Bride And Groom Send No-Show Wedding Guests A Bill

Weddings are expensive events: everyone can agree on that. But treating your guests like delinquent customers when they miss your wedding is beyond absurd. That’s what one couple from Minnesota did, when they sent this no-show guest a bill for her dinner.

Jessica Baker was sent a bill for $75.90 for the two plates of fish she wasn’t around to consume. The couple also added this note:

This cost reflects the amount paid by bride and groom for meals that were RSVPed for, reimbursement and explanation for no show, card, call or text would be appreciated.

Baker was getting ready for the wedding when her husband called and informed her that his mother would no longer be able to take the children for the day. The wedding invitation specified “no children,” so the couple was stuck. They didn’t attend, and a few weeks after the event received the bill. “I guess I don’t know what the right answer would have been. What the right thing to do would have been,” she said.

It’s stressful and expensive to plan a wedding. But anyone who plans events will tell you that you leave a margin for no-shows, because they are inevitable. Life happens, things come up. Is the $75 worth destroying a friendship over, because how can you really go on after an awkward interaction like this?

Sarah Baumann Rogers, editor of Minnesota Bride magazine told KARE 11, “Under no circumstances should you choose to follow up after the fact…kind of questioning why they couldn’t attend or much less sending a bill.” If it really was as last minute as Baker says, who in their right mind would disturb a bride on her wedding day with a heads-up? No one, that’s who.

If your wedding is financially breaking you to the point that you have to act like a debt collector in the event that someone doesn’t show up, maybe you should reel in your budget. Because this level of rude is really unacceptable.