Yecchh.
This couple really and truly charged their wedding guests $333 per head to attend their wedding. You know, to help pay for tasteful accoutrements like that lovely wedding dress. An astounding 60 friends and relatives out of the 350 Nova and Reemo Styles invited paid the price, which I guess means that venal people have friends who don’t object to venality. Or that ethics dunces have friends who can’t recognize despicable conduct when they see it.
If some alleged friends of mine asked for $333 dollars for the honor of witnessing their wedding, I would send a lovely wedding cake with “Bite Me!” lovingly written on the top.
It was all a success, apparently, in the eyes of these creeps, because they made $20,000 from the suckers, and still had 60 friends after insulting 350 of them, though with friends like those, who needs morons?
There’s a deep cultural pathology that has to be lurking to produce conduct like this. I’m not sure what it is, but I’m sure it’s racist to criticize it.
Ethics Alarms 
it’s an easy diagnosis NARCISSIST. Everyone involved including the “guests”. This is the product of the self aggrandizing virtual realities the majority of humanity has become addicted to!
Wow. My wife and I spent $2500 on our entire wedding…including rings. And that was in 2005, after platinum weddings had been invented.
What’s really a shame about this wedding is that more than 80% of the people invited didn’t come. You figure 5-10% of those invited will turn down the invite and another 5-10% will plan to, but then be forced to pass due to unforeseen circumstance. So at least 60% of the invited guests (and likely more) chose not to come due to the price of admission…basically the “bite me!” response. I would not attend a wedding with any kind of “price of admission.”
And what I really don’t want to see is this newly-married couple getting upset with (or confronting) those friends who didn’t attend. Some of those people are probably already angry at the charge. To then be chastised for not paying it would strain a goodly number of strong friendships.
Gee, I would hope those non-attending friends would wipe that couple off their lists permanently. What kinds of friends do something like inviting you to a wedding but make you pay for it? That’s not friendship, that’s marketing.
“My wife and I spent $2500 on our entire wedding…including rings.”
The only reason I let go of a dollar bill…is to get a better grip…
Anywho, I can’t remember what we spent on rings, but them being crafted with gold we already had (and her Grandmother’s diamond) it wasn’t more than $250.
I gave late Iron County (WI) Judge Patrick Madden a c-note for hitching us at the old Iron County Courthouse in Hurley in front of a beautiful 100 year old + oak bench (we wanted to be a part of the…um…HISTORY that old room had witnessed)
Treating everyone to a post ceremony celebratory drink at Harbor Lights in Saxon Harbor on the shores of Gitche Gumee cost another c-note ($60 tip), $150 for a photographer friend’s accommodations and spending money, and my Dear Late FIL paid no more than $600 for the reception of ~ 50 people
When the subject of…er…frugality comes up, I’d like my name to be mentioned…
PWS
I’d seen this somewhere before reading your piece. My favorite comment on whatever page that was: “So, for a couple, that’s 666. Yeah, that seems about right.”
Poor breeding.
Regrettably they will probably reproduce
But the NYT times says it’s trending:
Would You Pay to Attend a Wedding?
As wedding costs continue to increase, some couples are charging guests to attend their special day.
“Planning a wedding has become so expensive that some couples are asking their guests to pay to attend their special day.
Hassan Ahmed, 23, is charging his guests $450 for a ticket to his wedding next year in Houston, where he lives. Mr. Ahmed said he hadn’t heard back from many of his 125 wedding guests. But he has already spent over $100,000 on the wedding, including deposits for the venue, the D.J. and the photographer. In a video on TikTok, he said he was confused by the response, noting that many of his guests had spent more money on Beyoncé or Chris Brown tickets…”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/16/style/wedding-guest-charge.html
Based on the comments, most of the readers aren’t…buying it!