Is Skipping The Wedding Being A "Bad Friend?"
What a wedding invitation is really asking of us.
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#54, April 2nd, 2024
Hey Shani,
My question is about weddings. As a single mom, I’ve been invited to one of my best friend’s wedding in Italy, which sounds thrilling since I adore this country. At first I thought, I’m in, but then I saw the conditions: no kids allowed. The wedding takes place on a weekend when I have my kids, which means rescheduling with their dad. And then, I discovered that of course, we’re only half invited since we have to pay for flights and hotel rooms. And of course, there is a bank account link for the voyage de noces, and you don’t wanna seem cheap, do you? In the end, after a visit to the hotel and flights website and a brief calculation, I discovered it would cost me, for four days, more than a whole week in the mountains with my kids (which means: more than 1000 USD) to pay, me alone, to celebrate the fact that my friend decided to get married to his girlfriend. In which world do we live, I ask myself. Do people assume that everybody’s rich? What is it that’s so special about getting married that you assume people will do that for you? Don’t get me wrong, I make a good living and would be very happy to travel to Italy for a few days. But the fact that it is expected of me to deliver that much money in order to attend a ceremony and a buffet and then go back to my hotel in a crowded bus doesn’t put me at ease at all. Am I just the rabat-joie (spoilsport) of the day? I would really like to have your thoughts about it. Is it being a bad friend to refuse to pay for somebody’s expensive wedding?
Hey You,
I won’t bury the lede, you’re not a bad friend. Wedding culture, as you know, has exploded beyond proportion and beyond logic. The fact that we’re still asking ourselves if we’re “bad friends” for not hemorrhaging money just because someone else decided to enter into a binding legal contract most of them will never read because…love, that’s what’s a lot more shocking to me than anyone skipping a wedding because it’s expensive.
Rather than spend another newsletter bitching about the burdensome cost of weddings on guests, I’d like to talk to what’s really the greater core of the matter: Friendship. Because when we talk about weddings, friendship is rarely on the table in any genuine way. Friendship is no longer the valued commodity it always is during non-nuptial seasons, but instead becomes a burden to the guest and a boon to the betrothed. That isn’t friendship, that is a symptom of a culture that is deeply, embarrassingly, fucked up.