'Decline': Woman Backed for Complaining About Too Many Wedding Invites

A woman who has refused a wedding invite after receiving five for the same year has been backed online.

In a now-viral post on the popular discussion site Mumsnet, the woman shared her experience which has gained more than 100 responses.

User howdowemanage wrote: "My husband and I have a lot of friends from university, the type you see once a year and FaceTime every few months–so dear old friends but not best close friends.

"We're on our 5th wedding invite for 2023 so far. One is my brother and the other four fall into the friend group above. None of the weddings are close to home so will all be at least one night in a hotel. I'm just not sure how we will manage to afford to go to all these weddings (travel, hotel, gift money) and definitely won't be able to get childcare for all five weekends, and that's before the stag and hen do [bachelor and bachelorette parties] invites start coming..."

In 2020, the popular wedding site The Knot shared the costs associated with being a wedding guest. Based on a survey of 1,000 guests who attended at least one wedding in 2019, the average cost of being a guest came to $430. The cost fluctuated based on location, proximity, and type of wedding—for example, guests attending weddings in their hometown cited costs nearer $185, while those who went out of town or flew to a wedding were spending up to $1,440 to attend.

The Mumsnet user explained her dilemma and said: "[I] just feel rubbish as we love them all and want to be there to celebrate them all, but probably can't, and I just really can't deal with the inevitable upset when we can't do it all for all of them. We're the only ones with kids and—as far as I know—money issues so I'm sure everyone else will be there for all of it."

"I hate weddings. With a passion. I've made it known that I will only attend those of my kids and grandkids from here on," said one commenter.

Another commenter sympathized and said: "I now decline and don't have kids. It's too expensive and they barely have time for guests unless it's small."

"I don't particularly enjoy weddings and would hate to be invited to 5 in a year. My idea of hell," wrote another Mumsnet user.

But another commenter suggested the poster make the most of it and wrote: "It only lasts for a few years. It's a bit busier as some of these will be COVID delayed. In five years you will be lucky if you get one invite a year."

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the wedding industry has been huge. Statista reports that in a survey conducted worldwide, 82 percent of weddings that were supposed to take place in April 2020 were postponed.

The latest data from The Knot 2021 Real Weddings Study reported an expected boom in weddings for 2022—with data indicating that there could be 2.6 million weddings in 2022 compared to the yearly average of 2.2 million U.S. weddings pre-pandemic.

In a later reply, the Mumsnet user said: "I love a wedding and our friends are great. It just feels unachievable and if I add up how much it's already going to cost when we're still saving for a house deposit and my husband and I have never actually been on a holiday out of the country together."