'I Cancelled On My Friend's Wedding. Is He Taking The P*ss With His Response?'

WeddingGulp-inducing news for the newly-engaged – it turns out the average cost of a wedding in the UK is currently around £23,250. Which, I’m sure, makes the roughly 20% of guests who don’t show up despite RSVP-ing yes quite a challenging issue to reckon with.But if you’re put in that frustrating situation, what are you meant to do about it? Well, Redditor u/KeyManufacturer9764 says his friend had a pretty simple solution: when the poster cancelled on his pal’s wedding, he asked for cold, hard cash. We asked Zoe Burke, leading wedding expert at Hitched.co.uk, and founder of Etiquette Expert, Jo Hayes, what they thought of the move. The original poster (OP) cancelled last-minuteThe Redditor, who introduced his friend to his now-wife, shared that he’d fully intended to attend and had booked a hotel. But due to an “important work visitation” in France, he cancelled the wedding. In the comments, OP said he stated he wouldn’t be coming 12 hours before he’d have travelled, and 48 hours before the wedding itself. “I know how insanely annoying it is with people cancelling, especially weddings late on, but I had no option for my future business, and [the work] will massively help me financially,” he continued. He offered to send his wedding gift to his “disappointed” friend’s home address. And while sharing his details, the friend reportedly said: “By the way, as you’ll be missing the food, can you send the money to cover [your] empty spot, which is £95 per head”. The poster said that the price is “taking the p*ss” for what he sees as a simple meal, and asked, “AITA if I question it or do I just send the money and stop complaining?”The move is “valid” Speaking to HuffPost UK, wedding expert Burke said: “I do think that it is valid to charge people who cancel at the very last minute”. Despite the poster’s comment about the price of the meal “taking the piss”, she explained that “the average wedding guest costs couples £261, [so] it makes sense that they would want to recoup some of the costs – because they could have invited someone else if they’d had more notice”. She continued, “It’s really poor etiquette, unless it’s a medical emergency or something that you know really cannot be avoided.“It’s not just the fact you’re putting the couple out of pocket, but so many other things will be put out too; the table plan, the wedding favours, the personal touches that go along with being a guest at a wedding – it’s so much more than just not turning up for dinner.”Etiquette expert Hayes agreed that “few people, with any level of decency, would pull out of a wedding with such late notice.” Still, she said that in general – not in this specific case – “Bridal couples do well to have grace for their guests in such instances, and simply absorb the cost”. Related...When Is It Rude To Ban (Or Bring) Kids As Guests?6 Brides Share Their Unhinged Wedding Tips To Get Through The Big Day12 Mistakes Brides Make When Shopping For A Wedding Dress

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