A “free” wedding…?

Is that possible?

Well, it sounds like an interesting idea, but the woman who wrote this story on Reddit isn’t buying it!

Read her story below and see what you think about about what she had to say.

Get started now!

AITA for telling my friend that her “free” wedding is unrealistic?

“I (24f) am a member of a friend group in which one member (we’ll call her Coral, 23f) is getting married.

She announced her engagement to her fiancee (25m) a few weeks ago and we were all happy for her!

Uh oh…

Over the weekend, though, she shared more specific plans for the wedding, and that’s where things have kinda gone off the rails.

She said she’s been seeing a lot of people on TikTok and insta showing how to plan “free” weddings–weddings where the couple spends zero dollars (aside from the marriage certificate fee, I guess).

At first I thought she meant a city hall wedding, which would be completely fine! But then she got I to the details and her expectations for the ceremony.

She’s going to try and find someone with a large outdoor space to use (not formally a wedding venue) who will donate their area in support of “love”, she’s going to have all of her guests bring a potluck (with very specific assignments), she will have a friend officiate, a friend do photography, a friend do save the dates and invites, her family do the flowers, etc.

Including some harder-to-swing things like getting a large tent, decorations, wedding favors, speakers, band, etc. I’m not sure what her plan was for a dress.

This is all kind of weird…

What’s more is that Coral and her fiancee really aren’t poor, from what I can tell. She works as an accountant at a big company and her fiancee does software sales. Plus his parents are loaded. It sounds like they just want to do the free wedding thing for the sake of it.

That would be okay, but she is just shifting all of the costs onto other people (some of whom are probably less well off).

She told me that she wants me to make the cake, and then sent me some pictures “for inspiration”. The cakes were ridiculously elaborate. We’re talking multi-tier, fondant flowers, gold leaf, and one even had a hand-painted watercolor design.

I’m not a professional baker, I just like to bake cookies and brownies sometimes. I told her that those cakes would probably take me days to make, and they wouldn’t come out anywhere near as good. She kind of laughed that off and said, “Oh, it’s not about it being perfect, it’s just about everyone pitching in. It’ll be fun!”

She had to get real with her.

I told her that, fun or not, what she was describing was basically her friends and family subsidizing her wedding (with time, money, and labor) and that it was kind of unfair to expect people to spend so much on her “free” wedding.

Or else, she was expecting everyone to show up to a lackluster event and just pretend it was amazing. It’s like a group project that none of us wanted to do because we already graduated and moved on from all that so we don’t need the credit (she does graduate a year later the rest of us).

I said that if she wants a free wedding, she should probably just elope or go to city hall, because this isn’t really free, it’s just free for her (I might have been a bit more forceful in my wording but I didn’t swear or call her names or anything like that).

She got super quiet and just looked at me for a minute or so and then left (with another one of our friends driving her home).

That didn’t go over very well…

Later that night, I got a text from that friend saying I had really hurt Coral’s feelings, and that even if the plans were a bit unrealistic, I should have just let Coral come to that conclusion on her own.

Coral then messaged me just saying “Sorry, don’t worry about the cake” with no more context.

I am feeling pretty bad now, especially since Coral was so happy and excited and she never really said anything mean to me.

Perhaps I should have just gone along with the cake (since she said she wouldn’t be mad if it turned out badly), but I am worried that her wedding would not have been what she wanted.

And I was also frustrated about the cake request.”

Check out what folks had to say on Reddit.

This person said she’s NTA.

Another individual shared their thoughts.

This Reddit user spoke up.

Another reader chimed in.

And this person didn’t hold back.

There’s no such thing as a “free” wedding, folks…

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.