Not sure if this post should be here or in the Say it here 'cause you can’t say it directly thread…
Niece is getting married in May. Didn’t think we’d be invited, as it was going to be very small. Fine. Then my brothers and I are invited–woo hoo, made the A list.
Recently got message that Bride has booked a 6 bedroom house in Orlando (I am on West Coast) for family members for 5 nights and our share will be $850. WHAT???
There was never any discussion on this from Bride at all. She just did and is billing all. When I complained, her reasoning is that it’s cheaper than staying at a hotel. And she and her fiance are staying in house as well!!! Really? Your wedding night with all the relatives??
It has also come to light that the wedding and reception will be 50+ miles away from rental house! Oh yeah, and did I mention that the wedding is on Friday late afternoon of Memorial Day Weekend? What could possibly go wrong???
There is a lot of grumbling among family–none of the family lives anywhere near there–the bride and groom are closest but still five states away! But the bottom line is that my sister (MOB) is the sweetest, most wonderful person in the world and she made effort to get to my D’s wedding (nowhere near the expense). So, we are biting the bullet and doing it for her–not the bride. But grinding my teeth as housing, rental car, airfare already pushing $2K. And we’re not even there yet.
Bride did indicate that they have all they need, our presence is their present. Umm…she got that right!!! But just in case, they have a HoneyFund #-o oye.
This has been so surprising in that Niece is normally very level headed, very frugal, etc. Once she got Bride to Be stage, all common sense has gone out the window.
I do not like people spending my money, nor deciding where I will be staying and how long I will be staying!
We made hotel reservations for the women in the bridal party only. BUT we are also paying for one of the two nights for them.
I think it’s a bit nervy to reserve anything for anyone else without asking. You are nicer than I would have been. I would just say NO. I think it’s very presumptions to send folks a bill for $850 without asking…for a place an hour away from where the event is taking place.
My family and the bridal party will stay at the same B&B. They are all paying for their own rooms and 3 nights minimum. That being said, they had the option of staying at other hotels, but the B&B was nicer and less expensive, so we had more people who wanted to stay there than number of rooms.
To be fair, your niece probably had to book a house right away because it is a holiday weekend. Maybe there weren’t rentals closer to the venue. It is hard to find a house that big. Did your sister say she wanted you guys to stay with them?
Is Orlando the airport you would need to use to get to the wedding? Did you plan to stay 5 nights?
If no to either of these, I’d be tempted to make my own arrangements.
On the other hand, I’d hate to miss out on the camaraderie and memory making with your sweet sister.
There were zero discussions of housing of any type with me or my Mom and brother. There are 5 hotels within 5 miles of wedding venue, all still with availability. The venue is about 25 miles N of Orlando airport. House is 25 M S of airport.
Due to flight costs on Memorial Day, we are departing a day early…same with my Mom. I truly only wanted to stay 3 nights, but since getting from West Coast to East is really a day of travel, we’re flying out on Wednesday, as I didn’t want to risk flight issues the night before wedding.
As I don’t get to see my family that often, I’ll deal with it and I want to be there for Mom and sister…but as I said, I don’t like others making decisions for me with my money…
Well, I never styled on the grounds of Universal, as rates above $250. More like $350-400. But right outside, reason angle. Disney had many hotels under $100. Personally, I’d rather have my own hotel room and bathroom than be in a B & B. If the venue is north of the amusement parks, I can’t help but think I could get a hotel room for no more then $100. Personally, I would do some sleuthing, and send the results to the young couple.
^ Believe me, I know I could have found more suitable (for me) accommodations…There’s a Marriott where H has status and tons of points very close to venue. As I said, I’m doing this for my Mom and my Sister–who is mortified about how a lot of this is playing out. As I said, this is so surprising coming from the niece that has been the most level headed until now…
@gosmom is everyone going along? Terrible situation.
H’s family did a family gathering (his parents and H’s siblings/families) and rented side by side condos which ended up being expensive. We sucked it up for the family. It was a financial strain for us at the time, as I had several years of maxing out health insurance co-pays and deductibles fighting aggressive stage III cancer. I think they were thinking the parents may have just this one opportunity. Now years later, they are still going strong enough to have come to DD’s wedding last July (car travel a long distance) and planning to go to their grandson’s wedding, car travel a long distance (son and their widowed niece are handling). We did have some very good family photos and photographer allowed us to snap pictures from his set ups and also provided the large family picture digitally for us to have. The silver lining.
850 is 170/nt, probably less than a nice hotel. But going ahead without confirming doesn’t seem to recognize you could have already made other plans. Then she’d be looking for other guests to “bill.” And now you’ll also need to see how meals work out, it’s not like having a hotel restaurant or room service breakfast. This may win a prize.
Hope you’ll let us know how grand this house turns out to be.
So, I found two beautiful navy dresses online (MOG here) and ordered them, hoping at least one would work. I love navy blue. The bridesmaids will be in mauve/dusty rose. So, I sent a link to FDIL and she asked me to hold off until her mom chooses. Drat. I guess that means Mom prefers navy or that she prefers navy for her mom. Other two DIL’s were like “you wear whatever makes you happy, easy peasy.” This one said she is thinking dark grey or plum for me.
Oh well. I will send the dresses right back without even unpacking them.
But at least maybe I’ve lit the fire under them to get going. (Sept. 1st)
I’m wearing a shade of plum for Sept wedding. FDIL picked the color family. I picked the dress. I ordered several back in the fall. It’s a fall color so you might find some good sales going on now. I found I got the best selection by filtering red, pink and purple as plum dresses can fall into several color families.
Is she requesting long or short?
Honestly, I think it is wrong for bride’s to dictate such things as one of only two colors to either mothers. Not everyone looks good in those colors and limiting the search to such a narrow color palette (on top of cut and size and other attributes required to flatter one’s figure - let alone price) could make it very difficult.
I don’t have a problem with some direction on color. For example…in our wedding, the bridesmaids are wearing a slate blue dress. I’m wearing lavender. If MOG chose red, or even orange or yellow…it would look mighty funny in the color pictures.
We are even giving some direction to our son, who will be playing trumpet, and also escorting his grandma down the aisle. He wanted to wear brown…um no. Everyone else is going to be in black or grey. So he will do as well. And we also told him…solid color shirt. Otherwise…he might have worn a plaid or something.
My daughter was not picky about the dress colors…but she did tell us what everyone else was wearing…and that drove my decision…and MOG.
