Couple Says Charging Guests $333 To Attend Their Wedding ‘Opened Their Eyes’ To Their Friendships
The couple explained that they wanted to put a twist on a "traditional" wedding.
LightField Studios | Shutterstock Weddings tend to always be an extravagant event, with couples spending upwards of tens of thousands of dollars to put together a ceremony. Everything from the venue, caterers, decorations, and attire can be costly, but it seems a New York couple leaned on their wedding guests to hopefully share the burden of the expense.
However, their decision backfired. Nova and Reemo Styles explained to news outlets that they told their guests about a fee they would need to pay to attend their ceremony, but were shocked when only a handful of those guests actually showed up.
A couple admitted that charging guests $333 to attend their wedding 'opened their eyes' to their friendships.
In an interview with FOX5 NY, the couple explained that they were married in June 2023 at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City and had planned a non-traditional wedding. They originally wanted to invite 350 guests, but soon changed their minds.
"Instead of thinking about everyone else, we said, 'What do we want? What do we want to do?'" Nova told the news outlet. Nova and her husband decided to plan their wedding day as a "date night," where instead of having a single ceremony at a church, they wanted to travel with their guests to different sentimental landmarks in the city.
Some of those locations included the courthouse, Hudson Yards, a local movie theater, and One World Trade Center. However, the bus to take them to all of these places only had room for 60 guests. Nova and Reemo decided that they weren't going to tell people about the limited spots and would let their family and friends decide how badly they wanted to come. That's where the $333 wedding fee came in.
"So that's how the ticket idea came up, because we said we can't choose anyone," Nova continued. "How are we going to choose one aunt over another aunt? Like, there's no way we could do that."
The money generated from ticket sales for their wedding ultimately went to a fertility foundation.
Despite the controversy surrounding their decision to charge guests, the couple insisted that the proceeds didn't go to funding the ceremony, which cost more than $70,000, their honeymoon, or any other expenses to help set them up for their future together. Instead, the couple said the proceeds would be going to a foundation that helps couples struggling with infertility.
The couple said that a few of their guests were reluctant to pay but eventually changed their minds. "It opened our eyes to people's perspective about us, their value on our relationship, and so much more," Nova said. Despite that, the couple has no regrets about their choice of celebration.
"It was one of the best days of our lives," Nova said. "It was just as if we were hanging out with our closest friends and family and celebrating our love, and that's exactly what we wanted."
Most wedding guests have admitted that ceremonies have gotten too expensive to attend.
According to a survey conducted by LendingTree, 43% of Americans have spent an average of $100 to $499 to attend a wedding. Another 29% spent an average of at least $500 on a wedding, while 12% spent an average of at least $1,000.
Most guests even admitted that they felt their presence at a ceremony wasn't enough to count as a present. Ninety-one percent of attendees reported feeling pressure to give the couple a wedding gift, and 67% ultimately did. Truthfully, weddings, for both guests and the couple getting married, shouldn't be a financial strain at all.
While it's always a dream to have a lavish and extravagant wedding, it's also important to consider perspective. In the end, every couple deserves to have a day that reflects the love they have for each other, but that doesn't mean it should come at a steep price for the people they are celebrating with.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
