Bride Doesn’t Hire Wedding Cleaning Service, Expects Guests to Help

A 35-year-old bride says she’s receiving pushback after asking guests to pitch in with cleanup following her wedding.

In a post on Reddit’s “Wedding Shaming” forum, the bride asked whether she was out of line for skipping a hired cleaning service and instead relying on guests to help tidy up after the celebration.

She explained that she and her groom hosted a “very low-budget” wedding due to financial constraints. To cut costs, they planned to handle setup and cleanup on their own. But as the night wound down, they decided their group of about 60 guests could help make the next day easier.

“When it was already getting late and people were slowly leaving, I asked our remaining guests if they would be willing to help us tidy up a bit so the next day wouldn’t be as stressful for us,” she wrote. “I didn’t demand anything — I just asked.”

According to the bride, the tasks were minimal—things like stacking chairs and picking up trash. She said no one complained in the moment and that “most people were completely fine with it.”

After the wedding, however, tensions surfaced—especially with her sister, who she said was “very upset” about the request.

“She says it was inappropriate to ask guests to help clean up at a wedding, that it was ‘tacky,’ and that my wedding in general was kind of a disaster because of things like this,” the bride wrote.

She disagreed, arguing that the event was clearly DIY from the start and that she asked politely only at the very end, once the party was already winding down.

In the comments, many Redditors sided with the sister. While some acknowledged it’s common for guests to offer help, they said it should have been discussed ahead of time—otherwise guests might feel pressured to stay even if they were exhausted or ready to leave.

One commenter argued that even if saying “no” was technically an option, it could feel socially impossible in the moment, especially when asked directly by the bride at the end of the night.

Others echoed the same idea: if the couple planned to do all the cleaning themselves, they should have stuck with that plan—or, if they wanted help, they should have arranged it beforehand rather than asking at the last minute.

A few commenters suggested guests may have smiled and helped in the moment, then complained afterward. One wrote that guests are there to celebrate, not work, while another said choosing a low-budget wedding doesn’t make cleanup the guests’ responsibility.