One of my very good friends is getting married in a few months. She’s having a very small wedding, and only a few of her friends from college were invited, myself included. Initially, I was very gung-ho about going. Then I started researching.
She’s getting married in a resort town over Memorial Day Weekend. The location was chosen because it’s a midpoint between her hometown and her fiance’s hometown. With layovers, the quickest trip for me will still be almost 8 hours. But that’s not the bad part. The bad part, as you can expect, is the price. After looking at the cost of flights and splitting a rental car (necessary in this town) and hotel room, and meals out, I’m looking at close to $1000.
I love my friend, but $1000 is a lot of money that could be spent elsewhere. I spent less than that for my entire trip to Hawaii last year (admittedly, I stayed with a friend, but still, it was a much longer trip).
Admittedly, a big part of my hesitation is also the travel time. Even if I go for a 4 day weekend, I’m still spending two of those days traveling.
I know that the couple understands the cost of the travel, and would understand if I backed out because of the price, but my friend has already asked me if I was coming, worrying that none of her friends would be able to make it. So I’m feeling a little bit obligated.
But $1000. I can technically afford it, but it puts a big dent in my budget.
She lives near me, so it’s not as if we never see each other. And only one of my other friends will be there, a friend who I will see many times throughout the year. So this isn’t one of those weddings that’s also a bit of a reunion.
I like her family a lot, and I’m sure the weekend would be fun, but right now, I’m really hesitating. What would you do?
Megan is a 40-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:
In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance. It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information. It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck. While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.
While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.
Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.
So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan. I needed to budget. I needed to know what I was spending my money on. I needed to prepare for the future.
I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.
Politely decline. Weddings are for the couple to spend a lot, not the guests. Hopefully they’ll stay married, but a year from now it won’t matter. Offer to go on a vacation with them in the future if you really want to travel.
Personally, I’d suck it up and go if it was a good enough friend.
My wife and I are in the same predicament. We are good friends with the bride and groom but haven’t seen them in a year or 2 since they graduated. But the wedding is the Saturday after my wife starts teaching, so we would have to leave Friday evening and be back Sunday night. We won’t know anyone else there. We are thinking about planning a trip up there at another time where we can spend more time up there, and actually get to see them for more than during the reception. Let us know what you decide.
IF it were me, I’d politely decline. $1000 is a lot of money, like you said. The price of travel on holiday weekends.
Perhaps you could send a nice gift, with an invitation to get together once the wedding pictures are in, so she can share them with you?
Send a “thank you for thinking of me” regrets-letter with your RSVP – that’s a big time & money commitment I’d not make, except for best-friend-from-childhood-and-throughout-adulthood (who is getting married in Vegas at the end of the year)!
I agree: decline, politely. They may offer to help you out, in which case you can decide what to do. I almost missed a wedding because it was in NYC and airfare alone was a lot. He offered to help out, but in the end my mom pitched in.
Though one thing to consider in re: expenses… Is your other friend traveling in, too? Maybe you could split a hotel? Depending on how many folks are coming to the wedding, they may be able to secure a good rate for a local hotel or two. Then if you get a room with two beds, you could split it. Depending on who else you know, you could split it further, but that’s a discretionary thing for you to decide.
I would definitely go and share in the joy of this one time event. Yes, its a lot of money but I imagine you’ll be glad once you’re there. Book it.
I have been in the situation a number of times and I always debate what to do and in the end I always go and I am always happy that I did.
We just booked tickets for our 4th out of town wedding in the past 3 years. Yes we’d rather spend the $1,000 each (or more) on something else, but in the end, if it’s a close enough friend they will appreciate you taking the time and spending the money to be there.
I agree that the wedding should be about the bride and groom spending the money but sometimes circumstances arise where the wedding has to be somewhere other than your current city. If there is a good reason why they are having the wedding elsewhere (one of them is from there, etc.) and you are close enough friends I would go.
We don’t know what day is going to be our last and we certainly can’t take that money with us to the grave. So if you budget allows for it, do it. Friendships are more important than money, as long as you’re not going into debt to keep them.