Wedding Invitations

A little over a year ago, I attended my second cousin’s wedding in Southern California.

While that joyous weekend represented a less than a two-hour flight for me, it was an expensive, Trans-Oceanic journey for several dozen relatives of the bride and groom’s family.

Time for some financial Wedding Etiquette touches.

Most of these people came from two European nations, and affluence wasn’t an asset shared by many of them.

So, I wondered how much each attendee who graced us with his or her presence had to dig in to their not-so-deep pockets and pay for the round-trip flight.

Obviously that’s not a question you ask at the wedding. Several months later, though, I managed to find out that since both nations are served by both a U.S. and a national flag carrier for the trip here, that the groom’s family worked with a travel agent to obtain a substantial flight discount for at least 50 of the attendees.

The discount was possible because the wedding was not held in peak travel season, and the airline had seats to spare. In terms of clout to get the deals done, a long business association between the travel agency and the airline helped as well.

To ensure that the deals were able to be completed in time for potential wedding attendees to make their plans, each attendee was alerted several months in advance with a “we’re trying to negotiate a great price for you” email or phone call. Having sufficient numbers sign on early helped the airlines feel better about the guarantee for this transaction.

There were, as I recall, a couple of elderly invitees who found the airfare difficult- even with the price negotiated downward. In this case, the groom’s parents picked up the airfare.