28-year-old bride demands $17,000 from parents to cover wedding venue costs, sister reveals the money is actually for groom's family: "If you genuinely thought it was the fairest way, why did you lie?"

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    AITA for refusing to go to my sisters wedding after finding out only our side of the family were having to pay to attend?

    "My parents are being taken advantage of"
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    So my younger sister (Katie 28F) and her partner (Chris 29M) are getting married in April in Dubai. She has always wanted an extravagant wedding and is going all out on this - so the wedding is happening over 4 days. Theres 70 guests but they
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    they want us (me, my husband, and parents) to stay in the same hotel with them along with her bridesmaids (which I am MOH) and groomsmen - the hotel is pretty lux so with flights is costing us just over £2900 each.
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    Chris' family are also staying in the hotel which includes his parents, two brothers, and his nephew. They are well off - I don't know exactly how much they earn combined but I know Katie is on 88k and she is the lower earner. But about 6 months ago Chris and Katie came to us and asked to borrow 17k
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    Cheezburger Image 10476329728
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    more. They stressed it would be a loan paid over time and said the venue had increased the price, Dubai law was different blah blah blah - they paid this money or they lost the lot - we believe them and I offered to loan 7k and my parents the other 10k.
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    So long story short - I have since found out through someone else that the 17k wasn't for the venue - it was for Chris' family to fly over there. They saw how much it was going to be, didn't want to pay and refused to go. I asked Katie and she confirmed so
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    Cheezburger Image 10476329472
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    my first question was if they were paying for his parents why not pay for ours? (I would never expect them to pay for me - even if we couldn't afford it, I'd have wished them well and stayed at home). And her answer was "because they can afford it". She
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    got very defensive and said this was the fairest way she could think of doing it, it's hard enough planning a wedding etc - but when I asked, if you genuinely thought this was the fairest way to do it, why did you lie about what the 17k was for and say it was a venue issue? She couldn't answer.
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    My parents are aware and are very disappointed they lied but have said they're still attending - but I have backed out. To me it feels like my parents are being taken advantage - and if they couldn't afford
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    to pay for both our and Chris' parents and his brothers and nephew then they shouldn't have just paid for the 4 parents or no one at all. And they especially shouldn't have lied about it.
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    Katie and Chris keep calling and asking me to attend, saying I'm making them feel bad and ruining their day. But the whole thing just feels... icky to me. I'm genuinely and open book so be brutal - am I being an AH here? Should I just s k it up and go?
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    Edit✶✶✶ Crumbs that's a lot of comments haha - - thanks so much everyone. Just wanted to answer a couple of questions/comments that have come up a lot.
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    1. the repayment - my husbands brother is a solicitor and he kindly drew up a contract and repayment plan for both myself and my parents so the money will be paid off within 12 months of the wedding. If they don't stick to this I have access to a free solicitor haha. I hope it wouldn't come to that - but that's why I have the papers for worst case scenario.
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    2. asking for the 7K back - Imight be a soft touch, but asking for this back feels like a step too far. Like I'm mad as h I but not enough to actively try ruin their wedding a few weeks before which it feels like (right now at least) is what that would be doing. But hey - give me a few more days to stew.
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    Edit 2*** Thanks again for all the feedback everyone. Just another quick FYI - a few people have asked about Chris' family or seem to have the impression they're well off.
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    I'm obviously not privy to their financial situation, but what the limited amount I do know from what Katie has said Chris and his family gree up very poor. Before all this I'd always though Chris was a lovely guy but I had caught him in the odd but
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    harmless white lie (things like where he went to school, the type of house he grew up in, etc). I get the impression he is embarrassed or resentful of his upbringing giving their lack of money and this is how he now values his own self worth - by his much money he has.
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    My guess is when his family said they couldn't go he panicked and worried people who ask why they weren't there and he would either have to say they couldn't afford it or he couldn't afford to pay for them. And look his past trauma/experience is not for me to judge - but if that were the case it just makes
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    me more mad that they both didn't plan ahead and talk to friends/family about what they could afford BEFORE booking Dubai. If it was such a dealbreaker for his family to be there they should have factored in the cost of paying for all parents to attend instead of thrusting a 3k per person bill at them and expecting them to rock up.
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    Consitutional History NTA: yet one of the many reasons I dislike destination weddings... they're the penultimate egocentric events
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    One Change4503 OP Haha - I totally get this - we had a destination wedding in Italy as well TBH, however before we booked it we did rough price checks in terms of how much it would cost everyone before we booked.
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    It actually ended up being cheaper than a lot of places in the UK but also made a list of who/what we could afford to pay for and who our non- negotiable were in terms of if there were certain people would couldn't make it/afford it then we'd just book somewhere in the UK. It worked out in
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    the end we had 15 people and we paid for everyone's hotel room and the flights were about £240 each so we counted that as everyone's "gift" to us as we figured after travel, gifts etc it probably wasn't far off what people would pay to attend a local wedding.
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    But I didnt expect Katie to do the same as I knew she was having 70 people and at the end of the day it's her wedding.
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    ABABE
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    Significant Taro_690 Oh so she needed a „better destionation wedding" than you had? Sorry. 2900£ per person is crazy. We paid once 1800 for 2 people to attend a wedding because one of us was in the wedding party and we were told by
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    bride and groom that this was a cheap place and this country is normally cheaper than ours. I would Never do it again and this together with other lies around this days were a reason why I ended the friendship) So def not the AH.
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    mmmaddox I had a destination wedding. And in our invitations we included a note that basically said "we love you, and you're welcome to come, but please don't." Lol Edit: we also paid for the lodging and food
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    Normal-Reward7257 Wait a second. Not only are they not paying for your parents, they're having your parents pay for his? That's like a double whammy.
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    I don't know if you should go or not. Your choice will have a long lasting impact on your relationship with your sister. Only you can decide if that is worth salvaging.
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    One Change4503 OP I don't want to lose my sister over this and I don't want to be "that" person who says it's the principle of the situation... but honestly it really is!
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    RitaFaye88 Lying and manipulating you and your parents out of $17,000 is not a small thing, it's not normal, and it's going to get worse. How long are you going to let her continue to use and lie to you?
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    One Change4503 OP Honestly this is so out of left field for her. I've never known her to do anything like this before it's still sinking in. -
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    dividedsky58 Please tell us you got that 7k loan in writing. You know they're going to claim a was a gift, especially after you "saved" so much money by not attending.
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    One Change4503 OP Oh yeah deffo: as I said to someone else my Brother in Law is a solicitor and he helped me draw up a contract. I'm not paying about with that amount of money.
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    StrangerOnReddit NTA. It was wrong of the to lie about what the loan was for. I have to ask, besides the loan, who is paying for this elaborate wedding?
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    One Change4503 OP They are - I know Katie has been saving for a while, and as I said Chris earns good money too. As I understood they had saved enough to pay for the wedding they wanted (the 10k was "expected"
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    because mum and dad very generously did same for me) but the 17K "additional venue fee" was unexpected and they couldn't get that amount of money together quickly without taking out a loan which would have cost them more in the long run.
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    bamf1701 NTA. Not only did the two of them lie to you and your family, but they are setting up an unhealthy dynamic for both families' relationships going into the future. Honestly, if she is willing to lie about this now, what else will she lie about to you all in the future about, especially when dealing with her in- laws, or at the request of her husband?
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    Your sister and her fiancee should feel bad - they pulled a con job on you and your family, and they have shown no contrition about it - they only say that you are making them feel bad. Not that they recognize that they did anything wrong.
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    ShallotEvening7494 NTA. They lied, they basically got you and your parents to subsidize her future in laws' trip. I would not go, but that's me. There is nothing "fair" about paying for her in laws but not her own family.
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    OnlymyOP NTA. Most rich people stay rich because they know how to get things for free....

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