Bride And Groom Announce How Much Money Everyone Gave During Their Wedding Reception
This odd tradition ended a friendship.
Myronovych | Shutterstock Weddings are expensive, and not just for the bride and groom. In 2024, the average cost of attending a wedding was $610. If you are a member of the wedding party, that number can skyrocket. Between gifts, events, and other expenses, being a bridesmaid can easily cost over $1000.
One woman shared on Reddit that, although money was tight, she agreed to be the maid of honor at a friend's wedding several years ago. All was relatively well until the wedding reception, when the couple conducted an odd tradition that had the maid of honor sweating.
During their wedding reception, the bride and groom announced how much money everyone gave.
"Several years ago, I agreed to be a [maid of honor] to a friend. Realistically, I shouldn't have agreed to it, but I was young, shy, and a pushover," the woman wrote.
She clarified that she was not in the UK or U.S., so she was not expected to plan anything, including a bachelorette party. "My only obligation [was] to buy a cake for the ceremony," she wrote.
Before the wedding, the bride was already concerned about money.
Weddings cost a fortune nowadays. According to wedding planning and registry website Zola, the average cost of an American wedding in 2024 was $33,000. So, it makes sense that a bride would be worried about finances. Yet this bride wasn't stressing about the price of florals or the cost of her caterer. Rather, she was more concerned with the amount of money her fiancé's best man planned to give.
"A week before their joint bachelor/bachelorette party, she complained how the best man told them that he won't be able to give them a big amount of money as a gift, because times were tough for him," the Redditor recalled. "She had the audacity to complain and say: 'Can you imagine? He has a great job, and he is being so cheap.'"
The woman immediately felt uncomfortable, as she could not afford to gift as much as the best man. "I felt bad because I come from a family that always struggled with money, and I was moving for college, so money was extra tight," she wrote. "I knew I could only give her maybe like half of what the best man could give."
At the wedding reception, the couple followed an old tradition, announcing how much money each guest gave.
"Traditional weddings used to get people to line up before the couple, bring their envelopes of money, give them to [the] reception coordinator to read on [a] microphone, telling everyone how much money each person gave the couple," the maid of honor explained. "They decided to go that route even though it hasn't been done in decades.
Bogdan Sonjachnyj | Shutterstock
Knowing that she did not give as much money as the couple wanted, the woman immediately felt uncomfortable, so much so that she lied to the wedding coordinator about her contribution.
"I just didn't want people to give me side eyes at the wedding," she admitted. "The rest of the evening, [the bride] complained that people didn't give her that much money she was expecting."
Brides and grooms must respect the financial situations of their wedding guests and manage their expectations accordingly.
It seems that the bride's desire for a perfect celebration (and monetary gifts) prevented her from understanding that not everyone is in the financial position to contribute in the ways she hoped. The fact of the matter is that, especially in today's economy, not everyone can spend hundreds of dollars on another person's wedding, and that's OK.
It's crucial to balance your desires with empathy. Publicly announcing how much money each guest gave is, at best, an uncomfortable move that leads to awkwardness, and at worst, a financial flex that ruins relationships. After all, no one wants to feel like their bank account is on display just to help you have a “memorable” day.
Unsurprisingly, the maid of honor added in a comment that "the friendship fizzled out soon after the wedding," and for that, she has no regrets.
Erika Ryan is a writer working on her bachelor's degree in Journalism. She is based in Florida and covers relationships, psychology, self-help, and human interest topics.
