The stingey-assed wedding thread

00112984

A friend of mine once went to a wedding where, after the church part ended at 2pm, it was announced that the couple along with their immediate family were going to a local restuarant for dinner. None of the other guests knew about this or were invited along. They were told to meet back at a particular pub at 8pm that evening for a bit to eat.

As you can imagine, a lot of guests were very pissed off and just headed home but others hung around for the 6 hours and made it to the pub where the drinks were flowing and everyone was told to order from the bar food menu. After they'd eaten, the very embarrassed bestman had to walk around to everyone with a big till receipt, finding out what everyone had an getting the appropriate amount of money from them.

I'm putting this in AH rather than Weddings and Marriage as I want general stories, not just from those who are in the process of arranging a wedding themselves.

So, what's the meanest looking, tight-assed thing you've seen pulled by a couple getting wed?

Mingey

Fair play to them. Looks like the people only went for the free feed then. Why bother spending that much on people who are only going for their 'day out.'

javaboy

00112984 wrote: »

So, what's the meanest looking, tight-assed thing you've seen pulled by a couple getting wed?

The last wedding I was at, the happy couple hogged the first song the band played all to themselves. There were loads of people just left standing around because they didn't want to share the dancefloor. It was ridiculous. There was plenty of room for everyone else. Stingy feckers.

ejmaztec

A tight-fisted bitch-cousin of mine charged people an entry fee to the reception.

MarkR

I'd say you'd get more life out of a stingey-assed wedding guests thread. I've been to quite a few weddings and never felt that the bride and groom did anything less then their level best to make sure everyone had an enjoyable day.

LeahBaby

Weddings wreck my head. My bf's brother's wedding is in 2 weeks. Not only is it taking our valentines away, it's gonna cost us a grand.

I'm going abroad to get married. All in in Hawaii including a week hotel with band etc is like 10g. compared to meal costing that here.

00112984

Mingey wrote: »

Fair play to them. Looks like the people only went for the free feed then. Why bother spending that much on people who are only going for their 'day out.'

People went because they were invited.

Inviting someone to a party, excluding them from the bulk of it and then charging them for the food they consumed at your party is tight-assed.

If you want a small wedding, have it. Don't artifically inflate the number of people you have there in order to garner more presents.

BaconZombie

FYP

ejmaztec wrote: »

A tight-fisted bitch-cousin of mine charged people an entry fee to ther eception. ass

axel rose

5 months after going to a wedding I had to phone the bride to check if she recieved my €250 cheque! I dont want anyone to give me any etiquette crap- A thank you card wouldnt have broken her hand! :mad:

Mingey

00112984 wrote: »

People went because they were invited.

Inviting someone to a party, excluding them from the bulk of it and then charging them for the food they consumed at your party is tight-assed.

If you want a small wedding, have it. Don't artifically inflate the number of people you have there in order to garner more presents.

They were invited back to the pub later but went home because they were very pissed off you said. That just seems a bit off. On both sides I suppose. But the amount people spend on weddings are so over the top. It seems it is hard to have a low key wedding for fear of putting people out. Its all a bit silly really.

stovelid

axel rose wrote: »

5 months after going to a wedding I had to phone the bride to check if she recieved my €250 cheque! I dont want anyone to give me any etiquette crap- A thank you card wouldnt have broken her hand! :mad:

Maybe she was embarrassed because it bounced?

partyguinness

I was at a dirt cheap wedding in England last year with my English g/friend:

a. It was on a Monday.
b. It was a Civil wedding and it took place in the same building as the reception.
c. The bride bought her dress in TKMaxx and an indentical one for the flower girl which was cut up to fit.(£40 each)
d. No bridesmaids.
e. The meal was a self service buffet in the room next door.
f. The desert was the wedding cake.
g. 40 people invited.

It was great. Very cheap, lovely food and very civilised. I had the whole bar to myself which closed at 10.30 pm.

I would never get married in Ireland. My g/friend has been to weddings with me in Ireland and she thinks it crazy..

all the expense, hassle, 4000 people at it, waiting around for the reception for hours on end...and year long preparation..just a big money racket..

The couple were/are in their mid 20s.

Oh yeah..in England the ettitqette is to give money to cover the cost of the meal viz. £40-£50 between 2 of us.

buynow

Agreed, if there is one thing you need to do when inviting people to a wedding , is feed them. People get grumpy when they are hungry.

Any time I have heard people complain about going to a wedding, not getting fed is the main one.

Quazzie

axel rose wrote: »

5 months after going to a wedding I had to phone the bride to check if she recieved my €250 cheque! I dont want anyone to give me any etiquette crap- A thank you card wouldnt have broken her hand! :mad:

Surely you'd notice if €250 was taken from your account?

dtwhaler

axel rose wrote: »

5 months after going to a wedding I had to phone the bride to check if she recieved my €250 cheque! I dont want anyone to give me any etiquette crap- A thank you card wouldnt have broken her hand! :mad:

Similar tale ............... months after the wedding I saw the bride and asked her why she hadnt cashed the cheque .................. I hadnt signed it !!!
I was mortified !!

January

Mingey wrote: »

Fair play to them. Looks like the people only went for the free feed then. Why bother spending that much on people who are only going for their 'day out.'

Weddings are by far not free!! I bet everyone of those guests brought a present because they thought they were going to a full day wedding...

Mingey

If you have a crap time at someones wedding tell them you are never going to another wedding of theirs again.

Mingey

adrieanne__x wrote: »

Weddings are by far not free!! I bet everyone of those guests brought a present because they thought they were going to a full day wedding...

Is that the only reason why you buy gifts for the couple?

Quazzie

Mingey wrote: »

If you have a crap time at someones wedding tell them you are never going to another wedding of theirs again.

Does that make you a stingey mingey?

axel rose

Stovelid! I take umbridge to your accucations! I put a curse upon your toenails!
I dont want to go in to to much detail but we were requested to pay the cheque into an account with a business so I couldnt be sure if there was a mixup with the business or that the couple were too lazy assed to thank their guests!..........Turned out that the couple were indeed too lazy assed to thank the guests.

Mingey

Quazzie2002 wrote: »

Does that make you a stingey mingey?

Whingey Mingey.

Stingey Mingey is when I show up to a friends wedding expecting a free feed and going home in a strop when I didnt get one.

dade

00112984 wrote: »

A friend of mine once went to a wedding where, after the church part ended at 2pm, it was announced that the couple along with their immediate family were going to a local restuarant for dinner. None of the other guests knew about this or were invited along. They were told to meet back at a particular pub at 8pm that evening for a bit to eat.

jaysus sounds like one I'm invited to. Reg office job, groomsman told to buy his own suit, those asked to the ceremony told we're going to a local restaurant for a feed after but you have to pay your own way, and it's a Friday.

so I have to loose a days pay and pay for my own grub? get F'd and the tight wench suggested that she was having a wedding list, eh in this case my presence will be my present

NinjaTruncs

LeahBaby wrote: »

Weddings wreck my head. My bf's brother's wedding is in 2 weeks. Not only is it taking our valentines away, it's gonna cost us a grand.

I'm going abroad to get married. All in in Hawaii including a week hotel with band etc is like 10g. compared to meal costing that here.

Pot and Kettle comes to mind, you are complaining about loosing a weekend, but you will expect people to travel halfway around the world to go to yours

dodgyme

javaboy wrote: »

The last wedding I was at, the happy couple hogged the first song the band played all to themselves. There were loads of people just left standing around because they didn't want to share the dancefloor. It was ridiculous. There was plenty of room for everyone else. Stingy feckers.

Roger Daltry was there?

Degag

In one way guys, weddings are really expensive these days and it's really hard for people to come up with the money these days. That said, if i couldn't afford to at least feed my guests then i wouldn't invite them. Or if i'm that hard up i wouldn't even get married.

ejmaztec

BOFH_139 wrote: »

FYP

No, I understand she never ever charged for that. :P

blackbox

I don't mind stingey, but what the OP described is MEAN.

To me it makes sense not to waste loads of money on a wedding, but inviting people and then telling them to get lost for a few hours is totally unreasonable.

Also, inviting them for a party with bar food and then going around asking them to pay afterwards is also pretty mean.

If money was an issue, there should have been no invites - as simple as that.

javaboy

dodgyme wrote: »

Roger Daltry was there?

Who? (Deja vu )

I don't geddit.

blackbox

dodgyme wrote: »

Roger Daltry was there?

Roger Daltry was never in The Band - you must be thinking of Robbie Robertson.

00112984

ejmaztec wrote: »

No, I understand she never ever charged for that. :P

Maybe you got the family discount? :pac:

partyguinness

Degag wrote: »

In one way guys, weddings are really expensive these days and it's really hard for people to come up with the money these days. That said, if i couldn't afford to at least feed my guests then i wouldn't invite them. Or if i'm that hard up i wouldn't even get married.

It doesnt cost any money to get married.

Its essentially a piece of paper. Go to a Registry office...

dodgyme

partyguinness wrote: »

It doesnt cost any money to get married.

Its essentially a piece of paper. Go to a Registry office...

partyguinness is it. Its all in the name?

AnonoBoy

I was a terrible wedding once. The father of the bride had said he was going to pay for the wedding but actually paid the hotel with a forged cheque and so halfway through the meal they came out and confronted him and the whole thing ended up in a ridiculous shouting match. The Gardai arrived after the father of the bride assaulted the hotel manager, the groom and even his own wife.

It was a disaster.

With a start like that is it any wonder we got divorced a few months later. :mad:

partyguinness

dodgyme wrote: »

partyguinness is it. Its all in the name?

dodgyme

javaboy wrote: »

I don't geddit.

Look I wasnt talking about your generation

Quazzie

AnonoBoy wrote: »

I was a terrible wedding once. The father of the bride had said he was going to pay for the wedding but actually paid the hotel with a forged cheque and so halfway through the meal they came out and confronted him and the whole thing ended up in a ridiculous shouting match. The Gardai arrived after the father of the bride assaulted the hotel manager, the groom and even his own wife.

It was a disaster.

With a start like that is it any wonder we got divorced a few months later. :mad:

Was it your wedding?

xzanti

Mingey wrote: »

Fair play to them. Looks like the people only went for the free feed then. Why bother spending that much on people who are only going for their 'day out.'

Fair enough, if they'd been informed that this was the plan.. chances are their guests will have bought expensive gifts or put money in cards, shelled out for dresses and suits etc.. Weddings aren't cheap for the guests either.. The usual idea is that the couple will make back a certain amount on gifts.. This is bad form imho.. I would have went home and took the gift with me.

00112984

partyguinness wrote: »

It doesnt cost any money to get married.

Its essentially a piece of paper. Go to a Registry office...

To get married in Ireland in any form (church, reg office etc.) it costs €150 as of November 2007.

stovelid

axel rose wrote: »

Turned out that the couple were indeed too lazy assed to thank the guests.

Was definitely stingy of them. Especially as it was a generous gift.

axel rose

stovelid wrote: »

Was definitely stingy of them. Especially as it was a generous gift.

Thanks-Ill take that hex off your toenails so.

cos!!

to be fair, weddings are usually a full day out with family and friends, and if your invited you buy a decent present or throw a generous few quid in the card, dress up in your best and expect a good day!!if i went to one of these wedding id be mighty pissed off!!people here sayin its expensive for the couple....fair enough it is, but dont invite guests if your not going to look after them!!and the price of the present or the amount in the card would easily cover the cost of your meal anyway!!

rant over....

January

Mingey wrote: »

Is that the only reason why you buy gifts for the couple?

Are you serious??

The only reason half those people were even invited to the wedding was because the bride and groom expected to get a present out of them!! If they had wanted them there at to celebrate them getting married then they would have at least shelled out to feed them! And, I bet she hadn't even seen most of them from one end of the year to the next and she expected them to shell out for their own food when they were invited to a party!!

I know times are hard and all but, as someone else mentioned, going to a wedding as a guest isn't cheap either you know! You have to buy something to wear (because not everyone has a dress for a wedding in their wardrobe), you have to pay for transport to and from the venue (sometimes twice over if its church then hotel), you may have to pay for accommodation if it's somewhere far off from where you live.

AnonoBoy

Quazzie2002 wrote: »

Was it your wedding?

Yes. Yes it was.

Loopy

The best wedding I was at was a registery office and then on to the local pub, lots of drink and lovely pub grub, no fuss and everyone had a great day. It cost them £350 in total.

I was at a very fancy wedding this year and it was way over the top and not that enjoyable.. Cost €40,000:eek:

Sometimes stingy works.. (provided you get some scram)..

taram

There's a difference in having an economical wedding (buffet in a GAA hall, nom nom unlimited cocktail sauasages and wedges) and a stingy one (dinner is in a minute...that'll be 29.99 each please). They can look like each other, but at the end of the day, you'll have a blast at one and wanna stab the bride and groom at the other.

Terodil

I'm really boggling at all the standards that seem to be applied implicitly to plan or judge weddings.

I want a simple, small but very special and memorable wedding. It's a fallacy to believe that the amount of money spent on the wedding ceremony is in any way correlated with the happiness you are going to experience later. In my very personal opinion all those expensive wedding seat covers (wth??) and dresses for 2k EUR etc. are not really making a wedding special or unique, they make them more uniform if anything.

One thing that I'd never do is send out a 'wedding gift wish list'... come on. What would I want with a glass bowl for 200 EUR. If guests want to bring presents, then yes, please do, but don't believe that we would rate your feelings for us by the money you spent on them. If you bring a present that you made yourself with raw materials for 5 EUR but that ends up in our home as a memory of you and a lovely day spent together then you can be pretty damn sure that that's probably the best present of them all.

I wouldn't send anybody away ofc, it defeats the purpose of making it a very special day for everybody, but if you expect a menu for 100 EUR each... gtfo. I'd rather spend the money on the honeymoon trip. And you, as a dear friend or loved family member, wouldn't you prefer that too? I definitely know I would. In the extreme, as a wedding guest, I could be perfectly happy with a hotdog if everything else just fit (although I'd probably go for something a tad more elaborate myself, lol).

muffinob1

partyguinness wrote: »

It doesnt cost any money to get married.

Its essentially a piece of paper. Go to a Registry office...

It does actually cost - it costs to register and there are other fees even cheap registry one costs about 500e

Blisterman

Or don't get married at all.
Seriously, what's the point in this day and age?

Ann22

I was invited to a wedding once, in with the invitation there was a note asking for a 'cash gift' instead of a present. Thought that was unusual, we were giving money anyway. Don't think I'd have the nerve to do that:o.

thermo66

axel rose wrote: »

5 months after going to a wedding I had to phone the bride to check if she recieved my €250 cheque! I dont want anyone to give me any etiquette crap- A thank you card wouldnt have broken her hand! :mad:

250 yo yo's!!!

Were they family or a best friend?? Thats a lot of money to give to a random friend!

I was at a wedding where the mother of the bride was collecting cards etc, fair enough .. but i saw she was stuffing all the money into one envelope so any cheapskate who gave nothing got away with it while very generous people like yourself went unknownst. Not a big deal i know but thought it was a bit odd.

MIN2511

My idea of a wedding is getting married in my parents garden, having the reception there as well with a local band playing all our favourite tunes...
I would never fork out ridiculous amount of money for one day, it just doesn't make sense!


I don't understand how people spend money they cannot afford on one day in their lives, these couples end up in divorce 5/6yrs later...
Sad!