Bride and groom divide guests after charging $2,500 to attend wedding

Weddings are known for their large cost and one couple has found a unique way to combat it.

In a recent Reddit post shared to the “Entitled People” forum, a friend explained one wedding guest’s experience, named Jack, who was invited to his childhood friend Jeff’s wedding to his fiancé Sophie from the US.

Jack and his girlfriend had RSVPed “yes” to the wedding until he received an email in his inbox a few months later. The email read: “Thank you for RSVPing to our wedding, and thank you for helping us have the wedding of our dreams.”

“At the bottom of the email, Jack saw a link that said ‘Click here for payment,’” his friend recounted on Reddit. “He assumed this was a link to the honeymoon fund and went about his day.”

A few days after receiving the email, he reopened it and gave the link a click. The link took him to a payment page, requesting a donation of $2,528 (£2,000) for “attendance at the wedding”.

Naturally, he thought the email was a scam, so he immediately contacted the wedding venue to inform them of the communications.

The venue informed them that the email was right and Jack did have to pay in order to attend the wedding.

“Jack was astounded, but because he cares about his friend, decided to empty his entire savings to attend the wedding,” the post continued. “But in hindsight realised the invite of his partner was probably not as generous as he originally realised.”

Once Jack and his girlfriend arrived at the wedding, they discovered that drinks were not included in the attendance fee.

“Jack and partner had a couple of drinks and the bill was about $37.90. At the end of the wedding, when checking out, Jack went to pay his bar bill. The bill was the $37.90, plus nearly $252.72,” the post read.

He was later informed by the bar staff that the married couple expected their guests to front not only the bill to hire the venue but the tips for staff.

“Note this is in the UK where tipping the venue is not a thing that happens (nor does charging guests for attendance for that matter — but does that happen anywhere?),” the post added.

Fed up and with no money in his savings, Jack negotiated a lower tip amount for the staff.

“After the wedding, Jack checked the cost of the venue and calculated that the cost had been spread amongst the guests but NOT the bride and groom,” the post read.

“So, they had basically got a free wedding out of it.”

After posting, many people took to the comments to express how much they were against the extra charges without a warning.

“Uh... yeah, no. Once I saw the payment screen, I would have called and cancelled my RSVP,” one comment began. “I don’t care who the bride and groom are to me. You want a specific type of wedding, pay for it yourself. What they did was down right tacky.”

Another commenter agreed, writing: “Honestly if they’d let people know before rsvping that in lieu of a gift we’d like a voluntary money amount, say £100, I could swallow that cost. But to expect 2,000 is crazy. I wonder if all guests paid the same or did they milk a few suckers and got lesser amounts from elsewhere.”