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A bride and groom were criticized online after a guest said that she and her husband were asked to leave at just 9 p.m., after spending money on a hotel and childcare.
The anonymous wedding guest took to the popular online forum Mumsnet to share her dilemma, ultimately gaining support on her side.
The guest shared in a post, which was later deleted, that she attended the event this past weekend with her husband, adding that it was a themed wedding requiring guests to source outfits "which we would never wear again in public."
After finding out that the wedding was an hour away from home and assuming that, like most weddings, it would go on into the night, the guest and her husband booked a hotel. "Despite booking the cheapest we could find, it was still quite pricey," she explained.
The guest added that they organized and paid for overnight childcare and spent money for food for the kids and the babysitter.
But here is not where the issue lies.
"Now in terms of all of the above, these were things we usually have no issue in covering as guests attending a wedding - we love weddings and we were really looking forward to attending their special day - plus we got to have a rare child free night together," she reasoned.
"Both ourselves and an awful lot of the guests had traveled far including from other countries. We arrived around 5.45 pm, the ceremony was 6 pm, food was served extremely soon after the ceremony, they had a very brief band appearance and we were informed just before 9 pm that we would be being sent home within the next half hour/hour - the day had simply been designed for the wedding party to end at this time - no particular reason other than they didn't want a late one," wrote the guest.
The guest explained that although they hadn't asked how late the wedding would last, it had not been mentioned that it would end so early, leaving guests "having spent around £350+ [437-plus in U.S. dollars] in outfits, overnight childcare, hotel, taxi, parking and fuel costs to attend a wedding for around 3 hours - not including the gift we bought."
According to data from The Knot, wedding guests spend an average of $185 on weddings in their hometown, and approximately $600 on weddings they drive out of town for.
Such weddings however usually last longer than merely three hours, something that sparked online reaction following the guest's now-deleted Mumsnet post.
"A themed wedding is bad enough but to expect guests to get into that theme and the whole shebang only lasts three hours-absolutely bonkers," wrote one user.
"That's so s**t. I'd be fuming if i'd spent all that effort and money for that," added another.
One commenter reminisced on times when weddings would continue, even after the bride and groom left: "I must be getting old but it used to be the norm for the bride and groom to leave halfway through the evening, chuck the bouquet and disappear off to consummate the marriage while everyone else partied on."
The wedding guest replied to the responses garnered by her initial post clarifying that it's not the early finish alone she was left shocked by, but the wasted plans and money unknowingly spent and made.
