Though obviously not comparable to what the bride and groom will end up spending, weddings can often prove to be a financial burden for the guests.
Many guests will have to travel in order to attend the wedding, and will then likely need to find accommodation, while all invited guests will fork over money for a wedding gift.
Resulting in their having to budget to ensure they can join in the celebration.
Guests invited to the wedding of Redditor Double_Ad6415 found themselves faced with an expense not commonly associated with weddings.
An entry fee.
Wondering this was too much to ask of her guests, the original poster (OP) took to the subReddit “Am I The A**hole” (AITA), where she asked fellow Redditors:
“AITA for asking my guests to pay $10 to come to my wedding?”
The OP explained how her and her fiancé’s choice of venue required them to charge their guests an entry fee, which some of those attending were less than thrilled about.
“My fiancé ( 23 M[ale]) and I (23 F[emale]) are getting married in less than a month.”
“We are doing a small wedding and only inviting 20 guests.”
“We decided we wanted to have our wedding up in a canyon, but to access this canyon it costs $10, so we’re having our guests Pay the $10 to enter the canyon.”
“We put this canyon fee on our invitations.”
“My sister called today as she had just received her invite in the mail and was mad about having to pay to attend a wedding.”
“She called me an a**hole because I was being a cheapskate, and there are thousands of canyons that wont have a fee.”
“But me and my fiancé already have our hearts set on this specific canyon and view.”
“As the argument went on she started to nitpick our whole wedding plan.”
“Having the guests bring their own camping chairs.”
“Not having a real reception just a small dinner for those who attended and posting our registry all over social media but only having 20 ppl actually be invited.”
“We don’t want to spend a lot of money, and so doing it out doors is one way of doing that.”
“We also just want our close intimate friends and families to be there so I don’t know what’s wrong with keeping it small.”
“To those who will ask it’s a canyon fee you have to pay at the base so it’s not like we could just pay the park rangers in advanced and just say this should cover it.”
“It’s open to the public.”
“So AITA.”
“It is not in a national park.”
“It’s just a canyon near our hometowns.”
“We talked to the ranger, Forest State Park, I don’t know why you call them.”
“They said it was fine as long as we didn’t go over 100 people.”
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
The OP received little to no sympathy from the Reddit community for charging her guests to enter her wedding, finding her and her fiancé to be the clear a**holes in this situation.
Nobody could fully believe that the OP couldn’t find some sort of solution for covering her guests’ entry fees, with many finding the fact that she promoted her registry for her otherwise exclusive wedding made her all the less sympathetic.
“I got married at a park that had an entrance fee.”
“We included a card with the invitation that our guests could present at the park to be allowed in.”
“We put a deposit at the gate to cover their parking charges, and they calculated the actual amount due based on the cards they collected.”
“It’s not that difficult. Don’t charge your guests.”
“YTA.”- Friendly_Vast2077
“YTA for ‘posting your registry all over social media but only having 20 people invited’.”
“That’s not normal folks, people who don’t come to your wedding shouldn’t be expected to give you gifts.”- ballbrewing
“Oof, buddy.”
“I was trying to be open minded but you lost me at posting your registry on social media, soliciting gifts from people who aren’t invited.”
“That is tacky as f*ck.”
“This canyon is clearly not meant to be a wedding venue.”
“The least you can do is pay for people’s entrance fees.”
“YTA.”-Temporary_Badger
“YTA.”
“The Canyon is your wedding venue.”
“I’ve never been to a wedding where the couple have asked me to pay admission / my percentage of the cost of their chosen venue.”
“If you cant afford the canyon as a wedding venue pick another one.”- amo_ward
“YTA.”
“This sounds cheap and tacky, especially posting your registry on social media when you’re only inviting 20 people.”
“And then making them pay to attend and schlep their own chair down into a canyon.”
“Just elope.”
“What sounds like a cute little ceremony to you will be a talking point for people for years, and not in a good way.”
“’Oh my God, remember when Sara and Nathan got married and we had to pay to go hiking with a chair?!'”
“‘And then they posted their registry online?! ‘”
“Like great auntie Susan is gonna buy them a Le Creuset when she wasn’t even invited?!’”-prairieislander
“These are 20 of the most important to you and you cant cover the $200 entrance fee for them?”
“Cmon, it’s your wedding, not a birthday party.”
“YTA.”- toukeithvang
“So you’re skirting permit fees, venue fees, making you guests pay admission and bring their own chairs, only inviting 20 but making sure everyone you’ve ever met knows about your registry.”
“There’s frugal, and then there’s tacky bordering on illegal.”
“I suggest you do your research before day of.”
“Unless you’re aware that you’re going about this against park policy and are doing it specifically for cash flow reasons.”
“Either way YTA.”- armchairshrink99
“YTA .”
“I wonder if OP is having people pay the fees individually because she doesn’t want to get a permit for the event.”
“That’s a huge no-no and if it’s a popular time, her and her guests may very well be kicked out.”
“We had our wedding in a national park and we had to get a permit and paid all the fees.”
“It was worth it to know that we were there legally and add the space to ourselves.”- Alternative-Pop6452
“Guests have to pay and schlep a chair!”
“YTA.”- GelOfYouth
“Your sister is right.”
“Not only are you a cheapskate, but you are lazy to boot.”
“You certainly could arrange something with the ranger station.”
“YTA.”- Discipline-Lopsided
“YTA.”
“Most people would pay the entry fee for their guests.”
“$10*20 people is $200.”
“Darn cheap for a venue rental.”- FineWinePaperCup
“YTA.”
“This gives the vibe we are doing something wrong and hope we don’t get caught vibes.”-Comfortable-Age5370
“So you’re avoiding paying $200 because it’s allegedly logistically infeasible.”
“Even though you say the rangers are fine with the wedding happening, so someone could at least stay at the entrance and pay.”
“Or nothing is stopping you from mailing out $10 bills with some cute note/see you soon to confirmed guests.”
“But posting your wish list of thousands, or at least several hundred, of dollars of stuff you want all over the internet?”
“I don’t think you’re trying to be tacky, and I’m a big believer in simple weddings and people doing exactly what they want to get married.”
“I don’t have a problem with simple or homemade food, or even cash bars for extra drinks.”
“I went to a great wedding that provided specialty cocktails but beers were a buck or something, and friends bartended.”
“And maybe the canyon fee or chair alone could’ve been fine?”
“But all this combined with the registry on social media makes it seem like you want to take, take, take without giving much of anything at all to make your guests feel welcomed and comfortable.”
“The simple weddings I’ve been to have also mostly been very gift-optional or encouraged folks to donate to nonprofits instead.”
“Why not just have members of the wedding party, yourselves, or close family bring extra chairs?”
“It’s not that bringing a chair is so hard but you want to make things easy for your guests.”- emz272
The OP later returned with an update, confessing she didn’t think about the optics of sharing her wedding registry on social media, but standing firm that in order to have the wedding at their desired canyon, there really was no other choice than to have their guests pay the entry fee.
“I didn’t realize posting your registry to social media was such a faux pas.”
“Everybody posts everything now a days online and many people, who already knew they weren’t invited, had asked me about the registry so I posted it.”
“Yes, we talked to the rangers.”
“We asked them if we could buy passes or slips or give them a list of names ahead of time in order to pay for our guests, but none of those solutions worked.”
“We decided informing our guests that there would be a $10 fee as a heads up would be the best way to go.”
“I guess we should have been more creative but we already sent out the invites.”
“So there goes 1/2 the suggestions.”
“We are taking some of the other ones under advisement.”
It’s hard to not think that the comfort and enjoyment of their guests seem to be a fairly low priority for the OP and her fiancé.
Leaving one to wonder if they might be better off having a ceremony with just the two of them.
Which could very well end up being the case, if the rest of their 20 or so guests are as put off by having to pay an entry fee as the OP’s sister was.