Where is the planner? Friends shocked as wedding invite turns to labour intensive work

Guests had to help set up the wedding venue and clear up afterwards, now some Reddit users fume that it was an outrageous ask. Picture: Freepik

Guests had to help set up the wedding venue and clear up afterwards, now some Reddit users fume that it was an outrageous ask. Picture: Freepik

Published Oct 10, 2024

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Attending a wedding should be fun, and as a guest, you should be spoilt. Well that’s my understanding of what it should be like as a wedding guest - you just relax and enjoy the day.

This wedding guest, however, didn’t have that luxury, as she and her husband were put to work.

A woman took to Reddit to share how she and her husband had to do some chores at a wedding they attended.

“My husband had many ‘duties’ all weekend,” she writes.

The duties included setting up the welcome event and cleaning up after.

“I helped him and the other wedding party members and was quite shocked that we had to do this.”

She adds that she is a friend of one of the bridesmaids who showed her a text from the bride which listed all the duties that the bridesmaid had.

The bridesmaid’s duties included helping with set up, clean up, picking up various things like flowers and the wedding dress and coordinating with all the vendors.

“I asked if the couple had hired a planner and was told they had not, not even a month-of coordinator. The bridesmaid told me she paid for her own dress that the bride picked, bought specific shoes per the bride’s request, and the bride didn’t even treat the bridesmaids to lunch on the wedding day so they were all starving by the time the wedding happened,” continues the Reddit user.

“I’m shocked because to my understanding this couple is well-off and the wedding was black tie. The venue was nice, there was a big live band that played all night, and the food was good. But sounds like they did a DIY wedding, no idea why.

“A lot of the wedding party members looked so tired at the wedding, and my husband was so tired he couldn’t really enjoy the wedding itself, but we really pretended to have a great time in front of the couple.

“I’m upset at how they treated him. They had a full registry and we gave them a generous gift and now I’m regretting it,” she concludes.

She poses the following question to Reddit users: “Is this how rich people cut corners? By using wedding party members as free labour?”

Here’s what people had to say.

“Honestly, there are a lot of ways to cut costs on a wedding to fit in budget before resorting to manual labour by the bridal party. I would never shame a couple for having a lower-budget wedding if that’s what they need/choose to do … but this is not the way,” wrote one person.

Another said: “Rich people stay rich by tricking people into working for free so they can save their money. I would have bailed on this BS.”

“My main wedding priority was that all my guests had a great time. I don't understand this thinking. Why would you want all your closest friends to look back at your wedding with resentment?” wrote another Reddit user.

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