I was predicting this would happen years ago. And while this isn’t the first time I’ve heard of AWOL wedding guests being sent invoices for missed meals, this is the most newsworthy to date.
It was a couple weeks ago, Jessica Baker was getting ready to go to a wedding with her husband when she got a call from her mom.
“She called at the last minute and had something come up and said I can’t make it,” said Baker.
Her mom was supposed to watch their kids. And since the invitation said no children, that meant no wedding. But then this week, she received a bill for the dinner they were supposed to have enjoyed.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said with a smile. “It listed, we would have had two herb crusted walleye and there was also a service and tax charge.”
The total came to $75.90.
Read the rest of the story HERE.
This is unbelievable. If you are planning a wedding, you have to assume that a few people won’t show up for whatever reason. A lot of people have commented that the guests should have called the bride or groom to let them know they wouldn’t be there, but how realistic is that really? I certainly wasn’t checking my phone for calls or texts on my wedding day – I had a lot of other things to do. And if the guests weren’t very close with the bride and groom, they may not have known who to call.
My thoughts pretty much exactly.
The point is to attempt to let them know. If you aren’t successful, you aren’t successful.
But ultimately, I agree. This is a risk the bride and groom incur when they throw a wedding reception. The invoice is far out of line.
I always figure that in any event of this nature, you are primarily responsible for your own behavior. One should show the most graciousness possible. So if a guest can’t make it at the last minute, you accept that and move on. Stuff happens. People get sick, have family emergencies, car breaks down, they get lost, or heck, they might even forget the date. It happens. It’s rarely because they’re jerks, and it isn’t always feasible for them to let you know. So as a host, you must always assume the best.
If you have invited someone to a wedding, and they have RSVP’ed yes, then you have decided you are going to pay to give them a nice dinner. They should graciously accept that gift and enjoy it with you, but if they don’t, well, they don’t. What’s next? Demanding the return of unused gifts? “Cousin Martha, I couldn’t help but notice you donated the sweater I gave you to charity instead of wearing it as I had intended. I insist you pay me for it.” That’s just not how it’s done.
At my wedding, I was very fortunate. We had budgeted for 10 guests beyond those who had RSVP’ed yes, on the advice of the hotel. We also had a family of four and one of my coworkers back out at the last minute. (The first were due to illness, and the second was because his flight home from a business trip had been delayed. I did not find out about either until later.) We had 15 guests show up who had not RSVPed. So it worked out exactly perfectly, which I think was a good omen for the rest of the marriage. 😉
This is why I am so glad I kept my wedding simple and inexpensive. We had a fairly small (about 75 guests) afternoon ceremony with a dessert and punch buffet afterwards. It was flu season and a goodly number of guests were sick and could not attend, including my husband’s father, even though they had RSVP’d yes. We were of course disappointed that the missing guests were not with us that day, but we understood and with no expensive dinners hanging over our heads, it didn’t matter at all financially. Extravagant weddings are nothing but a burden. Keep it simple and problems like this never even come up!
“We were of course disappointed that the missing guests were not with us that day, but we understood and with no expensive dinners hanging over our heads, it didn’t matter at all financially.”
It shouldn’t matter financially either way. If you can’t afford to feed them, don’t invite them in the first place. When I got married, we worked out how much we were able to spend and then divided that by an approximate number of guests to determine what kind of meal we could afford to feed them. Set a budget that way and you’ll be fine.
There was a very nasty and short onset flu making rounds and yes you could get it again if you had it already (so maybe 2-3 variants going on). Big fancy high mass church wedding…. bride had to sit in a folding chair at the altar and she had a wastebasket which she used. Two groomsmen and three bridesmaids (five on each side so not a small wedding) had to make a dash for it. They stopped the ceremony three times because some of the audience too (one pause was because they weren’t sure the bride wasn’t going to pass out). The three and a half hour high mass with soloist and all that got finally cut (after about forty five minutes of lots of grief) to a basic vow, basic ring exchange, and the place emptied out. I heard a lot about it because the groom wasn’t in the phone book, everyone decided that my father’s listing (he had same first name and same first three letters of start of last name) was a misprint and was really the groom’s number, AND I had the same first name as the bride. It took about two weeks to get it across that don’t call us, the groom WAS unlisted and I heard a lot from some before I could get the word in edgewise I was indeed A (girlname) but I wasn’t BRIDE (girlname) and was my dad’s listing (firstname same as GROOM) but last name is NOT a misspell.
The beautiful wedding was trashed, the bride’s dress got totaled (she did nail it a couple of times) the church charged a fortune for cleaning (some of the guests barfed in the things that held the hymnals) and replacement, they got zero back on anything, the reception was called off (some of the food was rescued and frozen for later), and the honeymoon was forfeit with no refunds (week in Hawaii) as they were too sick to fly. They couldn’t do pictures and the cake, I guess was the same way, someone froze some of it. Had that not been a good forty years ago, I could have seen the tackees and clueless possibly try to bill for some of it…
You are so right!
I know I did an online RSVP system (sent cards with the link in the invites) I would not have noticed if someone changed to no a day or two prior. Billing anyone for a missed event is tacky. Also caterers plan for n/s and extra people so whatever. It sounds like the bride and groom are either very vindictive or they had a wedding they could not afford and wanted the gifts to pay for it. But this is why I never wanted a plated wedding and seating arrangements. Too much stress and budgeting. So I went the tacky route (by some standards) and did a buffet and drinks in a cooler bin.
As long as there was enough for everyone to eat and drink, it isn’t tacky
As a contrary view part of me wonders if the bride isn’t right. The bride spent this money based on the promise that this couple would attend. The didn’t show up or call her, I don’t think asking for compensation is wrong. If this had been any number of social events, I would have expected compensation as well. For example if I rented a vacation cabin and they didn’t show up, I would still expect their share. I know the situations aren’t completely comparable. But in both cases the money was spent based on a promise to be there.
Except an RSVP isn’t written in stone. Sometimes issues come up, such as illnesses or injuries. It’s not a guest’s responsibility to manage your money or wedding spending habits. Also, while it still wouldn’t be right, these weren’t demands that were made clear beforehand. You can’t retroactively demand money when you never made the issue of payment clear in the first place.
If I throw a dinner party with 3 other couples and one of the couples no shows – I don’t expect that couple to compensate me for the food, wine, and time I spent preparing for the party.
Same with a wedding. You are hosting a party not going dutch on a vacation. When you host a party, you take responsibility for the cost of entertaining your guests. That’s why it’s a bad idea to throw a party you can’t afford.
“For example if I rented a vacation cabin and they didn’t show up, I would still expect their share.”
That’s different, because with a rented cabin, you’re presumably splitting the cost. Party guests aren’t expected to pay for the party, so it’s not like you’ll suddenly have to pay *more* if they show.
TYPO! “It’s not like you’ll suddenly have to pay more if they’d *don’t* show.”
I’ve got two, one long and one very long on side tangents of this… where someone was expected to pay for rental and such and backed, I’m waiting a month for the followup fallout before submitting the one. That is a totally different thing, plans made, deposits may have been paid, and costs to be shared, then have someone flake; than a wedding. Wedding or certain other public event, the ones putting it on should be doing the paying and they have to deal with underages, overages, and no shows and virtual gate crashers (it was addressed to X and Y and they decided they could bring 7 others and the venue wasn’t big enough plus having to feed seven more….)
Yes, if you’d have agreed to go in on a cabin together, then the other couple would owe their share regardless of whether they could not make it or not. However that’s not how weddings work! None of the guests agree upfront to pay their share of their wedding costs. They are there to help celebrate and share the couple’s special day. Not to offset the cost of their wedding. The B&G are essentially throwing a party and, like at any other party, they are prepared to eat the costs if some of the guests do not show up.
I actually had some call me on my wedding day to say they couldn’t come and congratulate me. I really appreciated it and completely understood. She had surgery just a few days before and try as she might she just wasn’t up to it despite being one of my best friends.
If somebody sent me an invoice like this for missing a social event, I’d be tempted to put on my lawyer hat and play out the farce.
Hahaha…they would deserve it…
Apparently I’m the only one but I would absolutely relish paying this bill! I would send the $80 and a gift–maybe some engraved fish forks or similar ;-). Not only would that ease my conscience about missing the wedding, it would also hopefully smooth over any bad feelings by joshing around with the whole situation, by taking the couple’s lead. I would also apologize profusely in the card for missing the meal.
But then again I’m not one to take wedding nonsense seriously.
I’d send a gift and a card. NOT a gift, card and money – not when I’m not rolling in spare cash. But I wouldn’t send any of it (except maybe the card) if they were being jerks about it and demanding money I have no obligation to give.
I think this goes back to the concept of “push not pull” that we’ve talked about there before. It’s too much for the bridal couple to send a freakin’ invoice! But if you, the wedding guest who missed out, wanted to cover the cost of your meals, I’m sure it would be welcome. You could just call up, apologize profusely, and ask. Or just take a good guess and send a check with your apologies. No one is making you do that, but it would be a nice gesture.
My point is—
The newlyweds have humiliated themselves almost beyond repair by sending this invoice. So not only am I taking the high road by admitting I’M wrong for not showing, I’m actually sort of insulting them a little bit by going overboard–the same way they insulted me by sending a bill for a couple pieces of fish. (& I know tit for tat isn’t polite, but this is just too delicious to pass up!)
My goal is to allow them to save face by pretending it was all in jest, and that neither one of us think this is about the money–that the money is just a symbol of what’s really important: the fact that I missed out on the wedding and everyone feels awful about it.
I mean, we all know that that’s not really what’s happening. Clearly it IS about the money for the bride, but lets all just pretend it isn’t, assume the absolute best of intentions from her, and chalk it up to wedding burn-out.
Furthermore, assuming the best of intentions, she is actually doing me a favor, by allowing me a way out of this sticky wicket I’ve gotten myself into. So in my mind, the nice thing to do is to go along with it, and maybe everything will work itself out in the end.
The other thing I absolutely WOULD NOT do, is publish the whole fiasco on the internet!
I wouldn’t send fish forks – I would send one of those tacky singing bass. The same point, just a little more tit for tat.
I will admit, between me and spouse we own five of those, they all work. One was a gag and the other four were bought to steal the steppermotors out of that make the thing move…. which hasn’t happened yet. There is a line of five of them on top a high bookcase at our place.
🙂
I’m not yet married, but if that day comes for me, I do NOT want to deal with phone calls or texts from people who can’t make it, on the day of or while I am on my honeymoon. As long as you aren’t immediate family or a very close friend, I probably won’t realize you aren’t there until after the fact; I will have plenty of other things to focus on!
Most people I’ve known have given their cellphone to a MOH, bridesmaid, attendant, or some other trusted person on the day of the wedding. That way, someone can keep up to date on what’s going on and let the B&G know if there’s anything they need to know and field any calls/texts that need to be answered right away.
To me, it appears to boil down to the couple having a reception that is somewhat beyond their means. Whatever happened to the cake and punch reception? I was probably in my 30’s before I was invited to any kind of reception that offered a sit-down dinner. It’s not the wedding, it’s not the reception, it’s the marriage that counts. IMO, the current state of the wedding “industry” is just a little over the top.
Venting a little here, but after watching multiple episodes of “Say Yes to the Dress” I am very happy to state that I believe that I did the dress shopping right (went alone, paid for my own dress – and NOT several thousand dollars), our wedding was held at the minister’s home (he is a family member), and we just had our 42nd anniversary. I wonder how long this relationship will last with a couple who seems unforgiving that a friend couldn’t be at their wedding – due to THEIR requirements (not blaming the couple for not inviting the kids, just saying that it wasn’t the guest’s fault). I am not sure I would still feel much warmth toward this couple.
The sending the bill absolutely floors me.
It is not rude to not go to something you RSVP’d to if there is a good reason – illness, death, accident and things like that. But you need to contact the host as soon as possible to let them know that you are either ok/not ok. So this couple gets a 5 on a scale of rudeness 1 to 10 for not contacting the happy couple as soon as possible.
However, the couple gets a breaking the scale on the same scale for sending the bill. Besides the ‘gift grab I want my friends to pay for my wedding’ vibe, it sends the message that you’d better RSVP ‘no’ to anything they invite you to so you don’t incur a bill if something goes wrong.
The bride and groom pay for the meal, whether the guests turn up or not. They’ve lost nothing. I just don’t understand why they’d do this.
It’s the ghost of childhood past. “I paid for this and you are going to sit there and eat it!”
Hihi, we had the opposite. All our RSVPs showed up and one of them was (unknown to us) in a serious relationship. So we had one plate more!
Perhaps the couple who could no longer attend had discarded the contact information for the bride and groom – or whomever/wherever their RSVPs were sent to. But they did have the venue information. In the absence of any other way to contact the couple, I would call the venue and ask to leave a message for the wedding coordinator, if there is one, or the Maid/Matron of Honour so my regrets could be passed on to the happy couple.
But not seeing each other for 12 years? Why the heck were they invited and why the heck did they RSVP yes? I wouldn’t send an invite to someone I hadn’t seen in that long and I certainly wouldn’t accept the invitation.
Not to open a can of worms, but didn’t the B&G realize that, when they put “no kids” on the invite, they opened themselves to all kind of last-minute emergency-related no-shows from their guests? “No kids” is a pretty difficult thing to pull off, requires a lot of planning, and yes plans do fall through. I’ve got nothing against the happy couple wanting a childfree wedding, but they’ve got to understand that this comes with a price of possible extra no-shows. Which is exactly what happened. Don’t know why they’re so outraged, they should be thankful it was just one couple and not more whose kids (or nephews, as it was the case here) got sick at the last minute. That’s par for the course when you have kids.
Good point. I did a kid friendly wedding for this reason. I would rather have kids running around then my friends miss it due to lack of child care. Bubbles, cheap center pieces and a candy bar kept them busy.
True, however my experience with my wedding was one of my best friends emailing me just a casual little email days before my wedding stating they probably cannot come because they hadn’t secured childcare. Keep in mind they had known our wedding date for almost a YEAR.
Pay in pennies?
I suppose that if a guest had died en route to the feast, these clods would file a claim with the estate. This a social engagement, not a legally enforceable contract. Try to grasp that concept, folks.
Just some food for thought: I’ve lived in the South my entire life, and I’ve never attended a single wedding that didn’t have a buffet-style reception. Most of the time, this particular set-up seems to work well. Everyone gets fed, there are usually enough leftovers for members of the wedding party to take home with them, and there isn’t any petty squabbling over the pricing of individual plates/money lost on no-shows. I think a lot of people feel that a formal event such as a wedding MUST serve individual plates, but buffets can be just as formal, and the food is just as good.
On another note, no matter what type of event you plan, even if RSVPs are in order, you need to anticipate at least a handful of no-shows. Often times, people experience last minute circumstances that will prevent them from attending an event. Sure, they need to get in touch with someone to let them know of their absence, but I have attended weddings in the past where the bride and groom were quite literally the only people in the wedding party I knew. At that point, who would I have contacted? I’m sure the bride and groom are too busy with last minute preparations to be handling such matters.
Think about it this way: If you host a birthday party, and a guest fails to show up, do you send that guest a bill for his portion of the birthday cake? Most people (I hope) would say no. Someone else used the dinner party analogy to the same effect. If a few no-shows is enough to cause you significant financial distress to the point where you feel compelled to start sending out invoices, then you are a poor planner and did not budget properly.
Costs really vary from region to region in how catering is done, and there are some places where plated or family-style dinners are cheaper than buffets. (Also, in the Midwest, hearty sit-down dinners for weddings are common, and buffets don’t really lend themselves to that style of eating, and a lot of venues are set up for buffet-type meals. If you have a lot of older relatives or people with mobility issues, a buffet isn’t really a good option.)
That being said, I think that family style always seems like the best option to me. It gives you all the advantages of the other styles of catering and none of the disadvantages.
I didn’t read all the comments but I read this story on FB. My question to the bride and groom: if you are going to do this to a couple of no-shows, would you do the same to guests who showed up, partook of the food and drink and did not bring you a gift? Because this is pretty much the same thing lol.
Weddings are celebrations, they are not intended to make money for the couple. It is not a business transaction. I am glad this has gone viral and I hope that everyone finds out about them. Shame on that bride and groom!!
I think the whole “missing couple hadn’t had any contact with marrying couple for 12 years” bit is important. Several people have said that one person should’ve gone while the other watched the kids and I see this if we’re talking about a friend or close family who really are really looking forward to seeing the missing couple. But if you haven’t even bothered to send a merry Christmas e-mail or congratulations on the baby call in over a decade, I don’t buy that your feelings were deeply hurt by not seeing me.
Also worth noting, apparently the new couple mailed the bill like immediately after the wedding. I’ve seen someone note that the AWOL ones did contact a close relative to the bride with a request to pass on their apology and an explanation within days of the event. So apparently the newlyweds sent this out before this message got passed along. Maybe they should have contacted the newlyweds directly, but I’d be leery of this assuming that they’d be on their honeymoon, and I have doubts they’d even have the contact info to do that considering the 12 YEAR lack of contact.
I had more than a few no-shows at my wedding reception.
One aunt let me know at the ceremony her husband was feeling too ill to go to the reception (he passed away about a month later) so her family didn’t come. Understandable.
Another relative had been invited by my grandmother (who also RSVP’d on her behalf). She didn’t show up because she hadn’t actually been invited. Not only understandable, but even somewhat admirable.
Another friend of mine left the ceremony as soon as it ended to make his shift at work. Less understandable considering he knew well enough in advance to book the day off. Still, this guy has always been married to his job, so I probably should have expected it.
The only no-show that really bothers me is the friend of my husband, who blew off the wedding to attend a “My Little Pony” Camp about 15 minutes away from our wedding. Despite telling us THE DAY BEFORE that he was coming, and despite the fact that another friend was attending the same camp and still managed to come to both the ceremony and reception… In a conversation with this friend later, No-Show told Hubby it was HIS fault that No-Show didn’t come, because he wasn’t allowed to bring his girlfriend. (In our defense, the first time he asked to bring the girlfriend was the day before the wedding, long after numbers had gone into the caterer…)
Would I ever dream of billing these people for their missed meals? Absolutely not.
About 4 years ago I was getting ready to attend the (very fancy) wedding of a friend with my plus one, my boyfriend. Our relationship was crumbling and it just so happened that on that day we had the big blow out and broke up. I was devastated and an emotional mess.
I sucked it up and went alone. Our break up had made me miss the ceremony but I got there in time for the reception. I told the bride and groom how wonderful they looked and congratulations. They asked where my date was and I said something had come up and he couldn’t attend (I wasn’t about to unload on the bride!).
I tried to keep it together but after half an hour realized I couldn’t make it through the event without crying. I quietly exited.
I felt terrible that I had wasted two seats and two dinners. I sent them a beautiful gift and card with a heartfelt note and a check for what I thought would cover our meals. They said it was very thoughtful, though not necessary, understood that things happen and appreciated the gesture. They never cashed the check.
Fast forward to my wedding this year and I must say I was shocked at the number of no shows, considering our wedding wasn’t huge and we had only invited those closest to us. Sometimes things DO come up but what’s more important is how the guest handles it afterwards and how gracious the bride and groom are about it.
The logic of the wedding couple escapes me here. Clearly, they sent this atrocious and rude invoice out of angry spite and with no regard to any sense of friendship that may have existed. What this really tells me is that there was no friendship at all, ever. Why did they invite people who they didn’t care about to their wedding?
An act like this is an immediate friendship-killer. If I received an invoice like this, I would be thankful for the clear evidence that I need to terminate all future contact with these individuals.
I agree with this 100%! If I cared about the couple at all or was interested in maintaining a friendship this is the last thing I would ever do. I would be concerned with their welfare and call them after the honeymoon to find out what happened. What if God forbid they got in an accident or something on the way to the wedding?? Stuff happens like this all the time. This time it was a babysitter canceling on them but it could have been something worse.
From a, I assume, common law perspective this is quite interesting, was there an agreement? A tort? A breach of a duty of care?
From an etiquette perspective: If you RSVP to a wedding, you attend. Period. Not attending is very rude. If there was no child care at least one of the two parents could have attended.
Sending an invoice is, in my opinion, not the way to go, however I see no problem with permanently striking these people of the guest list.
All this talk about weddings and food reminds me of a story that a really good friend of mine, “Pearl”, was telling our group of friends recently about a wedding that she and her husband attend for one of her co-workers.
The Bride and Groom invited about 250 people to their wedding that was being held at a local park. With the recent craze of food trucks here in the Northeast, they had decided it would be “kitchy” to hire three food trucks to cater their wedding.
The problem came when it was time for everyone to eat. As with the majority of buffet-style events I’ve been invited to, Pearl said that tables went up one by one to keep order and not make it a free-for-all. Apparently, from what Pearl could gather, either the couple themselves or the operators of the food trucks had not budgeted/planned well for this event. It appeared to Pearl that about 1/2 of the invited guests were turned away from getting food from the food trucks because they had either run out of food or, in the case of the food truck offering lobster rolls, the couple had only purchased 100 lobster roll meals (which they QUICKLY went through) and any additional lobster rolls could be purchased for $16.00 each…BY THE WEDDING GUESTS!
We were all left speechless.