Love is priceless. Your attendance at someone’s wedding, apparently, is not.
Wedding guests across the UK are now expected to contribute between £150 and £400 to celebrate someone else’s commitment—a figure that has somehow become the going rate for witnessing two people sign paperwork and eat chicken. This is not a suggestion. This is a norm enforced by cash registries, Venmo requests, and the social death that awaits anyone who shows up with a toaster.
The economics are baffling. Couples spend £30,000 on average for a day that lasts five hours. Guests are invited to this expensive party they did not plan, cannot leave early without causing offense, and are now expected to subsidize. It is a transfer of wealth from the financially cautious to the romantically ambitious—a tax on friendship, essentially.
What makes this genuinely funny is the honesty of it. Wedding lists used to pretend to be about what you needed. Now we just ask for cash. At least there is no longer any pretense that you want a serving dish. You want to offset the £8,000 you spent on flowers that will die in three days.
The real question nobody asks: if your wedding requires guests to fund it, have you thought about a smaller wedding? Or is the point specifically to throw a party you cannot afford and make your friends pay for the privilege of attending?
Love conquers all. Except, apparently, a spreadsheet.