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 design travel insurance policies for a living and can guarantee you that the travel insurance won't cover this scenario. However, tour op should easily be able to transfer deposits onto new holiday. If 'friends' were happy to pay to travel anyway, then surely they will still be happy to have a holiday, albeit without a wedding. Do think it's incredibly insensitive of people to ask for their cash back. Deposits are hardly likely to be massive this far in advance of travel. However, were it me, I would have offered to reimburse anyone out of pocket anyway cos I am a soft touch.

Have skimmed. Of course guests are being utterly unreasonable.

Relationship has broken down after wedding was booked - that is really hard to deal with and on top of that people are asking her for cash? If all guests take that attitude it could easily run into thousands - nice way to treat a friend. Bride and groom will doubtless be losing lots of deposits themselves, flights, venue, hotel, honeymoon and everything.

If I were a guest I would simply take a holiday there instead. Easy.

They should maybe look at it as money saved rather than money lost - I have a friend who had doubts but went ahead with wedding, they split about 3 months later. So not only had people had to fork out to get to wedding, hotels, clothes etc they had also spent £££ on wedding presents. Better to put a stop to it now than later.

Do people ask for wedding presents back if the marriage lasts less than a year say? It is similar idea.

If you are asking your friends and family to effectively invest in your plans for your dream wedding (and there is a sense of obligation tht often comes with an invite) then yes, you do bear some responsibility for it. At least on some basic moral level.
I'd be riddled with guilt if this was me. I wouldn't be offended that my guests hoped to recoup some of their expenses.
And yes, maybe they could go reardless and have a holiday - but, dunno about anyone else, I quite like to choose my own holiday destinations.

FA - Night out in Dagenham sounds superb to me!!!

YANBU.
My cousin was due to get married last summer abroad and lots of his friends and family booked flights and accomodation for it.
2 months before the big day his finance changed her mind and the wedding was cancelled.
He was absolutely gutted! Can you imagine how much worse he would have felt if his friends and family had then demanded thousands of ponds from him for flights and accomodation? I t wasn't his fault and he lost lots of money too!
As it was most people went on holiday anyway instead of wasting the money.

If I get invited to a wedding abroad I assume the couple assume that not everyone will be able to go, and I only go if I really want to. It's a good "out" of the obligation of having to attend a wedding if you don't really want to. And because I can't afford to fly around the place willy nilly I would also only go if I could combine it with a holiday.

As someone else says, would you expect the bride to shell out for transport, hotel costs, outfit costs, hen night costs etc if you were at the church and the groom jilted her? Course not. Isn't there always an element of 'risk' that an event such as a wedding may not take place for any number of reasons?

Bibbity I agree.

It also sounds a bit like a doomed business venture...the sort where you ask your folks to bail you out as it is surely about to take off at any moment and they will be richly rewarded.

Then you go down the pan.

Is it insensitive for them to want some of their dosh back?

Obviously it is never wise to mix friendship and money. That's partly why I think the smaller and cheape the wedding, the better. In every case.

Links arms with Jeremy (yet again). Smoochy woochy.

pounds not PONDS

Just because you have paid for it, does not mean you can afford to lose the money if it doesn't go ahead. It could be that you sacrifice a family holiday, or have a shorter/cheaper family holiday in order to be able to afford to go to the wedding. I would be mightily p!$$£d off if I was in that situation. Especially if the wedding was not somewhere I would choose to go other than for the wedding.

I suspect that part of the reason for the friends asking for a refund, is to do with the fact that they were not warned that the relationship was on dodgy ground before they paid out their money. I think it unreasonable of your sister to issue invites despite knowing there were problems. Sorry. Think I will have to join Bibbity in changing my name!

i conceded that point, mayorqumby.

i thin ths comparing of the wedding to any regular transaction or purschase is odd

it's not like borrowing osmething or buying a car. its a wedding

and i'm fairly sure a lot of cuoples have doubts/last minute nerves etc

maybe she should not have booked hte wedding

maybe guests shouldnot have booked flights

mabye she should have got married and tried and then gone thorugh a divorce?

surely she is going through emotional time and people asking for a refund is just callous

By JeremyVile If you are asking your friends and family to effectively invest in your plans for your dream wedding (and there is a sense of obligation tht often comes with an invite) then yes, you do bear some responsibility for it

I agree with that entirely.

And Flight of course. Really must get a mind of my own one of these days .

We got married 10 years ago and I think the insurance was £35. It should be the norm to insure against anything going wrong which means the wedding doesn't go ahead.

I am thinking the OP might be the bride..

crapweasel is right about the "affording" it thing when she says: "Point is that if you can afford (comfortably or otherwise) to pay for flights in the first place then you can afford to lose the money".

you might not like it but you can afford it. the money's already spent. the difference is that where you once thought you were spending the money on going to a wedding you're now spending it on a cancellation fee, or on a holiday. not what you originally intended but no different financially.

Bibbity I don't think your lending analogy holds. A better one would be that you and OH agreed to go to theatre to see a friend performing in a play. But she falls on the ice and breaks her leg and isn't in it any more. You and OH decide that you don;t want to go if she isn't there, even though you could still have gone and had a good time.

Then you insist she refunds you the cost of your tickets.

I would say that was not on.

I wouldn't ask for the money. However I do think your sister and her ex should be at least offering some kind of contribution or gesture for those who are significantly out of pocket, especially if the relationship was rocky already and they were in counselling. Very surprising to push ahead with major foreign wedding plans in that situation I would have said.

I think if offered a contribution many people would say 'Don't you worry about it you've got enough on your plate, is there anything I can do to help?'

It's all very well people saying no one is obliged to go and if they can't afford to lose the money they shouldn't have accepted. But if it's a wedding you are prepared to go to a lot of expense and effort and use up annual leave to attend, and possibly sacrifice a family holiday somewhere of your choice that year, it's probably the wedding of someone important to you and one that you would want and possibly feel slightly obliged to go to if humanly possible.

I still need to know how long they were having counselling for, sorry...seems a bit strange that they would have issued invitations long enough ago to have given relate a serious shot in the meantime.

Say they set the wedding date last June, people have booked during the autumn...problems began in June, they could have told people not to book just yet, still almost a year to go - then tried the counselling. Problems began in October, they still could have warned people not to book just yet...and people who had might have got their deposit back at that stage?
I don't know how these things work.
I'm just having some trouble with the timeline.

No way I can make a firm judgment until that little piece of the puzzle is in place.

EXACTLY, jeremy.

what pisses me off about the OP here is that she is angry that some people have had the temerity to ask to be re-imbursed. surprised? yes. mortified? sure thing. but to start cat-calling about people who have lost out financially, well, it's just ill-mannered.

i do feel sorry for the sister because it's another awkward situation for her to deal with, presumably she'll just have to hold her hands up and apologise for the fact that she can't help them. but if she had the gall to be angry about their asking, rather than embarrassed about the situation she'd put them in, i'd be right fucked off.

Dagenham ? Never been obviously will book there for a splendid holiday ( or will a day trip cover it?

I also struggle with this lets get married abroad and guests pay their flights/accomodation/ use up holiday leave etc....
Which is why I will only go to one if I think I will have a nice break and not be faced with a bridezilla organised break.

In this instance I am surprised people booked so early for flights... And if it was me I'd be at my travel agent trying to go somewhere else for my dosh. But I suppose if it was one of these internet bookings then you either go for a break or lose it.

Imso - depends. Was the friend receiving counselling for her tendency to fall over on ice and break limbs at the time.
And had the weather been predicted as icy at the time of booking the tickets??

And bloody well why couldnt she just be content with meeting up for a cup of tea and a natter??!

I would have said YANBU if for example the ex-partner had run off with someone else.
But I do feel a bit hearing that they have been having counselling for relationship difficulties. This surely means that they have known that things were uncertain for a considerable time. I think I would feel a bit annoyed if I had lost the money and then found out that they knew that things had been uncertain for a good while.

Having said that, if it was a good friend of mine I would not ask for the money back, but I would be pretty fed up and unhappy.

I have to go DD 3.5 has just locked herself in the loo.

Unfuckingbelievable.

The Bride was getting married not putting on an entertainment production for the benfit of her friends.

No one is obliged to attend a wedding, they made the choice. No money has been "lost" the flights are still valid. They can still have a holiday. What exactly has been lost?

That anyone would consider that they are owed money due to not being able to attend a wedding party just beggars belief.

To get right back to the op, I think I felt the need to post because of this

"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"

because I disagree. I think the people who have mentioned the loss of money may not be able to afford its loss and are not therefore ~"insensitive money grabbing unmentionables" and I think Toolly and her sister could pause for a minute and consider the position these guests have been put in by the cancellation of the wedding and show a little sympathy. And if Toolly's sister cannot or will not give them any money then she should find a nicer way of saying it than to tell them to "fuck off".