Man Demands His Plus-One Pay Her ‘Portion’ Of His Friend’s Reception Costs After She Breaks Up With Him A Month Before The Wedding
As the ex-girlfriend pointed out, this is just something that happens sometimes.
Ekateryna Zubal | Shutterstock There’s a lot that goes into planning a wedding, and the amount of money it costs to pull off such a big celebration just keeps getting larger. According to The Knot, the average wedding costs around $33,000, which equals about $284 for each guest.
One couple decided to follow common etiquette and allow their guests to bring a plus-one if they chose to. A friend of the bride was perfectly happy to bring his girlfriend along for the big day, but she decided to end things five weeks before the wedding.
The woman thought she was being nice by getting the breakup out of the way before the wedding.
In a Reddit post, she explained her situation and her rationale. “I … started a relationship with Joe … in the middle of May of this year,” she explained. “Shortly after we started going out, he asked me to be a plus-one to his friend Meg’s wedding. I have never met Meg, but I agreed to go. We RSVPed, and Joe booked plane tickets and a hotel room.”
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Unfortunately, things didn’t work out for her and Joe. “A couple days ago, I ended the relationship with Joe,” she said. “There’s still about five weeks left [before] the wedding. I ended the relationship when I did partly because I didn’t want to be in pictures from the wedding and cause people to feel bad when they looked back at those pictures.”
Since things weren’t going to work out between her and Joe anyway, the gesture of ending things before the wedding seemed kind, really. “I also offered to pay for my plane ticket and my half of the hotel stay as a good-faith gesture,” she shared.
Her ex and the bride felt reimbursing for her travel expenses wasn't enough.
Despite graciously offering to pay for her plane ticket and half of the hotel, Joe and Meg decided more was needed. “Today, Joe contacted me and asked if I could pay another $125 on top of all of that to offset Meg’s costs for my plate and everything at the reception,” she continued. “He says it’s so close to the wedding and since deposits have gone to vendors, I should pay my portion.”
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This ex-girlfriend could not disagree more. “I think that more than a month’s notice is ample time for Meg to either fill the seat or for Joe to find another plus-one, who would also be benefiting from my paying half of the hotel stay,” she explained. “I also think that since I wouldn’t pay that money if I was attending, then I shouldn’t have to pay now that I’m not. It’s my understanding that people not going to weddings after they RSVP is just one of those costs that’s inevitable, and I’m at least doing Meg the courtesy of giving over a month’s notice.”
This may be a bit of a throwback to the ‘cover your plate’ rule.
The Knot’s Kim Forrest reported on what was known as the “cover your plate” rule, in which wedding guests were expected to give a gift that was equal in value to their plate at the reception as a way of paying the couple back. This wasn’t very popular, though, as it caused quite a few complications. The biggest was that guests needed to know how much was spent for them to attend the reception, which many couples would naturally not want to disclose. Any remnants of this rule were supposedly done away with, according to Forrest.
While it may seem inconvenient to this bride to figure out what to do with a guest who was planning on attending but no longer is, as the ex-girlfriend pointed out, it’s just something that happens when you have a wedding. Really, it may have been more prudent for the bride to spend less on guests’ reception costs in case this situation arose.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
