Weddings are expensive, even when you’re a guest. Giving a wedding gift isn’t mandatory, but it’s expected. Often, you want to make sure you’re not overspending, but you don’t want to come off as cheap either. It’s a conundrum for guests who may not have a lot of extra money to spend.
When you’re in the wedding party, there’s an added level of pressure to get a good gift. But you’re also expected to spend more money than a regular guest. One young woman on Reddit shared a recent experience she had as a maid of honor that will stay with her forever.
She agreed to the role without fully understanding what it meant.
The young woman shared her story in the Wedding Shaming subreddit. She explained that she isn’t from the US or UK (in the comments, she revealed she’s from Eastern Europe), which was important context for wedding etiquette.
Where she lives, the bride and groom do all wedding planning, even their bachelorette/bachelor parties. Wedding parties don’t have the same expectations.
“I said yes to being a MOH, but up until that point the last time I attended any wedding was when I was 7 years old so I knew nothing about it,” the young woman wrote. “So I asked her what help would she need from me, is there something I have to do. And I kid you not, she just said: ‘You are not important here.’ And just left it at that.”
It seems that the bride was obsessed with money.
The couple was having a joint bachelor/bachelorette party, and about a week before, the best man told them he wouldn’t be able to give a large monetary gift. Times were tough, and money was tight for him. Apparently, the bride took issue with that.
“She had the audacity to complain and say: ‘Can you imagine? He has a great job and he is being so cheap,'” the young woman wrote.
According to her, the best man pays for the priest, and he wasn’t able to pay in full. The maid of honor is required to pay for the wedding cake.
The day of the wedding was chaos.
A series of issues happened even before the ceremony. However, she says the “best” part of the night came later. “Traditional weddings used to get people to line up before the couple, bring their envelopes of money give them to reception coordinator to read on microphone telling everyone how much money each person gave the couple,” she wrote.
Apparently, it’s an outdated tradition, but this couple decided to do it. Hearing about this choice, the maid of honor “began to sweat.” She knew she was giving less than was typical, and she panicked.
“I lied to the coordinator and said to him that I am giving more money than what I actually gave. The couple will know when they open it, but I just didn’t want people to give me side eyes at the wedding. The rest of the evening she complained that people didn’t give her that much money she was expecting,” she wrote. She said at that point, she just decided to go home.
She has been no-contact with the couple since the wedding.
People were genuinely shocked by the bride and groom’s behavior during the wedding. They also correctly guessed the area and type of people throwing the wedding.
“Balkan brides are something else,” one person wrote. “Lets make a wedding we can’t afford and expect others to pay for every single stupid s— we decided to have there. And if we didn’t get extra cash from it – rage and gossiping who gave smaller amounts. That’s why I avoid weddings like a plague.”
“This has Balkan wedding written all over it!” someone else wrote. “I am so sorry you had to go through that, I hate those customs and made sure non of them were included in my wedding. Announcing how much money each guest gave is the tackiest thing ever.”
Another commenter wrote: “Very f—ing tacky! I wouldn’t be in contact with them either. They might still be together but you don’t know if they’re in love.”
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
