Buzz. Let’s add another activity. Buzz. And another night at the Airbnb. Buzz. Have you got my bank details? Buzz. The gift registry link is on the wedding website. Buzz. I think we need to make it even more special! Buzz.
…the texts keep coming, each notification adding to the spiralling bill of another hen do. Anxious nausea is crawling up my throat as I do the mental gymnastics — £40 here, a £100 there, another £20 over here, and that’s all before the actual wedding. I want to make it work, I need to, but no amount of girl math is making this add up. Looks like it's back to the credit card for the third wedding in a row.
I press and hold the delete button on my phone — I can’t afford this — and type: whatever you guys think is best!
Welcome to being the friend who can’t afford anything, not even your lovely wedding. The one who stretches her credit card balance to attend their friends' weddings, who stays silent because it’s better than facing the equal evils of pity or judgment. The shame of being the friend in the lowest tax bracket in a country that never wants to talk about money is debilitating, especially as peak wedding season approaches.
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In the UK, guests typically spend, on average, £451 per wedding they attend, including accommodation, outfits and gifts. The cost skyrockets for those attending the double-billing of the wedding and the hen/stag do, which can push the cost of attending the whole wedding over £1000. International hen dos can skyrocket into the thousands. When the average income in the UK is £39,039, and many people earn well below that, a couple of weddings a year can leave some of us scrabbling for loose change in the sofa — sadly, I’ve discovered, a lost cause in the age of digital wallets.
Of course, many people plan weddings and consider the financial implications for their attendees. However, with how awkward Brits are about finances, especially those with the money, it gets tricky. I’ve attended countless weddings, often with a negative bank balance, yet I’ve rarely felt able to say that out loud. I don’t want to dampen someone’s joy just because I need three to six months to save up to attend.
The thing is, once people achieve financial security, some forget that it’s not a blanket benefit for everyone in their social circle. That shield of “okayness” for them morphs into a thorn-tipped fence for those of us struggling to cover our bills, mainly because it feels impossible to bring up the topic. No matter how safe we feel with people, having to be the miser who advocates for frugality, or says “I can’t afford it”, is uncomfortable at best.
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When we do pluck up the courage to discuss money, silence clogs up the room with shame. It becomes impossible to go beyond the social niceties because the awkwardness makes everyone swallow their tongues. So, those of us without any money opt to stay quiet, spend what we don’t have, or make up excuses not to attend because the truth feels too exposing. And those with money avoid bringing up the conversation because, well, why would they need to? They’re not the ones counting pennies.
But in a world being poisoned by hoarding billionaires gobbling up the resources, it doesn’t make sense for the rest of us to avoid talking about money. The choice to silence or sidestep money chats leaves everyone on unsteady ground. What’s more, these situations isolate those of us trying to cover up hardship, creating divisions in even the deepest friendships as obligation and financial hardship clash.
I absolutely love weddings, and I adore my friends. They’re all lifers, so I intend to be at every wedding, but I’ve felt that distance keenly, too. I’ve attended weddings where, instead of basking in my friends’ joy, I couldn’t think about anything except affording next week’s groceries. I’ve felt like an awful friend because I couldn’t afford to attend the wedding and buy a gift. I’ve swallowed the humiliation and eaten nothing while others ate an expensive meal I couldn’t add to the wedding cost.
It has hurt. It has felt lonely. And, far too often, I’ve not said a word because I didn’t want to risk damaging a friendship. It’s extended to normal social life too, as I’ve suppressed the shame of not being able to afford a meal or an outing, or diverted to cheaper restaurants and bars. Juggling the white lies and sidestepping takes its toll. In some friendships, it can feel like a wall has gone up between us, one that only I can see. One that they walk through with ease, but I can’t scale on even my most profitable months.
We can all get stuck behind that wall at any point. I’m here at the moment because of severe health issues. While I clamber back to full-time work, my income is in the toilet. And any of us could end up here with me, which is why I’m getting better at rejecting that shame. After all, in this economy, there are so many of us similarly adrift, looking for a life raft.
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Silence makes us all castaways, but opening up means we can be each other’s life savers, especially for those facing these conversations with less-than-sympathetic friends. I’m blessed with compassionate friends who don’t make me feel like crap for not earning as much as they do. I can only imagine how many others are confronting the wall with much meaner people on the other side. To save us all from shame, awkwardness, or lost friendships, we have to figure out how to really talk about money.
And it can’t just be those of us without it starting the conversation. As with any form of privilege, it’s up to those with it to be better listeners and conversation starters. Capitalism has set us all up to chase more, more, more at the expense of anything else, but in doing so, we forget about our loved ones. We forget that time well spent is more valuable than whatever's in the bank. (Yes, I’ve made this article about affording weddings about capitalism's failings — it’s impossible not to.)
I’m slowly having more open conversations with people. They can be awkward about it, but it doesn’t mean I have to be. Just as I learned to say “no” when things make me uncomfortable, I’m learning to say “I can’t afford that” without shame, because the shame doesn’t belong to me. It’s borne from other people’s awkwardness, not from me.
Now, instead of swiftly changing the subject, I plough through the silence until the polite veneer breaks and the honest conversations happen. It’s not easy, and some conversations have utterly failed, but I get to attend weddings for the people I love without major financial repercussions. And the price is a few minutes of conversational weirdness, that’s all.
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