I just stumbled across this website and topic.
I am getting married, IYH, in less than a week. My chasan and I would love to have as many friends as possible at our wedding, and to some extent scheduled the wedding so that some friends could be there.
However, there is a limit. I have planned most of my wedding myself, as my family is out of town and my chasan’s family wanted to be sure I “approved” of whatever they were paying for. I first started dating, I assumed that, given my parents’ financial situation, they would be splitting the cost of a wedding with the chasan’s side. As wonderful as my new in-laws are, they apparently only intended to pay for the FLOPS items- which has now calculated out to about one-half of what my parents will be paying.
The halls here all have minimum guest lists, so a large simchas chasan v’kallah and small meal was not an option. Therefore, my parents were trapped into an obscene amount of money just for the hall, completely disregarding things like my gown, my mother’s gown, airfare for my parents to come to NY for the wedding, benchers, the week of work my father needs to miss to be here, etc.
To hear that friends of the chasan and/or kallah would come, ostensibly to be m’sameach their friend, and then “expect” to be reimbursed for their “travel expenses” horrifies me. I have attended 16 friends’ weddings in the last 7 or 8 months, and it comes with the territory- you take public transportation, or split a car service with a few friends, whatever it takes.
Ultimately, in a case like this, it will be the kallah’s family who is stuck with yet another unnecessary expense. Please keep in mind, not just how “leibedik” the wedding will be, but the health and financial situations of the baalei simcha.