Weddings are expensive for everyone involved. Especially if you are in the bridal party.
You are expected to pay for things not only for the wedding, but also for the bachelor/bachelorette party, bridal showers, or any other celebrations.
So, it is completely understandable that some don’t want that responsibility. But, explaining that clearly is the only way to maintain a good relationship with the bride or groom.
Redditor hodl_my_beer encountered this very issue with his friend. So he turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for moral judgment.
He asked:
“AITA for disinviting a lifelong friend from my wedding?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“My fiancé and I are getting married in July and I want to have a friend of ours since elementary school to be my best man.”
“The problem is finances.”
“He has never been responsible financially and until recently lived in his parent’s basement (we’re both in our early 30’s now). My fiancé and I live in Maryland and he lives in Florida in a house with 5 roommates.”
“Our wedding is in Wilmington, NC. I know money is tight for him and he does not have a car so we were going to pay for his hotel room for the weekend of the wedding.”
OP’s wedding party have a specific dress code.
“He is supposed to be my best man and the groomsmen and bridesmaids are all wearing tan suits/dresses with rose gold and green accents.”
“He kept joking that he was going to wear a black suit and that it ‘would be hilarious.'”
“My fiancé was getting pissed at what seemed like a dumb joke a when it occurred to me that maybe he doesn’t have money to buy a suit just for the wedding.”
“My mom (who was his kindergarten teacher and so cares about him a lot also) offered to buy him a suit to match. He doesn’t have a car so it looks like we’d have to pay for his rental car for the weekend.”
OP’s whole family was willing to help out.
“Even with all of this we still really want him at our wedding so we were going to use my FMIL’s Southwest Airlines miles to get him a plane ticket, until we JUST realized that they don’t fly FL – NC.”
“Last night is when I realized that we can’t afford to have him with everything added up.”
“I feel bad and have to call him later to give him the bad news today. One last thing is we were talking the other night and he was so excited that a friend of his was picking him up and taking him drinking.”
“He said ‘I told her that I didn’t have money to go out and she said ‘did I ask if you have money? Get dressed, we’re going out’.'”
“At that point I knew that we were going to have to pay for every meal he had all weekend and since my fiancé and I have other plans and can’t eat every meal with him, we’d have to just give him a cash per diem or something.”
“My fiancé and I are in our early 30’s and have good jobs, a great apartment and each have a car but money is still tight and we don’t have thousands of dollars extra.”
“AITA for uninviting him to our wedding/dropping him as my best man?”
“Edit: the title isn’t perfect. We do not want to disinvite him from the wedding, just need him to pay for his own way to get there and meals.”
Redditors gave their opinions on the situation by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Most Redditors agreed OP was not the a**hole.
“NTA”
“This is a grown man. If he can’t afford to attend and be in your wedding he needs to explicitly state that.” ~ Thediciplematt
“Thank you for your quick response. This is the advice I got from my family and another groomsman, but I can’t help but feeling guilty. It’s really weighing on me to where I haven’t been able to sleep tonight dreading the call I have to make later.” ~ hodl_my_beer
“I don’t know if you need to explicitly disinvite him, but I would explicitly say what you can and can’t pay for. Like the above commenter, he needs to decide and tell you if that’s feasible or not.” ~ Miss_Magpie_
“NTA – the best option is to do as these other comments say and just be super clear what you can and cannot pay for, selecting carefully to avoid flying him out and then feeling pressured to pay for food (i.e maybe offer to pay for the hotel but he needs to sort rental car).”
“Weddings are expensive to attend and it’s VERY COMMON to opt out due to cost, especially from being in a wedding party.”
“Part of your guilt might be coming from a feeling of pity for his situation – but he’s a grown man and it’s not unheard of to have roommates in your 30s. He’s living his life.”
“If that’s not conducive to an out of state wedding that’s partially subsidized, that’s both his decision and totally fine. You’re not disinviting him, you’re being clear what you can and cannot afford. He then needs to do the same.” ~ Elizabeth444444
OP added an update.
“Well I tried to have a convo with him about finding his own transportation to the wedding. He told me ‘I’m at work, I’ll TTYL.'”
“That was on Monday and he still hasn’t replied.”
“Scrolling through our messages I realized that I asked him weeks ago for his suit size so that we could buy him a suit. He hasn’t responded.”
“At this point my denial is over, he doesn’t give a shit about me or my wedding. It sucks because we were best friend since about 9 years old.”
“After he moved out of state we went our own ways but I never thought that he could just not care anymore. It hurts a lot, but it’s something I’ll have to deal with.”
“Thanks for all of the help and suggestions, everyone, but I can’t help someone that doesn’t want to help themself.”
If OP’s friend can’t afford to even be invited they need to be upfront about it.