Is it bad to ask guests to help pay for their meal?

If you have your event at a non-mealtime (ie 2 pm for example), you could have a cake and punch reception. Sounds like your budget is an issue, and this may be a good alternative!

Yes because like many have said, you are the host inviting them to come celebrate. so it's kind of expected for you to cover the costs, especially since you're the one deciding on the decor, food, venue, etc so you're really the one in control of the costs

Just an encouragement: I was also fretting the cost of food and not wanting to cut my guest list down. I found a church with a reception hall that is actually amazing and brand new for freeeeeee. I originally thought that I would just do a cake and punch reception.. but now I am having everything.

I was also amazed at how many people offered to help me with wedding costs out of the blue. My brother is buying my main dish. My nana is baking my cake. A friend bought my grooms cake. Random people gave me decor. My bff bought my wedding dress. I did not expect this from anyone at all, but I am so thankful. It looks like we will pull the whole thing off for $2,500 for 150 people.

View Quoted Comment Wow thats awesome! I'm glad everything is working out for you. Our wedding is still a ways out but I was confiding in a friend about some catering quotes and how expensive some of them are and how a lot are not within our budget. She mentioned having guests pay for their meals and that she has always had to pay for her meal for the weddings she has attended in the past. I thought this was taboo and wanted to see what others thought if this was truly taboo or if it was more common than I thought.

There has been a trend I think of potluck dinners, if it's mostly family and you feel comfortable with asking them to help. It might be worth looking into, if that's what you want.

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Having a potluck event is still asking guests to subsidize the cost of the wedding. In addition, how would you know that the food was prepared with food safety in mind? How will people be storing the food? Serving it? These are all important factors.

You should never ask your guests to pay for anything at your wedding. ideally, you should only invite the number of people you can afford to pay for. have you considered having your wedding at a non-meal time (like 1 pm) and just doing drinks/desserts instead of having to provide an entire dinner?

View Quoted Comment I totally agree with the all the replies in that it sounds greedy and tacky to ask guests to pay to attend a wedding. It’s only very recently that I’ve ever heard of such a thing and the only reason I have is because I’ve seen people discussing it like it is here and I’ve seen people who commented on being invited to a wedding where the guest pays and the overall consensus is the same as in these replies. I almost feel like it’d be a bridzla thing for anyone that does charge their guests to attend their wedding. I did read a comment recently where the guest invited was questioning the idea but was wondering - does that mean I dint need to bring a gift. And I’ve seen a comment too where a bride was annoyed she had guests complaining they had to pay to attend a wedding and the bride was also not happy that people didn’t not bring a gift being they felt it was enough they had to pay to attend and didn’t feel they owed a gift if they were saving the couple money. Idk where this idea came from but that’s crazy and I’m was wondering g if this was a new thing not just for wedding but parties in general. I can’t imagine a couple will get very many yes responses for the rsvp or anyone that would get very many guests to come to a celebratory party.