Should bride and groom be paying?
Hello, a while back I was invited to a very small wedding in the US and asked to be a best man, I obliged and was told nothing further on this. Some time went by but the wedding date was still afar, however I was hurried into booking my flights and accomodation by said couple. I won’t lie I was expecting all of this or part anyways of to be covered for me as the couple in question are in quite good jobs and it is a tiny wedding party less than 10 people. I didn’t mind paying for this however as I know it is a big day and one of my friends weddings.
Moving forward from this we were then asked to pay for a pre wedding party the day before the wedding, this was booked in advance and expected all of us to pay without much notice again we were given an ultimatum that if you don’t pay you will not be included in the activity, again almost out of guilt we obliged and paid again.
When it came to the suits myself and the other best man were told to get matching suits with a small subsidy offered that would barely cover the cost of a decent shirt. Again this request was spaced out from the previous time we paid for the pre wedding party so it didn’t seem so bad . Again we forked out our own cash to cover the remainder of the cost of the suits.
Some time later again almost calculated I would say, we were told we would have to pay another fee to attend the wedding after party at a nightclub, another hidden cost with an ultimatum if you don’t pay you won’t attend, we were then told by the groom that we should pay as we were the best men and should be there for him. But we pushed back on this and said it was costing us too much and we won’t be attending this part of the wedding, this was not received well and we got a quite aggressive response.
Another thing we know now is that our meal and tips for waiting staff at the wedding will also be covered by us when we get there and I won’t be surprised if there are other fees put on us either at this rate.
Do you think this is acceptable behaviour in modern day as weddings go? We have already spent a huge amount on the wedding but because the fees were so well spaced out it doesn’t make it seem so bad… to be clear i am approaching 2k spent already and I haven’t even got there yet. Considering how small the wedding party is I thought some of this would be paid for us at least for the groomsmen/bridesmaids but it seems we are paying for everything.
The few people I have said this to have all said this is crazy behaviour to ask your guests to pay for everything and I agree.
Am I wrong to think this or what are your thoughts?