Woman Agrees to Be a Bridesmaid for Best Friend — Then Finds Out It's $8K Per-Person Destination Wedding

The bridesmaid says her best friend is having her wedding in "a tiny, far-north Scandinavian town" in just four months

A woman who was asked to be a bridesmaid at her childhood friend's destination wedding is igniting viral conversation after asking whether it's okay for her to lie in order to get out of the $8K per-person affair.

A Reddit user who identifies herself only as a 32-year-old female writes in a post that she and the bride, Kayla have been friends since elementary school — and that being a bridesmaid in the ceremony was "an automatic given."

Noting that Kayla’s wedding is being held in her fiancé's home town — "a tiny, far-north Scandinavian town" — the Reddit user says the ceremony was recently changed from 2025 to 2024, and just 4 months away.

"Between flights, the hotel ... the rental car, the bridesmaid dress, the full traditional outfit required to be worn for some the the events, pet boarding, as well as general incidentals and we are looking at a minimum $8,000," the poster writes.

While the bridesmaid writes that Kayla was "very apologetic" about the date change, she says she "has not acknowledged" the financial impact.

While the poster says that she and her husband "have good jobs," she adds that they have spent the last four years "saving for our tenth anniversary trip, a 3 week tour around Japan, and had just booked flights when the date change was announced."

When Kayla broke the news, the poster writes, she said, "You’re so lucky, you’ve been saving all that money for a vacation anyway!”

Now, the bridesmaid wants to get out of the Scandinavian wedding by lying.

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"My idea was to lie and say we have to do a major home repair (fixing the foundation maybe) that will cost all of what we have saved plus more, then when it did come time for the Asia trip say we were gifted the trip by my husband's parents," she writes.

The poster adds that she feels guilty for the lie and also hypocritical, noting that she had her own destination wedding in Alaska, one that Kayla herself attended despite not having a "particularly good or secure job." Still, she adds, the cost of her own wedding did not come close to the cost of Kayla's affair.

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"I’m scared that if I tell her the truth of why we can’t go, it’s too damn expensive, it will ruin our friendship. I could see why it would. She was a bridesmaid for me while far less financially secure than we are now and she knows we have a lot of money saved for travel," the Reddit user writes, adding: "Our friendship means a lot to me but I don’t think it’s fair to plan a wedding this expensive to attend and expect me to cancel our dream trip to accommodate it."

The bridesmaid ended her post with a query for commenters: "I don’t want to risk it so I know that there is a risk she would find out the truth and be even angrier, is that risk worth it to avoid telling her the truth?"

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Other Reddit users offered their advice, writing that $8K "an outlandish amount to ask anyone to pay to come to a wedding. Ever. Full stop."

Still, one said, "The answer is we just can't afford that ... Your actual reason is sufficient. Making something up would just make it dodgy. Tell her the truth."

Another said the poster herself was in the wrong, for "trying to come up with a complicated lie."

"Just be honest and talk to your friend. If the friendship can survive this, then something else would've broken it in the future," they added.

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