Going to a close family member’s wedding should be a time for excitement and positive emotions. After all, planning a wedding is stressful, but attending the wedding of a loved one? Absolutely wonderful under most circumstances.

A netizen was shocked to receive a text from their brother asking for $115 to attend his small, intimate wedding. To add insult to injury, he had apparently just assumed his sibling knew about this and didn’t even mention it on the invite. We reached out to the person who shared the story via private message and will update the article when they get back to us.

Some weddings do require a little extra from the guests

Image credits: Nguyễn Xuân Trung (not the actual image)

But one netizen was annoyed that their brother was suddenly charging to attend his wedding

Image credits: prostock-studio (not the actual image)

Image credits: Cloudy_skies1993

There are some reasons to ask guests to pay an entrance fee

There is no getting around the fact that weddings can end up being pricey even if you aren’t going all out. For example, the Knot surveyed around 10,000 Americans and found that the average US wedding cost $35,000 in 2023. Importantly, the vast majority of these weddings did not include destinations outside of the hometown, which are commonly believed to be one of the main things driving up the cost.

Naturally, big city weddings are simply going to cost more. For example, in New York City people paid, on average, $63,000 for their wedding. There is obviously going to be a pretty sizable difference between the most expensive weddings, which might end up going into the millions, to the happy couple simply walking into a courthouse and then sharing a slice of cake later.

No judgment as to what the happy couple wants, everyone is entitled to have the wedding that suits them best. However, as this story demonstrates, sometimes these demands begin to grow to such an extent that suddenly guests are being asked to fund ideas the bride and groom can’t even afford.

As the person who posted the story themselves added, the venue was likely more than he could afford and they didn’t even have room for any activities. Setting aside the ethics of asking people to pay for your wedding, the one upside is that you get to actually enjoy better food, drinks and a nicer venue.

Image credits: Getty Images (not the actual image)

It’s hard to say why the brother “forgot” about the money

Even worse, the bride and groom actually got a rather generous gift, making his demand for more money just seem insensitive. Some might even use the word trashy, but without further details it’s truly hard to say. As the person shared in an update (which can be found below,) most other guests were aware about the “cost” to enter. They do, however, think this “mistake” was intentional.

That being said, it’s hard to gauge a motive. If the brother didn’t want the netizen to come, he could have simply not invited them. If you are charging your guests, it’s in your best interest to actually have people come, as it’s the one way you’re offsetting many of the costs. That being said, not including it on the invite is a very questionable choice.

Even if the bride and groom might feel it’s a bit tacky, this is still the sort of information you do provide ahead of time. It’s easy to construct malice out of incompetence, but the truth is, the brother may simply have been over his head. Many people are already poor communicators, the stress and time commitment of wedding planning and the reality of actually getting married is quite distracting. Whatever the case, there is no reason the sibling’s sizable gift can’t be use to “cover” the cost.

Image credits: Kenny Eliason (not the actual image)

The person shared a short update later

They also answered some reader questions

Most people were surprised at this sort of behavior

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