Weddings are often a joyous occasion where family and friends come together to celebrate the marriage of two people they are close to.
However, one couple was left stumped after they were cut from the guest list, even after helping the happy couple prepare for their special day.
Taking to Reddit to ask for advice, the pair said they had provided their printing companies services to the bride and groom as they had assumed they would be invited to the wedding.
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But after spending hours of work and $2,000, they were told that they had been removed from the guest list as there was only enough space for "family and friends" at the occasion.
Discussing their predicament, the couple said: "I own a printing company that I run with my wife. Her cousin came to us and wanted us to do all the signage, banners, guest books, life-sized cutouts, etc for her wedding.
"We do this all the time for friends' weddings and events, and we never charge. We're happy to help out and it's usually a lot of fun working together to make some cool stuff.
"A few weeks before the wedding, her wedding planner tells us they need all the items by X date so they can set it up for the wedding. At this point, we hadn't received our wedding invitations and didn't even know when the actual wedding was.
"My wife texts her and tries to clarify when the wedding is and if we missed the invitation somehow."
The pair were left in utter shock after the bride revealed that the wedding had "downsized".
They continued: "Her cousin replies and says "Oh we downsized the wedding and we decided to have like a close friends and family thing" and that they didn't have space for us in the small venue.
"My wife and I are pretty hurt and insulted. And on top of it, we've spent close to $2000 on all the materials. Her cousin and the wedding planner kept making tiny revisions to the artwork, had us print samples to see how it would look in person, resized several of the items a few times, etc. All that cost a ton of time and money. And we're a functioning business, so we either had to delay other orders or stay late and print her stuff on our own time.
"So I went ahead and billed her for our cost and said we needed payment before delivery because I'm not going to chase her for payment for months/years after the wedding. We're not making money on it, just charged her for the cost of materials.
"So far we've gotten threatening calls from the cousin, her fiance, some random members of my wife's family that I don't know, some of the groomsmen, etc essentially calling us a**holes.
"After the harassment, I'm considering charging full price or else we won't deliver the items.
"Are we the a**holes here? Sorry but I'm not going to waste my hard earned time and money on someone who doesn't even consider us' close friends and family'".
The couple were met with hundreds of comments of support as people agreed that it was perfectly reasonable to charge for their services.
They said: "Yeah I say go ahead and charge full price. Their behavior is straight up tacky."
Another wrote: "they can't expect a wedding gift from people who didn't make the cut. Once you & your wife were cut, it became a business transaction & you have every right to bill them & receive payment before delivery."
While a third said: "Tell her it's only free for "close friends and family". Because she has established you don't fall into this category, distant family pays materials costs (or full if you choose to charge that)"
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