AITA For Telling Guests They HAVE TO Stay At Our Wedding Hotel To Benefit Us r/Relationships

[00:00:01] Hey hey Waffle Gang, I do hope you are well. My name is Mark and today we're checking out some more Reddit Stories. And if you do love a Reddit Story, why not consider hitting that like, subscribe, maybe that notification bell too. And let's crack on with today's first story. Much love guys. Now today's first story comes from Destination Wedding Throwaway 12 from the Am I the Arsehole subreddit and the update came three years later after the original post.

[00:00:29] It's titled Am I the Arsehole for Requiring Destination Wedding Guests to Only Book Through Our Block and Not Their Timeshare? We're having an all-inclusive destination wedding in 2023. Like most places we're required to book a room block in advance. To qualify for discounts for guests, guaranteed rooms and various other wedding package perks. We must book X amount of people through the room block we paid for in our contract.

[00:00:57] It turns out two of our guests have a timeshare through the resort, effectively slashing their reservation price by about 30% from the online price. Our package cuts it down maybe 10% at most. Weddings must be in demand. Hmm, I wonder why. Without asking they went ahead and booked their timeshare, only to tell us later. Then they shared their timeshare membership to four other guests. Six total now, who are all booking reservations through the resort.

[00:01:26] The wholesale timeshare company. It's one of those multi-resort packages that cost a lump sum and then once or twice per year the member gets heavily discounted vacations. We were okay planning around two guests, but now six guests are circumventing our wedding package that we paid for altogether. We are now somewhat worried about meeting our minimum guests booked through the package threshold in the contract to have the wedding, ceremony and rehearsal. Without the minimum guests threshold, we lose the rehearsal and ceremony.

[00:01:55] I'm sure we can ask for an exception and pay any extra fees out of pocket if it comes to it. We'll also probably fail to meet other tiers that would give our package the extra oomph we wanted to subsidize rooms and pass around upgrades to guests, bringing down the cost of the wedding as a whole for everyone coming. We can't guarantee any subsidization until we reach a tier that helps us towards that goal. So I don't want to dangle that carrot in front of their heads.

[00:02:21] We could tell them to book three nights, the required minimum through our package, through us, and then any other nights through their timeshare. But I'm tempted for simplicity's sake to tell them no altogether. They need to book through the wedding package to be a part of the wedding. Am I the arsehole. Edits. We don't save more money if more people book. We can just pass out more free rooms and upgrades, and other guest discounts, spa package discounts, free golf, etc.

[00:02:49] That's what I meant by bringing down costs of the wedding as a whole. Our package is a flat dollar rate regardless of who books. So as long as minimum number of guests book through the block. If the minimum isn't met, we lose our private room reception and dinner. But it doesn't cost us more. Second edit. Not verbatim, but I've gone ahead and told them congrats on the discount. We're happy that they're able to attend. Make sure to keep in touch with a travel agent who is more familiar with the resort to make sure all goes smoothly.

[00:03:18] I do know transportation to and from the airport won't be provided outside the package. So make sure to ask your timeshare reps how they recommend tackling that. We haven't planned ahead last time and ended up paying $60 each way. And that I ask if the resort needs to give you specific colored wristband or anything to indicate that you're part of the wedding so you have no issues.

[00:03:40] I kind of feel like, you know, you're having a destination wedding for people to be turning up paying money to come across to see your wedding to celebrate it with you is a huge ask and they're willing to do so. So for this expectation for them to almost subsidize your wedding in some sort of way as well. It comes across as a bit entitled in my opinion. I think it's one thing and I'm trying to imagine myself in the situation if a family member came up to me and said, Oh, Mark, would you be able to book through this website? It might help out my wedding a bit more.

[00:04:09] I'd be like, yeah, cool. No worries. You know, be a bit gracious about it. But but telling people that they need to book through the package to be a part of the wedding. Come on now. And like I said, whilst the edits did look they were somewhat gracious, maybe there's a little part of me thinking, are they just being petty? So OP was answering some of the comments. The first commenter said, you're the asshole. It's not up to you where people stay and especially not how they choose to pay for that stay. OP replied saying, it's an all inclusive.

[00:04:38] So the ceremony, reception, rehearsal and etc. is all put on by the resort as part of the package. To do so in these places, they require a percent of the guests must stay on site. They're all not my own. Edit. Jeez, I understand the downvotes for some of my replies, but this one is just informational. Goodness. Another commenter says, are you making the guests pay you for their rooms or are you covering all expenses? OP said, we paid for the block wholesale.

[00:05:05] We passed savings down to guests, but we're not paying for all their rooms. Instead, we'd like to subsidize their rooms at a later date to help pay the room costs for guests. We live in a very cold climate and with friends and family all over the place. So it made more sense to us to have a wedding in a warm location and to put their plane ticket towards an area they would actually enjoy. Commenter says, you're the asshole. Your guests are there to celebrate with you, not underwrite your wedding.

[00:05:31] The last destination wedding I went to, several guests did exactly this and the bride and groom were just happy they came. If you try to force people to stay where you want, they might not come. OP says, did that resort not force the guests to stay on the resort where the ceremony is hosted? There's all kinds of clauses in all the resorts we looked at. That said, 80 to 90% of the guests must stay on site. 120, 150, 200 nights, nights cumulative through the wedding package, etc.

[00:06:00] If it really ended up not being an issue, I'd just forget about it. There's just so much damn fine print. Edit. Damn. Quite the down vote for an honest question. Another commenter says, you could try talking to your coordinator. We did a destination wedding about two thirds of the guests booked through us. The ones flying from the other side of the country found a better deal with a local agent. We show up to our coordinator and she's able to group everyone under the same event.

[00:06:26] So we got all the perks, private group dinners, music, champagne toast, classic car, etc. Our guests were mostly older. So a ride in a classic car is still talked about six years later. OP says, thanks for the advice. I didn't know this was possible. I'm going to shoot off an email to the coordinator now. Your wedding sounds like an absolute blast. At least some affirmation that destination isn't a horrible idea. The commenter says, destination weddings are gross and rude.

[00:06:54] OP says, makes sense when you have family all over the world. I'd rather them travel somewhere warm than in the very cold climate we live. Why spend all that money to go somewhere they definitely don't want to go versus a beach? The commenter says, hey bridezilla, you're the arsehole. First of all, a destination wedding basically screams to people. I don't really care if you can afford this or not. I don't give a crap how much vacation time you get from your job or if you'd sacrifice a whole year because I'm so entitled.

[00:07:21] And lastly, I'm going to insist you pay more and do it through my block because I get added benefits. Never mind that I also expect an expensive gift in addition to you having to shut up the airfare, accommodations, possibly a new slash different wardrobe, food and drinks, etc. and so on. You saddled people with a huge expense for the privilege of seeing you get married. And now you want to demand that they pay a higher rate. Rightzilla might be too kind. OP says, most of our family and friends live nowhere near our very cold climate.

[00:07:51] We'd rather have our wedding guests potentially get excited to go rather than coming to our frigid small town. We're not asking for gifts. We don't mind if guests cannot make it. In fact, we're worried that having it in town would make guests feel more obligated to come. We're perfectly fine with a small wedding on the beach. The commenter says, but there's an implied gift requirement to everyone invited. That's what happens with weddings. Whether someone attends or not, they're supposed to send a gift. Essentially, all civilized society knows this.

[00:08:21] So essentially, it breaks down to most people as this. I don't care if you come because you're obligated to send a gift. Except now you don't even get a dinner and some wedding cake in exchange. OP says it says directly on our website that we do not have an online registry because we're not asking for gifts due to the big ask of having them fly and stay for a destination wedding. Unless they somehow avoid that part of the website. I would hope they know. Someone says, info.

[00:08:49] Did the invites state they needed to book on your blog? OP says no, it did not. Just some methods at their disposal to help them book. The commenter says, yikes. No one's an asshole here. I feel people are being too hard on OP and misinterpreting what they're saying. No one's an asshole here because wedding planning is stressful and honestly a scam. And you're just trying to see if the people in the timeshares will affect your contract. But also the guests have a right to stay where they want and to save money while doing so.

[00:09:18] Overall, it's a sucky situation. You seem like a nice person who has put in a lot of consideration towards what other people's wants and needs. Even though it's your wedding. Hope everything works out. And it's everything you want it to be. OP says I appreciate the kind words. I definitely almost overreacted. Thank goodness I took a long time to reflect on what I was going to say to these guests. And I do feel terrible about that.

[00:09:43] I'll have to be more reflective in the future about each guest and the effort they are making just to attend this silly thing. These all inclusives are a bit unusual with weddings and how the entire event works from start to finish. Lots of pages of details to look over. While it's my fault I signed something and not my guest problem. I think my explanation of how this even works at these all inclusives was poor and fell flat.

[00:10:06] The commenter says I cannot tell you how many am I the asshole posts we get from people who wonder if they're the asshole for not staying at the expensive resort that the soon to be married couple insists on. They are never the arseholes. The hotel is counting on you pressuring your guests to stay there in order to make their profit. Do not risk damaging your relationship so they can make a buck. Your wedding will not be wonderful because you scored someone a free round of golf or 50% discount on a massage.

[00:10:34] It'd be wonderful because you and your spouse to be loved each other and will be surrounded by your friends and family celebrating your love. No matter how they choose to come or where they stay. Opie says thanks for the advice. Well put. I'm going to try and forget about the contract for a while and see what happens. You're right. The way the package is structured basically makes us the salesman. It doesn't feel great but this is what I got myself into. Luckily I reflected enough before saying anything stupid to a guest that I'd regret later.

[00:11:04] I'm going to just enjoy our company and be grateful for anyone that can make it. Where did this hate from for like destination weddings come from? I've seen it a couple of times in stories like this and I'm always confused by it. I don't know. I never see it as particularly rude or wrong. As long as there's not like an expectation for the guests to be there. You know you can say you can come or not. One of my best friends had a destination wedding and he told me about it and unfortunately I wasn't able to make it.

[00:11:31] Due to funds and some family responsibilities at the time. And I just had to say to him look I'm really sorry mate. I'm not going to be able to attend. And he was like no I totally get it. You know there's no expectation for anyone to turn up kind of thing. But for our wedding it was the best solution for us. And I was like yeah cool as long as you're as long as you're cool with it. Wish you all the best. We have to go out for some dinner or something when you both get back. I personally never see too much wrong with it. But as I said three years later. OP came in with their update and said a few years had gone by.

[00:12:00] And today I remembered how much negative attention it had gotten. I'm writing an update coming up on our two year anniversary about our experience. And to maybe deter anyone from declining a destination wedding or resort contract. Based on my original post. Or the comments in the original thread. If that's what you want to do. I didn't cover reason for doing a destination wedding in the original post. Our guests were spread all over. And in some other countries it did not make sense to have them come to where we live. Since it's mostly nothing.

[00:12:30] Frigid. And expensive to travel here. Why not spend that time and money somewhere memorable. Saying no to attending a destination wedding. Is easy. No harm. No foul. Another reason we chose a destination wedding. Was to spend more time with relatives. Who we don't see often. Instead of the couple of hours. Everything went better than expected. A hundred people came. So my worries about a contracted guest minimum. Was misplaced. I was afraid of renegotiating a contract after guests booked.

[00:13:00] Since the contract had nullification clauses. I realized after the OP. That the resort wants you to be a pseudo salesman. Some comments didn't consider how these resorts operate. But many were correct about the salesy contract I got myself into. We didn't ask our timeshare guests to change anything. And we remained close friends. The contract was our only wedding planning stress point. It's understandable if you don't want to deal with it. But if you're reading this and going through the phase now. Just relax. Careful what you sign.

[00:13:29] But also the resort isn't going to play hardball with someone bringing them business. We were able to meet all thresholds. Not that we cared. And spent them on upgrading all family and wedding party to beachfront swim out rooms. And gave a percent off the final room cost for all the guests. The trip created lasting memories and were grateful for everyone who came. The event got itself rained out. But the staff was incredible and moved us to an indoor venue. The day prior we had toured with the coordinator and planned the setup outdoors.

[00:13:59] For all of that to be thrown out the window an hour beforehand. Even though we hadn't seen the indoor venue or setup. It didn't really matter. The staff went above and beyond. And we couldn't thank them enough. We're blessed our guests traveled from all over the world to celebrate with us. I wanted to write this update because maybe someone searches reddit and stumbles upon both threads. I couldn't find much information online about this topic. Yes the contract is a negative to consider.

[00:14:26] But if you're in a position like us where people will be traveling quite some distance anyway. And you want people to have a memorable tropical experience. Don't look back. Reddit might have your ass in the comment section. But zealous words on a website won't change real life events involving people who have no affiliation with them. The commenter starts with a laughing emoji saying oh my god. I wanted a destination wedding because I didn't want anyone to come. You had a hundred people come. And you met thresholds. You were able to upgrade because all these people can.

[00:14:55] So basically your wedding was paid for by other people. Oh my god. OP says of course we wanted people to come. But several comments in the OP complained about going to destination weddings. Then just say no to the invite. It's not a big deal. The wedding was a flat rate. The room block contract was separate. And the wholesaler of the block provided a higher discount to guests the more rooms booked. Clever way to get you to become a salesman unfortunately.

[00:15:22] We didn't hand people money after the hotel handed us money. It's automatic. And then they simply asked us who to upgrade leading up to the wedding. The commenter says I'm confused. In your original OP you said that you didn't get the minimum threshold. You would lose the rehearsal and ceremony. What was that about? OP says when the travel agent explained the package to us initially. I conflated the minimums between the room block contract and the wedding contract.

[00:15:49] The wedding contract for private rehearsal, reception and ceremony would be lost if there was not enough wedding guests. Not block guests. I had that incorrect in the OP and clarified at a later date. Events would have instead been sectioned off in a restaurant or other public use areas. Our guess was to utilize the restaurant bar staff instead of over staffing a wedding. Even if it was of blocked guest minimums. We would have been fine. My initial reaction was rash. So there was a commenter saying that OP was hung up on this and OP responded saying,

[00:16:20] I forgot about it until yesterday. We strictly did no gifts and made it clear that if coming would be a burden to decline. Just about everyone would have to pay for those things to come if it was local anyway. I bet my life savings the flight and drive after to where we live is a double flight to the destination we picked. The commenter says, I just read the original post. Holy hell, the gumption to even think about asking people who already have a timeshare at that resort to pay outside of that.

[00:16:47] I live part time in a desirable vacation location that is possible for weddings. It would be like if someone invited me to their wedding but said, I had to pay to stay at the wedding hotel instead of my own, paid for house and forbade me from letting others stay here with me. Glad it all worked out and that the OP did not in fact tell the timeshare owners they couldn't use their timeshares because sheesh. OP responded saying, Yeah, I certainly earned my well-deserved share of flack for that post.

[00:17:14] I think getting the consensus on a general idea by posting it on the internet and the actual actions and solutions that occurred got a little misconstrued. But it's my fault for ever considering something along those lines. In the end, the only solution I decided I could deploy if something truly had to happen was to ask them to save their timeshare. Let me know how much they saved and that we would cover the difference to get them under our block. I was only going to consider that if the resort gave us no other option and after plenty of arguing with the resort. But that didn't happen.

[00:17:44] We had a few more of the more adventurous guests stay off resort in the end anyway. The scary words in the contract never mattered. And there was a mix of comments below some of them. Some people saying that OP was asking for too much. Other people saying that OP was perfectly reasonable in this. For me at this, the start when OP was asking, you know, they need to book through the wedding package to be actually a part of the wedding. I was like, yeah, that's not a good look.

[00:18:11] And then after that, it felt like the edits were maybe a bit petty. But I started to backtrack that through some of the comments from OP as well. But after that, we covered some of OP's comments and I felt they came across a bit more, more genuine. And maybe those edits weren't petty. And while the initial post may not have been right with the wedding stress, I think it can be a lot. But now I'm going to turn this one to you guys. What do you guys make of this situation?

[00:18:39] Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below. Let's have one more story. Now this next story is from our very own subreddit r slash mark narrations from darkcaplar who says mood booster. I swear teacher in a special ed school shows up bruised and battered by roommates. I 45 male, then 35 male, I'm an electrical engineer and the son of a teacher who frequently volunteers my time repairing computers for teachers.

[00:19:08] Usually small stuff such as removing viruses that will completely rebuild failed systems or do data recovery. At the time I was frequently in and out of my mother's school, picking up or returning personal equipment to teachers after the students had left. One of these teachers, whom I will call Betty and I, both were shih tzu lovers. Her little guy was named Bob. I'd frequently stop and say hi and maybe carry things out for her and would share our little fur balls misadventures.

[00:19:38] As Betty lived alone, she'd always talk about Bob the way someone would talk about a roommate or spouse. For instance, Bob was being a complete arse last night demanding I get his dinner out. Sounds horrible, but if you're a shih tzu owner, if you know, you know. I know. The last time I'd been to the building, I overheard other teachers asking Betty if she felt safe at home and that she shouldn't let Bob do such things to her.

[00:20:07] When I saw Betty, she had a split lip and a bruise around it. Later, when the coast had cleared, I asked her what had happened. She told everyone Bob split her lip, but was shocked to find out how many people had thought Bob was her husband. What actually happened? After a long day at work, she flopped down on the couch. Bob had hopped up to the back of the couch and lay down. They both fell asleep and at some point, Bob rolled over the back of the couch and his little rock of her head hit Betty's lip.

[00:20:36] Walking around that day, I asked if she was going to tell her co-workers the truth or see if the police show up at her place for an entertaining tale. I'm told she eventually brought Bob into school, shocking everyone. I believed her because my own little guy had done the same to me that year. While I didn't have photos of Bob, I do need to pay the pet tax. You do indeed. Here's a photo of my then little man. And Dark shares a photo of their little shih tzu in a Christmas outfit. Just explaining for the podcast users there.

[00:21:06] Beautiful little dude. And I'm telling you right now, I can see from that face. I can see from those little teeth that that's a cheeky so-and-so of a shih tzu. It's got the look of Poppy. I usually end up covered in scratches from Poppy like at night time when we're sleeping. She likes to come in and out of the covers when she's cold, when she's hot. She goes in and out all the time. But to get under the covers, she'll sit there and she'll like paw at you. Occasionally I'll scratch her arm and then she'll climb under and climb all over my chest and all over the place. And I just end up with scratches all over the place.

[00:21:35] She's got a bit better these days, but she's a little turd sometimes. But I love her to bits. But what do you guys make of that one? Thank you so much for sharing that with us, Dark. And any excuse to get some pet tacks, right? Thank you so much for being here today. I hope you did enjoy today's stories. And if you want to share your own r slash Mark narrations. Love neighbor drama, by the way. You know me. Don't forget to share it if you've got some. And I will see you in the next one. Take care and much love.