A bride and groom have sparked debate online after asking guests to fork out $250 each to attend their budget wedding – despite some attendees being expected to sleep on air mattresses in shared rooms.
The controversial invitation, shared to Reddit, quickly gained momentum after one woman revealed she had been asked to serve as the couple’s maid of honour under increasingly awkward circumstances. According to the post, the wedding is set to take place on a Monday.
Guests were instructed to arrive Sunday and leave Wednesday for a three-night stay at an Airbnb that would also double as the ceremony and reception venue.
The $250 per person fee, the bride explained, would cover accommodation, food and drinks for the entire stay, regardless of whether guests attended for the full duration or not. The couple also requested no gifts, instead asking attendees to contribute to their honeymoon fund.
However, the guest said the arrangement became far less appealing once she discovered she and her partner would be sleeping on an air mattress in a shared room while other guests secured queen bedrooms.
“I know the bride, the groom and the bride’s parents,” she said. “Did I mention I’m supposed to be the ‘maid of honor’? I use the term loosely.”
She went on to explain that the wedding plans appeared to evolve several times – beginning as a small immediate-family-only event before eventually expanding to include a handful of friends after another couple was allegedly uninvited.
“That’s when I got the ‘will you be my bridesmaid’ gift,” she added.
As if the accommodation arrangements weren’t enough, guests were also reportedly given a semi-casual dress code with a lengthy list of banned colours including burgundy, white and even light or dark blue jeans.
The post quickly divided opinion online, with Reddit users weighing in on modern wedding etiquette and whether guests should ever be expected to subsidise a couple’s big day.
“$250 to stay on an air mattress is insane,” one person wrote. “I’d do it if it were a bedroom in a shared house, but for an air mattress? Nah, especially as maid of honour.”
“$250 per PERSON! That’s $500 from OP [original poster] and her partner to sleep on an air mattress,” another added.
Others financial arrangements were also questioned, with some wondering whether the fee covered more than just lodging.
“Yeah, I’d pay $250 for my boyfriend and I to have our own room but absolutely wouldn’t be okay shelling out $500 for both of us to sleep on an air mattress and share a room with other people,” one commenter agreed. “That’s a real quick no from me.”
“I’d be curious to know how much that Airbnb actually rents for, because that ‘per person’ bit sounds like the couple might be skimming off the top,” one user speculated.
Others were far harsher in their assessment of the wedding plans.
“People have gotten so damn tacky and classless just to host weddings they cannot afford,” a commenter wrote bluntly.
“This is just a paid admission wedding,” another added.
Still, not everyone believed asking guests to contribute financially was completely out of the ordinary.
“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect people to cover their own accommodation,” one Reddit user wrote. “But $250 to cover a joint Airbnb when you don’t even get your own room and real bed is insulting.”
Another pointed out that destination weddings and interstate ceremonies often come with unavoidable costs for guests anyway.
“Travel and hotel, the bridesmaid dress, gifts – we all expect to cover that when we agree to attend out-of-town weddings,” they wrote. “But this whole mindset of offloading the cost of the party onto the guests is a bit much.”
