It is no secret that weddings are expensive AF, whether for the person planning the ceremony or attending it. But this wedding going viral on Reddit is truly outrageous!
In a post on the “Am I the A**hole” subreddit this month, a 32-year-old woman explained she was asked to be a bridesmaid at her childhood pal Kayla’s destination wedding in her fiancé’s home overseas in a “tiny, far-north Scandinavian town.” Initially, the bride planned to have the ceremony in 2025. But “due to some family pressures,” the woman claimed her friend was forced to change the wedding date to 2024… and only four months away. That is so soon! When the social media user crunched the numbers, she realized she — and most likely other guests — would be spending a grand total of at least $8,000 for the wedding! She wrote:
“Between flights, the hotel (most everything in town has already been booked for Midsommar including every spare room and couch at his families home so the rooms at the final available stays are around $300 p/n for the 7 days of wedding events), the rental car, the bridesmaid dress, the full traditional outfit required to be worn for some the the events, pet boarding, as well as general incidentals and we are looking at a minimum $8,000.”
Related: Mom Refuses To Let Size 14 Daughter Wear Her Wedding Dress!
Jeez! This is absolutely wild to ask guests to shell out thousands of dollars each for a wedding — whether it is last-minute or not! While the bridesmaid acknowledged she and her husband “have good jobs,” she was hesitant to spend their hard-earned money on the wedding since they had not only been saving for a tenth-anniversary trip to Japan, but they had already booked the flights when the date change was announced. The poster explained:
“My husband and I have good jobs and are lucky that we don’t have to worry about the day to day expenses of life, but we do still have to be thoughtful and save for any larger purchases or travel. For the last 4 years we have been saving for our tenth anniversary trip, a 3 week tour around Japan, and had just booked flights when the date change was announced. Kayla didn’t know I had just booked flights and when she broke the news she actually said ‘you’re so lucky, you’ve been saving all that money for a vacation anyway!’”
A messy, messy situation! So what does the Reddit user plan to do? Well, that is the issue. She doesn’t know how to handle all of this! The bridesmaid ultimately wants to get out of the destination wedding, but she toyed around with the idea of lying to her bestie. Oof. She said:
“My idea was to lie and say we have to do a major home repair (fixing the foundation maybe) that will cost all of what we have saved plus more, then when it did come time for the Asia trip say we were gifted the trip by my husband’s parents.”
That would not be a good look! However, the poster is not entirely sold on the idea. She pointed out she would feel guilty for lying. At the same time, the bridesmaid shared that she would feel a tad hypocritical about the whole thing as she had a destination wedding of her own years ago in Alaska. Despite not having a “particularly good or secure job” at the time, Kayla still attended. But the bridesmaid noted her wedding did not cost nearly as much as her friend’s. Nevertheless, the woman is worried about how Kayla will react to the real reason she cannot attend the affair, and that their friendship will be over:
“I’m scared that if I tell her the truth of why we can’t go, it’s too damn expensive, it will ruin our friendship. I could see why it would. She was a bridesmaid for me while far less financially secure than we are now and she knows we have a lot of money saved for travel. Our friendship means a lot to me but I don’t think it’s fair to plan a wedding this expensive to attend and expect me to cancel our dream trip to accommodate it.”
Concluding her post, the woman asked if the “risk” of lying and her finding out was “worth it to avoid telling her the truth.” And other social media users did not hesitate to give their honest opinions about the ordeal!! Many agreed the wedding was way too expensive. But some felt that lying about why she could not attend is not the right move at all:
“You would not be the a**hole for cancelling but you would be the a**hole for lying about it.”
“8K is an outlandish amount to ask anyone to pay to come to a wedding. Ever. Full stop. The answer is we just can’t afford that. We cannot spend that kind of money on this. I’m so sorry, we can’t. We booked our Japan vacation already, not knowing that you were going to change the date, and we can’t do this. Your actual reason is sufficient. Making something up would just make it dodgy. Tell her the truth.”
“N T A for not wanting to spend $8K to go to a wedding. But YTA for trying to come up with a complicated lie. Just be honest and talk to your friend. If the friendship can survive this, then something else would’ve broken it in the future”
If you want our answer, everyone is right. Honesty is the best policy. It is better to be upfront about how an expensive AF destination wedding is not in the budget. And lying to the bride would only be a horrible move! That would, without a doubt, hurt the friendship more than simply having an honest conversation about the real reason you cannot go to the last-minute ceremony. But what would YOU do, Perezcious readers? Sound OFF in the comments below!
[Image via Movieclips/Universal Pictures/YouTube]
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