“A UK family is crying party foul after their 5-year-old was billed for missing a schoolmate’s birthday celebration. Now they are being threatened with legal action, should they refuse to pay.
Cornwall residents Derek Nash and Tanya Walsh said they were shocked when their son, Alex, arrived home from preschool with a brown envelope stuffed in his backpack. Inside there was a formal invoice from another mother, Julie Lawrence, for £15.95 ($24.14): monies due, apparently, for failing to RSVP to her son’s fete when Alex could no longer attend.” *
Ben Mankiewicz (What The Flick?! & Turner Classic Movies; http://www.twitter.com/BenMank77), Desi Doyen (Green News Report; http://www.twitter.com/greennewsreport) and Ana Kasparian (http://www.twitter.com/AnaKasparian) discuss.
*Read more here from https://gma.yahoo.com/5-old-receives-invoice-missing-friends-party-213745041–abc-news-parenting.html
Comments
Unless the invitation clearly stated that exact reservations would be made for an exact number of people, this is nonsense.
But, the family who chose the other party to attend, should have notified the original mother.
Me. I’d pay the $24 to save wear and tear on the kids and then just avoid that family.
I feel the most sorry for the child whose party it was. His friend did not choose him and his mom is making it worse.
And wow! It’s a child’s party, not a night at the opera!
Having said that – I photograph weddings and I have seen that exact thing. I did one wedding where 40% of the folks did not show up. And it was a sit down paid by plate dinner which is more expensive than a buffet.
The bride was fine for most of it. But when we were alone during the photo session she burst into tears. Her husband was great. It was a serious test of their problem solving skills. I’d guess they are still married based on how that went.
You’ve obviously never planned an “event” if you don’t understand how someone might feel a desire to send someone a bill for not cancelling a RSVP.
I used to help plan a weekend camping event and we would have to buy enough supplies to make sure we didn’t run out.
Good example is when we were planning the steak dinner where the steaks came in packages of five, so when that eleventh person “RSVPed”, we had to have to buy at least fifteen steaks as that is the only way to buy enough steaks to make sure everyone got one.
I can certainly see a similar issue with planning a birthday party.
Maybe if people got billed more often for being thoughtless, they would be more thoughtful.