When a friend is getting married it is nice to go to their wedding, even if you have to travel to get there.

What would you do if you were going to your friend’s wedding, but then she said that you had to bring a minimum gift of $250 in order to attend?

That is what the friend in this story was told, and he thought this was inappropriate, especially after having to pay to travel, so he is thinking about skipping the wedding entirely.

AITA for telling my friend her demanded wedding gift is inappropriate and that I don’t feel comfortable with it while doubting the legitimacy of the “custom”?

I’m flying out to Belgium to from the UK to attend my friends weddings, thanks to the internet we’ve been friends for a little over a decade.

Of course, wouldn’t want to miss it.

She’s getting married in March next year and wanted me to attend as we’re very close friends, I agreed happily.

She recently reached out to tell me what I’d be expected to bring as a wedding gift.

This sounds like a lovely gift.

I had been planning a gift already, a custom piece of art to commemorate their day made up with their birthstones all in all a cute design that I’ve seen online that I thought would be nice but I’d not yet ordered it so I was of course happy to hear what she wanted instead.

I was told I had to bring a minimum of £250 cash as my wedding gift to them I was shocked by this as that’s a lot of money especially considering that I have to fly out and get a hotel.

Wow, yeah. You don’t get to set ‘minimum gifts’ that people give you.

When I questioned her about this she said it was the bare minimum every guest had to bring and that anyone who didn’t wasn’t allowed into the wedding.

This has me shocked as that’s….extremely rude right?

I might not attend on principal.

I confronted her about that and told her it wasn’t really appropriate to make such demands of her guests and that I wasn’t comfortable with this.

She brushed it off saying it was normal and customary in Belgium as all the money goes towards getting the newlyweds a house.

It is fine to ask for cash rather than gifts, but setting a dollar amount is not cool.

Ok I can see some grounds in that and would be happy to throw a little cash towards that if it’s what she wants but the demanding and set price seems fishy to me and this isn’t a small wedding, she has 97 guests coming.

It seems like a cash grab to me and I’ve not been able to see any hint of this being a tradition on my online searches.

This is extremely awkward.

I told her as much and she had a meltdown saying if I wasn’t comfortable paying it wouldn’t be fair to the other guests who were paying and she wouldn’t be comfortable with me being there then even bragged about how her father had promised her three grand as his gift.

I told her if she felt that way I wasn’t sure I wanted to come and thanked her for the invitation.

It is hard to believe a true friend would do this.

She’s been freaking out online over my disrespect of her customs and my rudeness in questioning her and even crying to other friends about how I’m trying to spite her day…am I out of line for not feeling comfortable with this?

AITA?

I’ve never heard of anything like this and while every culture is different, it is hard to believe that setting a ‘minimum gift’ for a wedding is anywhere close to normal.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this uncomfortable situation.

This commenter says it is very tacky.

This would be too funny.

This bride is just making a cash grab.

Yeah, just don’t attend.

Yeah, it is the setting a minimum that is out of line.

There is nowhere in the world where this is normal.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.