Some people say they want a “simple wedding,” but what they really mean is they want everybody else to do the work for free.

This bride originally planned a tiny courthouse wedding with only immediate family and the wedding party attending. But once her parents started demanding relatives get invited too, the guest list quickly grew into a much larger event.

The problem was that the couple still refused to hire help or increase the budget.

Instead, the maid of honor and best man suddenly found themselves handling everything from vendor calls and playlists to decorating and setting up the reception themselves.

And somehow, the wedding party still ended up expected to hand over money to the couple at the end of it all.

Read on to see why this maid of honor walked away so frustrated.

Low budget wedding that the wedding party’s labour paid for

Everyone involved is ethnically Chinese, except the best man (this will be relevant later)

I agreed to be the MOH at my best friend of 13 years’ wedding. She envisioned a simple courthouse wedding, with no one else but their parents (6 people in total: the couple, 4 parents, me and the best man). Being the MOH was just her way of including her bestie on her big day.

Things rapidly fly off the rails when her parents start making demands. Chinese parents here in Asia are very used to getting their way.

She allowed her parents to dictate how things would go.

She caved to her parents’ wishes of inviting their relatives. It’s now a 30 people wedding, still small by local standards when the average is 50-100 guests.

But she insisted the wedding party could handle everything. No need for a wedding planner. Which means huge chunks of wedding planning now fell on the best man and I’s laps.

I was in charge of “procurement.” Calling florists, photographers, etc. to get quotations, only for the bride to reject them and demand I try again. Sometimes the price wasn’t right (their budget was negligible) other times it didn’t match her vision. Her vision changed depending on the time of day so it was very difficult to nail down a supplier.

They did not have a big budget.

The best man worked at a restaurant, and the bride demanded he secure them a private room at no extra charge.

There was no budget for a DJ nor an emcee. She gave me a Spotify playlist and a PowerPoint slide to click through during the ceremony.

Instead of champagne, the couple got sparkling water. SPARKLING WATER. and were surprised when the bottle didn’t pop when they shook it.

The wedding favours were flowers plucked from the floral decorations after the march in. The best man and I had to pluck them ourselves and shove them into small vases. Her cousins took pity on us and helped, bless them.

Even as a guest, she spent a lot of money.

The icing on the cake was, per local Chinese customs, all guests and the wedding party should give a red packet to the couple. It’s a red envelope with money, and we’re strongly expected to at least cover our meal. It’s a crappy custom that incentivizes couples to book extravagant banquets and expect guests to foot the bill.

In total, I spent over $500 on this wedding, and that’s not counting the lost income as I took unpaid leave to attend. The best man, unaware of this tradition since it’s not his culture, was the only one who didn’t give a red packet and got lots of dirty looks from the older relatives for “not caring enough” about the couple.

If you’re wondering why the couple is acting so cash strapped, they recently sunk millions into a condominium. They earn above average income, but will be illiquid for the foreseeable future.

Yikes! This whole wedding sounds stressful.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who was totally humiliated when he learned the real reason his friends had ditched him.

Let’s check out what the folks over at Reddit think about what happened here.

This reader would ditch the woman.

For this person, guests should not be put through that.

Chinese people can be very strict with wedding gifts.

Sometimes, the MOH does these things.

This wedding sounds stressful for everyone except the couple.

They kept calling it a simple low budget wedding, but then they turned around and expected the wedding party to handle problem after problem while still spending their own money to attend.

Nobody signed up for that.

And after everything the maid of honor and best man did for them, the sparkling water “champagne” moment somehow feels like the perfect ending to the whole mess.