Let’s face facts, Pandas, weddings are expensive. When you start counting up all the gorgeous things you want to see at your celebration of love—from the floral arrangements to the fairy lights in the trees—you might realize that you should’ve started saving a few years earlier. However, we usually hear about the expenses, the lavishness, and the budgeting opportunities from the marrying couple’s point of view. It’s time to take a peek at how costly things can get for the guests to attend.

A redditor revealed to the AITA online community why she decided to RSVP ‘no’ to her brother and sister-in-law’s wedding, and it’s a real peek behind the scenes into how money problems can test even the strongest family relationships. Read on for the OP’s full story, how internet users reacted, and then tell us whether you think the woman was right or wrong to refuse to attend her brother’s out-of-state wedding.

Weddings can be expensive to organize, but they’re also costly to attend. Especially if the happy couple is very demanding

Image credits: cottonbro (not the actual photo)

A woman, who is very close to her brother, shared why she decided to skip his wedding. It all came down to her sister-in-law’s behavior

Image credits: Budgeron Bach (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Other-Bid-2350

The wedding services industry is absolutely massive. In the United States alone, the market size of the industry was a whopping $57.9 billion in 2022. However, in recent years, it’s shrunk a bit. Over the past 5 years, the size of the industry has actually declined by 6.3%. However, this year, it has grown by 2.1% so far. The Covid-19 pandemic has definitely made its impact over the past couple of years, however, it doesn’t explain the drop from 2017 till 2019.

The flight, the gifts, the new clothes… not to mention all the ‘freebies’ that the bride-to-be demanded of the OP, they all added up. So much so that the redditor decided to be true to her feelings and not attend the wedding. It was simply not worth the expense to her. Especially considering her sister-in-law’s [cough cough] peculiar behavior when it came to throwing some of the prep expenses her way.

The AITA community was very sympathetic to the author of the post. In their opinion, the happy couple was acting a tad too entitled. It was also a mystery why the OP wasn’t invited to the bride or groom parties, considering the number of requests for help. It’s all just very odd. And the entire situation suggests that the bride might have wanted an incredibly lavish, fairytale-like wedding, but may not have actually had the means to make her wish come true. Either that or there are some very confusing feelings and low-key resentment that she has towards her husband’s sister.

According to a study done by The Knot, the average cost of being a wedding guest in 2021 was $460, roughly $30 more than in 2019.

If the wedding was local, the cost came down to just $270. However, those driving out of town could end up spending as much as $660 on average… though that pales in comparison to guests who had to fly: they spent an average of $1,270. Meanwhile, wedding gifts (a part of all of these calculations), cost roughly $160.

Keep in mind that things are bound to get even more expensive as worries about inflation and rising prices continue to haunt, well, pretty much everyone. But that shouldn’t detract from the happiness of occasions like weddings. We all just need to be more creative and flexible in how we approach things, both as guests and as those tying the knot.

The OP shared some more of her thoughts in the comments of her post

Meanwhile, here’s how other people felt about the family drama

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