If you’ve ever attended various fundraising events, you perhaps know that there are different levels of invitations, depending on the size of your contribution. This is quite reasonable, and the business plan of the event is always calculated based on the number of possible guests and the amount of funds raised.

But what if you were invited to an old friend’s birthday party, but with the same payment terms? For example, the user u/maricvz, the author of our story today, recently encountered exactly this situation, and decided to take it online to vent about it.

More info: Reddit

The author of the post has a friend who recently got elected to the city council and bought a new home as well

Image credits: maricvz

This lady will have a birthday soon – and our heroine was among the invitees

Image credits: maricvz

Image credits: nimito / Freepik (not the actual photo)

What drove the author mad was that the birthday girl decided to charge the guests $499 just to attend the party

So, the Original Poster (OP) says that her friend recently got elected to the city council and bought a new home. And this decent lady is also celebrating her birthday – so she sent out invitations to numerous friends and acquaintances. But you have to pay $499 just to attend the party, and if you want to bring another guest, be so kind enough to fork out another $250.

The author also notes that her husband took an active part in her friend’s recent election campaign, providing separate rooms in his establishment for various meetings and events organized by the political party they both belong to. According to our heroine, everything was organized absolutely transparently in this campaign.

Image credits: maricvz

Image credits: fxquadro / Freepik (not the actual photo)

The author’s husband helped that friend in her election campaign, but refused to let her host the party in his establishment

Image credits: maricvz

The author decided to take this online to vent about it – and to ask netizens’ opinions on whether it’s appropriate at all

When it came to planning a birthday party, the friend again turned to the author’s husband – but this time he flatly refused, at least because the hosts couldn’t give him a clear answer as to where the guests’ contributions would be sent. “Gotta pay the mortgage somehow,” the original poster is quite cynical.

In our heroine’s personal opinion, this invitation looks completely ridiculous and, after receiving it, she decided to take it online – just to amuse netizens a bit, and ask their opinion on how appropriate it actually is to charge that kind of  money just for entry to an ordinary party in a downtown pub.

Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)

I wonder if the birthday girl expected that the guests, in addition to hefty contributions, will also bring any gifts? In any case, charging guests simply for attending a party is considered odd by many sources.

“I put out a passionate plea for people to stop charging me to attend their celebrations — such as a birthday or anniversary party or the impending birth of a child,” Michelle Singletary, a personal finance columnist, writes on the Washington Post website.

A few years ago, the Cincinnati Enquirer also conducted a special poll among its readers: is it OK to charge people to come to a kid’s birthday party? The results showed that 88.5% ticked “No way,” while 9.72% believed that it depends on the financial status of the party hosts. And only 1.77% considered this totally understandable.

However, in the situation we described, the birthday girl is clearly doing well financially – after all, she just bought a new house! And the commenters, completely sharing the author’s opinion, are only surprised by how entitled her friend actually is. “From a newly elected city council person, I think this is straight up shady,” some of the responders wrote. By the way, the OP completely agreed with this point of view.

Many people in the comments were just cracking up at the hapless birthday girl, claiming that soon she would publish a new post where she would be offended by her friends and acquaintances for the fact that no one showed up, and complain that no one loves or respects her. By the way, have you, dear readers, ever had to pay just to attend someone’s birthday party?

People in the comments sided with the author and cracked up at the hapless party host, assuming no one would show up

Image credits: Karolina Grabowska / Unsplash (not the actual photo)

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