Nearly a Third of Guests Are Borrowing to Attend
Attending someone else’s wedding is starting to look like its own financial commitment. A new LendingTree survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults found that 31% of Americans who attended a wedding in the past five years took on debt just to be there, covering costs like travel, lodging, attire and gifts. Nearly a quarter of that group, 23%, borrowed $2,500 or more for a single event, while 43% kept their wedding-related debt under $1,000.
The burden isn’t spread evenly across guests. Gen Z is the most likely generation to go into debt over a wedding, at 47%, according to the same survey. Men are nearly twice as likely as women to borrow for one, 40% versus 22%. Parents of minor children face the steepest odds of all: 49% said they’d taken on debt to attend a wedding, compared with 27% of guests without kids and just 13% of those whose children are already grown.
Pressure to Spend Is Pushing Guests Away
Cost pressure around weddings has become the norm rather than the exception. LendingTree found that 87% of respondents felt pressure to overspend on a wedding they attended, with that pressure most often coming from their own family (37%), friends (28%) or the couple getting married (26%). For a meaningful share of guests, that pressure is winning: 34% said they’ve declined a wedding invitation specifically because of the cost, and 27% have turned down a spot in a wedding party, such as being a bridesmaid or groomsman, for the same reason.
Even so, many guests who did go into debt say they don’t regret it. Roughly 74% said the expense was worth it despite the financial hit. But overall patience with wedding costs is thinning: 89% of those surveyed agreed that weddings have simply gotten too expensive.
Hosting Costs Are Climbing Too
Guests aren’t the only ones feeling squeezed. The Knot Worldwide’s 2026 Real Weddings Study, based on more than 10,000 U.S. couples married in 2025, found couples spent an average of $292 per guest to host their wedding last year, up from $284 the year before, with the typical wedding drawing 117 guests and costing roughly $34,000 overall. As those hosting costs climb through destination weddings, multi-day celebrations and pricier venues, more of that expense appears to be landing on the people RSVPing yes.
Financial advisors generally recommend guests set a firm travel-and-gift budget before responding to an invitation, and treat declining as a reasonable option when a wedding doesn’t fit that budget. Judging by LendingTree’s findings, a growing number of Americans are already doing exactly that.
