Weddings are expensive, not just to throw but also to attend.

There’s the gift. The outfit. The travel costs. The hen’s night or bucks’ party (or both). The kitchen tea. The engagement party. The cards (when did cards get so expensive?).

By the time you’ve added up basic costs, you can expect to be spending anywhere between $100 (if you’re a very thrifty individual) to $1000, or even more (if you go all out in an effort to “support” the happy couple).

So it’s no surprise that when one Reddit user, who shall be referred to as Nick, posted about being asked to pay for their own meal as a wedding guest, thousands of people responded.

“How many of you have paid for your meal at a wedding?” Nick asked.

He also went on to say that the bride had told him it was an “unspoken tradition” but that he’d never heard of such nonsense.

And neither had I, until recently.

“Sounds like they’re planning to recoup the costs of the rest of the wedding through dinner,” one user pointed out. Too right Nick. Too right.

I was chatting with a friend about it one day when she told me she had also been invited to a wedding. Well, sort of invited. She explained that, in an effort to save on costs, she was only invited to the wedding if she was willing to pay for herself.

This friend of mine was conflicted about what to do but ended up deciding not to go to the wedding as it would also have required her to travel interstate, costing yet more on top of the price of her meal.

Talking about it in the office, a colleague also told me that she had been to a “BYO wedding” where guests had to bring a plate of food to share. Perhaps this is a mildly more acceptable form of budgeting when it comes to the so-called happiest day of your life. Perhaps.

So when Nick posed the conundrum of what to do when faced with being asked to pay for your meal as a wedding guest, there was no shortage of suggestions, with some very creative and interesting suggestions…

“I’d go, but I’d bring my own food. Still just to keep it fresh,” one user wrote.

Another commenter suggested, “Mix up the RSVP saying… ‘Decline with pleasure’. Or ‘Accept with regret’ I guess.”

And me? Well I think next time I am faced with this situation, I will follow Nick’s advice – “If we have to pay for a meal, I’m sure there’s a McDonald’s nearby.”

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