Brother-of-the-bride with 'cheap friends' tells sister she's not 'entitled' to expensive wedding gifts. AITA?
"AITA for telling my sister she's not entitled to an expensive wedding gift?"
For a little context, I'm (19m) dating my gf Emmy (19f) for 8 months now. Emmy was invited to the wedding despite the fact my sister doesn't like her because she would rather me be with an ex fling of mine. My ex fling Anna (21f) is the sister of my best friend Josh (19m). I don't have any contact with Anna and my best friend and I have set our own boundaries regarding all that. Anna has also made my gf feel uncomfortable on purpose many times to the point Josh called out his own sister multiple times.
We also have 4 other friends in the friend group all similar ages 19-20 years old and all of us college students. My sister knows all of them but isn't close to any of them. Anyway. My sister prefers Anna over Emmy because she considers Anna to be prettier and more classy. I never entertained her thoughts and I always put firm boundaries that were not always respected.
For that reason she decided to invite my entire friend group to the wedding as a justification to also invite Anna. I told her that I am not comfortable with that and that she also doesn't have to invite my friends to her wedding. We had back and forth arguments about that which ended up with a "my wedding my rules." So I shut my mouth.
The wedding came etc. Since my friends are college students most of them are either unemployed or have part time jobs at best. So they don't make much. They ended up giving her a collective gift of silverware which cost around $200. And they also gave them another $300 in cash. That's all they could afford collectively for the reasons previously mentioned.
My sister is now throwing a tantrum about how cheap my friends are and how the silverware wasn't even that expensive and how they should be ashamed for being so cheap and that when you're invited to a wedding you're supposed to give a great expensive gift because being cheap is disrespectful to the couple who invited you to their wedding.
I said to her that she's not entitled to neither a nice nor an expensive gift at all in this scenario. She invited my entire friend group out of spite only so she could justify inviting Anna despite my boundaries.
She knew my friend group consisted of broke college students so she has no right to expect much. Now her, her husband and my parents blame me for being an AH for not calling out my cheap friends and for not knowing wedding etiquette.
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
stephnetkin said:
NTA, OP, your sister is really a bit of a twit. Your friends were generous, especially given their status as students. In this culture, expensive wedding gifts are not the price of attendance; one assumes that an invitation is a sign of friendship rather than greed. Apparently your sister has her own, unique motives.
copper-feather said:
NTA. Sounds like pretty much everyone invited was only invited because she wanted gifts from them.
AriaAdoreMe said:
NTA. Your sister's acting like she's entitled to the moon and stars just because she got married. It's infuriating how she invited your friends only to satisfy her own selfish agenda, completely ignoring your boundaries and their financial situations. Your friends did their best with what they had, and they deserve gratitude, not criticism. You did the right thing by standing up for your friends, and that's what counts.
Prestigious-Use4550 said:
NTA. My silverware cost $25 (8 place settings). I couldn't even imagine silverware costing 200 and it being considered cheap. You sister has issues.
strangeloop414 said:
NTA- complaining about a gift is always low class and in poor taste. If your sister likes things that are "more classy" she should start by being classy herself.
FuzzyMom2005 said:
NTA. The only people who don't know wedding etiquette are your sister, her husband and your parents. A wedding invitation is not an invoice. No one is REQUIRED to give a gift of any kind.