who pays for wedding guests?

[Annie456]

when a couple decide to get married on a far away island, who pays for guests to come along and share the occasion? should the guest pay for themselves or should it be classed as a wedding cost? how much is too much to expect people to pay?

[Louise82]

We got married in Cyprus in May this year and had 23 guests. My parents paid for me and my husband, themselves and my Sister. Other than that, all the guests paid for themselves. I gave them a year's notice and said that we would love them to come but fully understand if they wont be able to make it due to the cost. We explained that we simply could not afford to pay for everybody to come and everybody fully understood. As we told everybody last year, our guests made our wedding thier holiday so they would have spent the money going abroad anyway.

For travel and accomodation each guest paid around �550 which they would have spent on a holiday this year anyway.

I hope this helps x

[jno]

You're not expected to pay for guests to get there, just for the usual food, champagne and stuff. As for how much they should be expected to pay... well, how much would you want to pay to go to a wedding? That's probably a pretty good guide unless your friends and relations are a lot poorer than you are. Of course you may choose to pay for parents or close friends if you want, but it's not expected. Indeed, I have heard that some people marry abroad precisely so that a lot of horrible relations won't come along, but I'm sure that can't be true...