Yahoo News “Don’t tell the bride…but I can’t afford it” – why are we forcing our friends to go into debt for our weddings?
When my best friend announced she was engaged to her partner of seven years (sending a photo of her ring finger with a giant sparkling rock on it), I was thrilled – and the elation rose even further when she asked me to be her bridesmaid. I spent evenings looking up package holidays and devising itineraries for what would be a cute weekend away to celebrate one of my favourite people.
But while I was busy ordering penis bunting, the world had other plans; my friend’s initial wedding date was set for the summer of 2020, which saw it rescheduled three times after coronavirus swept across the globe. With an early summer 2022 date finally locked in, my friend got a (somewhat) restriction-free wedding – but it did mean my grand ideas for a hen holiday were now impossible.
Instead, alongside the bride-to-be’s sister, we organised an afternoon tea in her mother-in-law’s back garden, making dinky finger sandwiches and icing cupcakes. We played party games, and alleviated awkwardness with bottles of cheap prosecco from Sainsbury's. In the evening, we fired up an old karaoke machine and set up a playlist, creating our own al fresco nightclub where we danced under the stars until 3am.
When we curled up in her childhood bedroom sleepily drunk, sunburnt and eating the last of the sandwiches, I asked my friend if she was disappointed that her hen do was a much smaller affair than initially planned. She firmly shook her head: “No,” she said. “I’ve had the most fantastic time.”
But while we had fun on a budget of less than £150 all in, there are plenty of others who have the exact opposite experience - with new figures showing that just over one in 10 of us have gone into debt to attend a friend’s wedding party. And this could only be set to grow, as the wedding industry hits full throttle once more in the wake of the squealing breaks following the lockdown and restrictions of 2020 and 2021.
Hitched estimates the average price of a wedding in 2024 to be between £20,700 and £23,000, but simply being part of your friend’s special day is becoming increasingly taxing too. New research from Experia found the average cost of attending a wedding is £451 – just shy of 1/5th of the average person’s monthly salary. While the study shows the heftiest spends for guests for the nuptials are gifts (£108), accommodation (£103) and outfits (£92), it’s actually the pre-wedding parties that are setting us back the most. Three-quarters of attendees believe hen and stag dos are now “too extravagant” and cost too much. Research from Aviva found that the average hen costs as much as £1,208, and it’s the closest friends that find themselves shelling out more: the maid of honour and best man bear the brunt of the financial burden, partly due to spending on average £211 more than other attendees due to making upfront payments and never getting money owed back.
The fact that people are willing to spend over ten times what I did on my friends do seems criminal, particularly when we’re feeling the pressure of a cost-of-living crisis where many can’t afford to eat, let alone party on someone else’s behalf.
So what’s behind this rapidly inflated price of hen do’s? Well, research by GoHen found that 1 in 3 hen parties are looking to head abroad for weekends away in 2024 – hugely ramping up the price tag compared to a small night out in your local nightclub.
But I think it runs deeper still: I’m placing the blame solely at social media’s door. It’s pretty normal to follow celebrities and catch a glimpse into their often-gilded lives and seeing the rich and famous heading out for expensive dinners or on luxury holidays all the time makes it seem normal – particularly when it trickles even further down to ‘ordinary’ influencers going on branded trips. This exposure to extravagance has an impact on our psyche. Seeing lots of people ‘nipping over to Barbados for a hen’ makes us wonder why we aren’t doing it too.
Our need to literally keep up with the Kardashians means weddings are no longer a one-day affair, but social media events, for better or for worse. Now we have to hit content milestones, around announcing who the bridesmaids are, where we’re going for our hen parties, rehearsal dinners. Yes, our grids may be richer, but our friends are left poorer.
Outlandish events are now the norm, not the exception. Sasha* was stunned when the maid of honour at her friend’s wedding arranged a fancy hen weekend in a European city, with each guest expected to spend £1,000 each on travel and accommodation – and that wasn’t including various activities when they arrived. On top of this, Sasha explains, each hen was expected to wear a set ‘uniform’ to the airport, including high-end items of clothing they had to shell out for. The maid of honour then requested each attendee chip in a further £70 to buy the bride a designer pair of shoes. Oh, and this wasn’t including the additional £220 she was required to spend for accommodation for the wedding day itself. Her total spend came in upwards of £1,500. As Sasha herself was also a bridesmaid, she felt as if she couldn’t turn down attending the eye-wateringly expensive hen. To pay for everything, she found herself reluctantly dipping into her savings, forgoing luxuries for herself, and accepting she’ll have to be worse off for the next few months.
However, Stephanie* found she couldn’t justify such a significant spend for a hen do she was invited to. “It was a short Europe beach trip, but I estimated it was going to come to around £1,000 before going and then money while there,” she explains to Cosmopolitan UK. “There was a feeling of not knowing just how much the total cost was going to escalate to, with more and more adding on. It was just making me so anxious, not having any control.”
While Stephanie’s bride-to-be pal was perfectly understanding that such a huge spend could not be justified, not everyone is always so accommodating. Rebecca* revealed one friend ‘flipped out’ when she turned down a £900 hen do abroad last year, as she could not afford to set that money aside while her bills were skyrocketing.
“We’re on better terms now,” she tells Cosmopolitan UK. “I told her I could still go to the wedding. But it was tense for a long time. I think she was really hurt. I’d have loved to have gone, but I just couldn’t spend that cash.”
These fallouts are becoming all too common; a survey by SpareRoom found that 62% of people who turned down wedding invites because of costs found themselves losing friends because of it.
It’s understandable that brides want to go all out for their big day – weddings are important to some people, and, hopefully, something we only do once in a lifetime. However, is it really worth losing friends over who can party with you for a weekend in Ibiza?
Evidently not, with some women realising that bigger isn’t always better and that less really can be more.
When organising her friend’s hen party, Elena decided, alongside all the other bridesmaids, to make it as accessible and affordable as possible.
“I knew the bride wouldn’t want the cost to be a burden to anyone,” she says. “We decided to have a one-day event, not ask for any more than £100, and base it in London, which was most accessible for everyone. We even made it possible so that people could come to the afternoon or evening part and only pay half.
“We did BYOB pottery painting in the afternoon, then went to a really fun central London venue for a three-course dinner and variety cabaret show that turned into a late night party and karaoke after. Through that £100 we covered dinner, the pottery booking, personalised aprons for everyone, matching red berets and the bride's accessories. All people had to pay for on the day was their own drinks, and whatever pottery item they chose. It was such a great day and it worked for everyone.”
Meanwhile Katie, who is currently planning her own wedding, is now working to make sure that her upcoming hen party is something everyone can attend.
“I’ve been invited to four weddings this year, and each ceremony sets me back around £300,” she explains. “I’ve decided to only go to three of the weddings, and only go to one hen party – and that hen isn’t abroad.”
With Katie and her partner opting to get married in Spain, the bride is aware that this may be taxing on some people’s budgets – and is even opting to put some of her own money aside to help pay for people who want to come but won’t be able to afford otherwise.
“We’re still at the early stages of planning my hen,” she says, “but because my wedding is abroad, I’m leaning away from doing a hen holiday. I’m thinking of doing something small, with 10 of my best female friends.”
While Katie has noticed the price of her friends’ hen parties creep up, she adds she has also seen some groups opt for smaller alternatives.
“For the hen I’m going on this weekend, we’ve booked an Airbnb and we’re just planning a few adventure activities,” she explains. “It’s a far cry from the big night out or the glam holidays I’ve been to.
“One group of friends had a ‘stagcholerette party’ where it wasn’t just bridesmaids and groomsmen but everyone – cousins, friends, colleagues – got to celebrate together even if they weren’t part of the main wedding party.
“I personally think, while it’s nice to have a really luxury weekend away, sometimes it’s nice to have everyone there at a big party closer to home, so it’s accessible to all.”
Maybe in the process of planning weddings and the furore that follows them, we need to take a step back and remember what we’re doing it all for: at the heart of all the hashtags and grid posts is a celebration of two people who want to honour that they’ve found their soulmate, affirming vows in front of everyone they love. Whether this is done on the beach in the Canary Islands or in a car park in Slough, it doesn’t change what you’re swearing to.
Love should be at the centre of all our weddings and this should be extended to the love we have for our friends, and the circumstances they find themselves in. True friends wouldn’t financially jeopardise each other for the sake of just one day.
*names have been changed
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