"Pay for your meals." A bride has literally sent an essay of instructions to her wedding guests. 

Look, we’ve heard of some crazy bride demands before…

There was the bride who told her guests not talk to her at all, the viral bridezilla Susan who asked all her wedding guests to each donate $1500 to her, and the bride-to-be who demanded her pregnant friend get induced so she could be ‘bridesmaid’ ready.

But would you pay to attend a wedding? Even if it was a relatively small amount of money?

That’s the dilemma of a wedding guest, who has shared the invite she received to her 19-year-old cousin’s wedding in Townsville in far North Queensland.

The Melbourne woman didn’t just get a wedding invite though, it was accompanied by a long list, nay a literal essay, of rules – or should we say demands.

As reported by Daily Mail, the bride-to-be’s cousin wrote: “I love my family and all, but my beloved cousin who was 19 at the time decided to have a wedding, in which she sent everyone an ESSAY of rules with the invitations.”

“Not too sure you could have had a cheaper (and bossier) wedding unless you had it in your backyard. Check out the ‘rules’ page for a good laugh,” she added.

Let us summarise the full-page of instructions – which is written in a tiny font by the way and has helpful subheads – for you:

a) You will need to pay for your own meals, alcohol, and slice of cake. Yep, for $40 your meal includes platters, main course, cake and a few jugs of ‘basic soft drink’ per table. If you’re looking for booze though, “please note alcohol is at your own expense,” the bride’s note said.

b) Remember that at the reception, “you will need to grab a ticket upon your arrival that signifies your food choice so that chefs can find you easily as we are not having a seating plan,” the bride added.

b) Bright coloured clothing is advised against as “colours like red, orange and yellow with our photography editing style will look washed out and pastel”. And although it’s “not compulsory”, the bride would “like to request that guests choose an outfit that fits in with our theme of navy/white and silver by choosing something that has one of these three colours in it somewhere.”

c) For the ladies, the bride-to-be kindly advises that you can wear heels if you like, but “please bring a spare pair of flats if you are likely to need to ditch them” as there really is “no need to be wearing six-inch heels when the photographs are of your face”.

d) No phones or cameras at the ceremony and reception. OK, we get this one and plenty of people want an unplugged wedding. Enjoy the moment, people. But perhaps, the bride could have softened her language when she instructed: “We ask that all guests regardless of who you are family or friend, please leave your cameras at home and refrain from using your photos to capture photographs/videos during our ceremony and reception.”

e) And if you feel so inclined, you can donate “as little as $5” to the couple’s honeymoon via a GoFundMe page she links to in the note. She adds, “If you are unable to use internet banking, you are more than welcome to donate via cash/cheques also.” But to be fair, it’s an optional extra as the bride realises “a lot of you are travelling and the cost of paying for flights and meals for some is quite a lot so we do not expect gifts from anyone.”

And yep, that’s it… and we were summarising.

So, it’s not your traditional wedding invite and we suspect the bride just really wants things exactly the way she imagined for her big day. 

The bemused wedding guest added this kicker though: “‘Oh and get this, on the invitation it read: ‘If your name wasn’t on the invitation, assume you’re not invited’. My dad received an invite but not his girlfriend, so we just ‘assumed’ only dad was invited and not his partner.”

Speaking of which, here are the things people never, ever say at weddings.