An Australian bride’s dilemma sparked a wider conversation online about the high cost of weddings and the responsibility of being a guest.
A bride submitted a question to Australian podcast She’s on the Money which the show’s co-hosts Bec and Jess discussed at length as they tried to help the bride navigate the tricky situation.
In her DM, she explained that she was a week out from her wedding which was “interstate,” meaning it was a destination wedding of sorts as it required the guests to travel to a different state within Australia.
She had given out a save-the-date more than a year and a half ago, and sent formal invitations in January, so guests had ample time to plan for the event. The bride was in a quandary as she had heard from 10 guests who’d previously confirmed their attendance that they were no longer going to make the wedding. All of the guests cited that it was “too expensive for them to travel interstate,” and she said she was “scrambling to cover their seats.”
The bride had already “given the confirmed numbers to the venue and paid the outstanding amount,” which was a total of over $12,000, so she was concerned about wasting the seats that had already been paid for.
She posed a question to the hosts of the podcast as she pondered what to do about the 10 empty seats. “Is it reasonable to request that they cover these costs themselves? How do I ask them without sounding like an asshole?”
One of the podcast hosts called the last-minute cancellations “not okay” and “quite rude” in response to the DM.
“I just don’t think canceling that close to the wedding, anywhere it is, no matter what the situation is, is ever really okay. It just doesn’t feel good.”
She advised the bride to ask the question of the guests who pulled out to see if they’d be willing to contribute to the cost. “See what they say, you never know,” she said.
The other host pointed out that the guests must have left things to the last minute if they were suddenly unable to attend the wedding after having more than a year’s notice.
“I would’ve thought that you would kinda be planning and preparing a lot sooner, to the point where you would’ve known a lot sooner if it wasn’t going to work,” she said.
She also advised the guests who canceled to at least offer to make a contribution to the wedding cost or to give a cash gift.