I can afford it, but not by heaps, and I’d love to go, but I’m unsure how much she values my presence. Help!

Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nz

Dear Hera,

About a year ago, one of my best and oldest friends announced her engagement (very cool!). I still live in Wellington, which is where we’re both from and where her family lives, but she’s currently living in London. Last week a wedding invitation arrived, revealing in a very casual manner that she’d be having her wedding in a random, far-flung small town in Spain at a veeery expensive-looking venue. Horror.

Financially, she lives a different life to me. Both her and her fiance earn high salaries, as do most of her friends and family – so making a complicated trip across the world for a one-day event is probably not a huge burden for most of the people around her. I earn an OK salary, but with rent and other expenses, there’s not a whole lot leftover – and I’m pretty open and honest about that. While I could technically afford the trip, if I went, it would be the one overseas holiday I can afford to take for the next two years. 

I’m also unsure how much she really values me being there as she hasn’t asked me to be in the bridal party, nor did she give me a heads up ahead of the invite being sent or acknowledge that it’s a big ask. 

While I’m excited for my friend to get married and would LOVE to be there to celebrate, I’m just as excited about other events and achievements in my friends’ lives: graduations, writing being published, birthdays, babies, new pets, dream jobs, overcoming fears, leaving a bad relationship. Because I see marriage as equal to a lot of other life events, the culture of expecting your friends and family to drop a huge amount of money and travel across the globe for your wedding is, to me, insane. 

Still, I feel that she’ll take it as a slight if I say that I can’t go. It would also likely weaken our friendship – which is already weakened by the fact that we live so far away from each other. Am I diminishing the importance of getting married? Am I being selfish if I don’t go to the wedding? 

Help!

Wow. Some people are really out there having destination weddings in picturesque Spanish towns, in 2024, the year of our Lord? Is this really how the other half lives? 

There’s nothing better than a good wedding. A friend’s wedding. A stranger’s wedding. An enemy’s wedding. Who cares. Cake. Speeches. Dancing. What’s not to love? Having said that, I would never get married, unless it was the 1920s and I was engaged to the heir of a large pharmaceutical fortune. The cost of joining someone in holy matrimony is frankly insane, and that’s before you even add international travel into the equation. It’s staggering to me that people are willing to drop that kind of cash on a single-day event. That’s a house deposit. Or a sleeper ticket on the Orient Express. I don’t think you’re a selfish person or a bad friend for not instantly logging in to Skyscanner. 

Ultimately I think people should get married wherever they want. There’s a great case for eloping and tying the knot in Las Vegas, or getting hitched in a foreign courthouse on a whim. I don’t think that people need to be having financially crippling family obligation weddings, packed with cousins they don’t like and aunts they’ve never met. Having a quick destination wedding is probably a good way of culling the guest list. In the end, it’s up to the people pledging to spend the rest of their lives together to determine the most meaningful experience for them, and if that’s getting hitched at Bedrock City on a moment’s notice, more power to them. Congratulations, best wishes, and yabadabadoo. 

What isn’t fair is expecting everyone in your life to immediately drop 2k on an international plane fare. Especially in this economy. Especially when half your friends and family live in New Zealand. Being a guest at a wedding is already expensive. Expecting all your nearest and dearest to take a week off work and catch a plane to the other side of the world is frankly delusional. There’s nothing inherently wrong with having a destination wedding, but you have to be prepared that the vast majority of people in your life won’t be able to afford it. I think your friend should have acknowledged that in her invitation to you, and made a point of saying, “I know this shit is expensive, so please don’t stress out if you can’t make it.” The last thing anyone should want is for their wedding to cause financial distress to the people they love. 

It sucks to miss out on an important event, especially when you no longer live in the same place as your friend and don’t often get a chance to see one another. But if I were you, I would save up for my own holiday. Going to a wedding is great, but if it’s a choice between that and beholding the ancient wonder of Machu Picchu, I know which one I’d pick. 

While your friend’s invitation might be a little tone-deaf, she hasn’t actually done anything wrong. There’s no point stressing out about hypotheticals. If I were you, I would write her a beautiful and genuine letter of congratulations, telling her how happy you are for her, and how much you’d love to be there, but you can’t afford the plane fare, and you hope to find a way to celebrate with her some other time. 

If she’s a normal person, with a working heart and mind, she’ll do her best to respond with grace and understanding. If she kicks up a fuss or gives you the cold shoulder, I would argue that she isn’t such a good friend to begin with, her levels of entitlement are off the charts, and I hope her wedding is ruined by wasps. 

All the best, 

Hera