Wife: yes, wedding in Hawaii, where her cousin was living.

Me: Kentucky, because it didn't seem worth it to spend $500 to spend a weekend in Kentucky. So sometimes it depends on the locale. Once I gladly attended a wedding on the Outer Banks of NC because who can turn down a beach wedding? Best wedding I ever attended in fact. Local seafood served on the beach right afterward. Black minister from local church did a soulful, humorous service. Everyone was barefooted.

Frequently.

I feel no obligation to attend a wedding that is more than a days drive from my home. But I usually use part of the money we save by not going, to send a really nice gift.

I don't attend weddings because I hate seeing people deliberately ruining their lives.

None of my relatives would be the sort to press for a reason, as to why I was not coming.

However, if someone were so rude as to do so, I would either make something up, or give them generic and vague, like 'the household budget is really tight right now, with the economy and all' or 'I have a prior engagement' (no need to mention the occasion is staying at home with your money, or continuing contributions to your 401k.)

I find destination weddings to be rude in and of themselves.
How anyone can expect a gift in addition to you flying the family over to Hawaii is beyond me.

I got married in Europe. No one there but me, and the groom. Weddings were not a big deal in either of our families, and we had no desire to ape the behavior of the jet set.

Still married 33 years later. I guess a solemn pledge in front of a Danish Justice of the Peace, is good enough for honorable people.

How interesting you post this question today, since I am skipping my good friend's wedding this weekend because of money. I already feel awful about it and am sure I'll only feel worse as the big day passes and then I hear about it on Facebook.

I feel the need to vent, so I hope this doesn't become too long. It's the wedding of my college buddy, whom I've known since 2002 and who was an usher at my wedding in 2010. I live several states away now (a 12-hour drive), but he and all of my college friends still live in our home state. He was able to drive up to my wedding along with the rest of our college buddies, and I feel terrible about letting him (and the rest of them) down by not coming to his.

The main reason my wife and I can't go is because of money. She makes a very good salary but has lots of student loans, and I have a low-paying job. And a major reason money's so tight is because I'm going back to school part-time each fall and spring semester, resulting in a part-time work schedule and an out-of-pocket tuition bill. My schooling is both a cause of and result of my low earning ability. Plus, I've always been the frugal one and have always pressured my wife to save as much money as possible and never splurge. Those factors combined with our money being mostly earned by her gives me almost no case to try justifying spending several hundred dollars on gas, food, a dress, and kenneling our dog on top of the gift we sent them.

Our household budget has been in the red most of the last several months, though it's clearly getting better now. When we save money, it's only a small percentage of our income that month, so it would be potentially devastating to have a $400 or $500 bill next month from wedding- and travel-related expenses when we're just starting to get our finances on the right track.

Another reason we can't afford to attend this weekend is that another college buddy is getting married in August, and it would (probably?) look bad to attend one of their weddings and not the other. If they were getting married in different years, then we could probably (maybe unwisely) suffer a financial loss this month and then make up for it the rest of the summer, and then do the same thing again next year. But not twice in the same summer.

On top of the explicit money issues, we have an 18-month-old who couldn't make the long drive with us and would have nowhere to stay in that other state anyway, and we don't have any great options here at home for three-day babysitters. I mean, if it were an absolute emergency like my mom or dad died, we have one good option for taking care of our son here. But since we can't really afford to go to the wedding anyway, the toddler excuse is really just a supplemental point.

A third reason is that my wife has to schedule her time off pretty far in advance, certainly before we got the wedding invitation, so she couldn't take off a day or two this week or next to allow for driving/recovery time. And we're expecting our second child late this year, so she's saving the rest of her time off to supplement her (decent, standard) maternity leave.

Heh, some of your readers are probably saying, "Jeez, they are typical irresponsible Americans, saving too little and getting themselves into financial straits by having children too early, buying a too-expensive house, and taking out too many student loans." That isn't completely wrong, but there's hardly ever a "good time" to have children, we're not exactly young for two kids, and our mortgage is less expensive than the (very few) family-sized apartments in our city. And my going back to school has a very high probability of improving our finances in the long run...we just have to sacrifice invaluable memories with long-time friends in the short run to achieve that.

Amy, I'm sorry for ranting, but I felt good about finding this blog post today of all days and had to comment. You probably just wanted to take a little survey and get a few data points from your readers, and I word-dumped all that. I hope it was worthwhile to someone besides me.

Thanks for all of these comments. The most moving wedding I've been to was a friend's in the Catskills at his weekend cabin, in the backyard, with BBQ in the front yard. People cry the same whether you hire Beyonce or put on a mix mp3.

Oh, sorry, in all that I forgot to answer your second question. Yes, I told my buddy the truth, all three of the reasons.

Wow, John, that posted just as mine did. Thanks for what you wrote. I think you're doing the responsible thing.

And a note from my notes that may help:

If you can’t afford a gift, send a card wishing them great happiness.

Yes, and yes. A few years ago, a friend of mine was getting married at Yosemite National Park. My girlfriend and I were living in Minnesota at the time. Our costs would have been something like:

• 2 roundtrip tix from Minneapolis to San Jose/San Francisco/Oakland - $800 or more
  
• 2 nights at a hotel in Yosemite (very limited selection, and something like $4-500 a night) - $1000
  
• Rent-a-car to drive from Bay area to Yosemite - We didn't get this far, but probably around $200 for 4 days
  

All in all, it would have easily cost us $2000+ to attend. Add in the fact that I have no particular desire to go to Yosemite (I'm not the nature-loving camping type), and we'd have to split the attention of the bride & groom with all the other guests, and no thanks.

I felt a little bad, because Yosemite limits wedding party sizes to something like 50 guests. So, I was flattered I made the cut. On the other hand, my attitude is, if who attends your wedding is so important to you, then you damn well better make it in a place that's easy and cheap for your guests to get to.

Client of mine has a nephew who is a semi-famous athlete with a salary of 6 million yearly. Keep in mind he started with a 3 million salary at 18 that has only been growing. He comes from your standard middle class household.

He had been living with his wife for a number of years, and they had a fully furnished home which they custom built.

The wedding was in Hawaii, and people had to pay for gifts and their own hotel room and they even requested 'donations' for anyone wanting to help offset the wedding.

This is beyond rude to me.

My son and his fiancée planned a destination wedding in Colorado for several reasons. The weather is better for an outdoor wedding in the summer, the scenery is beautiful, for much of the family it is not any farther than where we live and is actually more convenient for those flying, and finally to limit the numbers of attendees because the bride suffers fro social anxiety. Ironically, people seem to be excited about going and finances do t appear to have kept anyone away although health issues have. Unfortunately one person will not be able to attend who would have if it were local the others would have had to travel regardless. My family is thrilled with the location because if they have to travel they would rather it be to a beautiful place that has some activities so that they can turn it into vacation at her than our part of the country.

We offered to provide hotel rooms but have been turned down on our side. We will provide rehearsal dinner for everyone who cared enough to make the trip.

Everyone just has to decide what works for them.

Not yet. We pretty much only vacation around my husband's business trips. So he tries to schedule them to coincide with weddings and such as they occur. Also, if we go to Boston my parents often help with tickets because they want to see me and kiddo, so weddings in New England are good to go. So far none have been in a place we couldn't go. But if they were, then we'd just give our regrets and send a gift. There are very few people whose wedding I feel obligated to go to... especially now that my best childhood friends, family friends, and brother are married.

I got married in Japan, and didn't invite my family, because I knew there was no way they could afford to come, nor was it a particularly easy country to get around if your only language was English. This was in the 1970s, things are a little better now. My wife's niece was born the day we got married, so her mother and sister missed the wedding, too. We're still married, so the big wedding is perhaps overrated. Especially in Japan, where tradition says you give guests a gift half the value of what they give you.

The big wedding is definitely overrated. My wife and I got married with only our families (parents and siblings) and a few close friends. We have, more than once, sent regrets for a wedding invitation because of the cost and/or time. We always explain, if asked, that our schedule doesn't allow for it (which is usually at least partly true).

I wanted to semi-elope to Cyprus (fly out our parent's and sisters), but my husband would have none of it. So we had a traditional ceremony in Key West. Not such a big deal since his family is from Florida and mine would have had to travel regardless. Great time was had by all but we also tried to make sure it could be a vacation (ie we had a desert party on Duval St, the wedding and reception were during the day so the evening was available for everyone, etc, etc).

I can't imagine asking for donations for the wedding. That is so rude!

I've always felt that destination wedding expenses should be covered by the couple getting married.

Tact has never been my strong suit, and half a dozen near death experiences have done nothing to engender tolerance for other peoples stupidity.

I was invited to one destination wedding and declined protesting I couldnt possibly let them pay thousands of dollars to fly me halfway around the world and put me up in a hotel for the weekend. That certainly threw them off kilter, it was hilarious listening to them try and subtly imply that I needed to pay my own way.

I was invited to one destination wedding and declined protesting I couldnt possibly let them pay thousands of dollars to fly me halfway around the world and put me up in a hotel for the weekend. That certainly threw them off kilter, it was hilarious listening to them try and subtly imply that I needed to pay my own way.

Posted by: lujlp at June 6, 2014 5:15 PM

That is freeking hysterical. Next time, I get an invitation to a destination wedding, I will use your method.

I got a wedding invite about two years ago and it said to RSVP with a check for $200 per person who was going to attend and that would have meant paying that for our then 1-year-old and 1-month-old, so $800 for our family to go not including travel expenses. On top of that, it was out of town from where they, and the majority of friends and family, lived about 8 hours away. Only a few of immediate family ended up attending their wedding.

We didn't want to waste the money on a wedding or having people spend a bunch to travel (the majority of my family lives across country). We got married under a tree in the parking lot of the county clerk's office. It was $200 for everything including all the licenses and copies.

"I don't attend weddings because I hate seeing people deliberately ruining their lives."

Aw, c'mon. It's not like they're marrying you.