by the insurance company.

If I was one of the guests, I would never in a million years ask to be reimbursed, I'd be more concerned with trying to help her out.

Equally though, if I was the bride, I would offer to pay for the guests deposits (probably why I'm always skint).

How did your sister break it to the guests? Maybe they were annoyed that she didn't acknowledge their loss of cash, so thought they'd point this out by asking for the money?

Either way, I don't think it would be good advice to tell your sister to tell her friends to fuck off (even if they are rubbish). The last thing that she needs is to be falling out with people, on top of everything else.

Wannabe I agree...I think it goes both ways, they are evidently just not real friends.

Which begs the question why are they even going to her wedding?

were, rather

According to the OP the wedding was to have taken place in June. It's January now, I would not have expected to book flights yets in case anything went wrong.

I changed holidays for a "destination wedding".
When the wedding was cancelled I lost the 1st deposit (I had to book through 2 different agents), The couple are still together but marrage is not for them. They never offered to pay anything back (even though they begged me to change holidays so that i could go) I never asked for any money back and went on the worst holiday ever (surrounded by honeymooning couples and other people that where single in a couples resort), They are also very stroppy when I refuse to do the "odd job" for them. I refuse because its the only time they ever get in touch with me.

The point is that we don't know the curcumstances of those asking for the money back. Or if the place is somewhere that specialises in weddings.

I just find it astounding that they were in emergency counselling and due to get married in a few months?!

Were the warning signs not obvious enough then to at least postpone?

They had a responsibility to their guests when inviting them abroad.

Calling the guests 'twats' and to 'fuck off' is not very nice at all.

If the boot were on the other foot, would you suck up quite happily hundreds of pounds lost?

OK, I've only skimmed this but here's what I think: no-one should be in financial difficulties over this....

either you could afford to go and bought tickets etc, or you couldn't and didn't.

It may be annoying to spend money and get nothing in return (although as many posters point out you could still go on the trip anyway) but this is not the same as being in financial difficulties.

I know many people think they can't afford to spend £xxx and get nothing in return, but that's not relevant in this case....when you go to a wedding you don't get any "utility" from it other than a good time. If you can afford to spend £xxx on a good time, you can also afford to spend £xxx and get nothing.

(This also applies to OP's sister...if she could afford to have the wedding then cancelling it should not be the cause of financial difficulties, although other things relating to the break-up may be.)

My sister is paying back the money. She is a kind soul. It was me who thought that she should tell them to 'fuck off' Of course in real life you engage your brain and speak so your words are effective and do not cause offence by swearing. I have never told anyone to fuck off out loud ( I have though it, however) and never would so it puzzled me why posters thought I would and would encourage my sister to do the same. At the end of a long and trying day I still think they were unreasonable to ask for their money but my sister values them enough to have reimbursed them. I respect her decision and wish her every happiness. It's very hard to watch someone you love being kicked in the teeth (not literally).

Crumbs, not sure this would have run to 324 messages if you'd said at the start that your sister is paying them back. No-one's disputing that it's not a very sad, unfortunate situation and that the "friends" don't sound particularly sensitive to this. Hope your sister and you are OK.

Again, Caro caro, the crisis occurred very quickly. She has gone from being a very happy wife to be with no inking anything was wrong to single in just over two months. When she thought things were salvageable she paid for emergency counselling which they took in December, the relationship irretrievably broken down at the end of the month. I don't think she was being disingenous at all in not keeping people abrest of every twist and turn. She had little idea herself.