How to Turn Down a Wedding Invitation You Can't Afford

One of your closest friends gets engaged, invites you to drinks, and asks you to be a bridesmaid. “Of course!” you say. This is the person who held your hand during your shittiest, most embarrassing breakup and put you in a cab the night you tried to make out with your ex; you did her laundry while she had the flu. You’re in all the same group chats. Frankly, it would be weird if she didn’t ask. You’re excited.

Then the specifics start rolling in. There’s a bridal shower and a bachelorette party and, oh, the wedding is going to be in Portugal! Is your friend closet wealthy and you didn’t know? Maybe it’s her fiancé’s parents? Whoever it is, they are apparently not rich enough to cover the wedding party’s expenses, which are now stretching into the thousands. It’s a slow-moving car crash that only ends one way: with a high credit-card bill and a friendship so strained you can’t wait for the wedding to be over.

Or, consider the alternative: You don’t actually have to do this. You can say no. And while it sucks — of course you want to be there — you and your friend will both be better off if you’re honest and mature and gracious about it. Here, a guide to declining a wedding invitation you can’t afford, from people who have done it.

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1. Do it as quickly as possible.

Don’t hem and haw, especially if you’ve been asked to be in the wedding. “Keep it simple, genuine, and timely,” says Jane Handel of Jane Handles Weddings. “Procrastinating on giving a ‘no’ may actually prohibit the couple from being able to extend an invitation to someone else in your place, which can feel like a double loss.”

That said, you don’t always know about costs up front. A 30-year-old woman — let’s call her Claire — was asked to be a bridesmaid in her friend’s wedding two years ago and said yes. “At that point, she hadn’t even started planning the wedding yet, so I didn’t know what I was getting into,” Claire says. Then the friend started planning a New Year’s Eve wedding in Mexico, and Claire had a sinking feeling she wouldn’t be able to swing it — the cost of plane tickets alone would have been her full month’s rent.

“It was a hard conversation, but acknowledging the discomfort made it easier,” Claire says. “It also helped that I ripped the Band-Aid off as soon as I learned about the location.” She made a point to break the news in person. “I said, ‘I love you and I want to be part of this process, and I know this is awkward to say, but financially, this just isn’t possible for me.’ And she understood.” Claire felt “a lot of FOMO” in the months leading up to the wedding, but she did attend the bridal shower. (The pricey bachelorette weekend in the Hamptons, however, was not in the cards.) “It felt like a big deal at the time, but I don’t think it mattered that much in the scope of our friendship,” Claire says. Two years later, they’re still close.

2. If you can’t be in the wedding but can attend it, offer to support the couple in other ways.

“I often don’t want to be in other people’s weddings for a variety of reasons, and it’s not because I don’t love them — I just have other things going on,” says Kia Marie, a Chicago-based event planner who has organized weddings all over the world. Her advice: “You can say something like, ‘Thank you so much for inviting me to share in your big day. I’m honored. Unfortunately, due to financial constraints, I can’t be in the wedding, but I would love to be in attendance and participate in some other way.’”

Some ideas: You could fluff the bride’s dress after she comes down the aisle, do a reading at the ceremony, gather groups of people together for photos, or even make sure an elderly relative gets to their seat. “There are many ways to be part of a wedding that don’t involve being a member of the wedding party,” says Marie.

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3. Keep your explanation simple.

Don’t overdo it or overapologize. “Maybe your reasons are financial, maybe it’s the time commitment, or maybe you just need to spend your money in a different way right now,” says Marie. “No matter what, you don’t need to give a long-winded excuse. Being in someone’s wedding is much more expensive than simply attending. It can cost $4,000 or $5,000 or more, between the dress, the makeup, the bachelorette party, travel expenses, staying in a hotel for multiple days — that’s not money that anyone should take lightly.”

Another way to word it? “I would say, ‘Financially, I can’t commit to what you deserve from a bridesmaid,’” says Megan Grose, the owner of Brindle & Oak, an event-planning company based in Colorado.

4. If you can’t make it to the wedding at all, you don’t always need to give a specific reason.

“Not every declined invitation requires an explanation,” says Kate Ford, a wedding planner based in California. “It’s perfectly acceptable to keep it vague — say, ‘Thank you so much for the invitation, but unfortunately, we have a conflict’ — and leave it at that.” It might not be as big a deal as you think. “As somebody who has planned a lot of weddings, trust me, most couples are not upset when you decline. They understand. If anything, they’re relieved that their numbers aren’t so high.”

One bride I spoke to — let’s call her Elizabeth — had a blowout destination wedding in Napa Valley a few years ago. She knew it was going to be a stretch for many of her guests to make it, especially since she lives on the East Coast, and she wanted to make sure that no one felt pressured. Still, two of her good friends wrote her long, painstakingly apologetic emails detailing their finances and why they couldn’t make the trip. “I felt terrible that they felt so bad,” she says. “I was like, ‘It’s okay! We know this is a big ask! Please don’t worry, and we’ll see you another time soon!’”

5. Always send a note and a gift.

“Etiquette states that if you get a wedding invitation, you send a gift even if you can’t come. It doesn’t need to be a hugely expensive one. And no matter what, it’s still going to be way less than a plane ticket to France or wherever the wedding is taking place,” Ford says. “A heartfelt note is always appropriate, too.”

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