Couple demanded that the bridal party stay in a hotel that was $500

Edit: I didn't expect this to blow up that much, but I do want to preface the story that my bf did try to back out 5 months before the wedding. He is also in residency (doctor) and is very constrained on time/money. Unfortunately he is also a bit of a pushover and gives in easily to people. He told his friend before "hey I don't think I can make this work time and moneywise" and the friend said "well this is my wedding and if you were a good friend you'd make it, you can make it work" and then proceeded to "help out" by booking an expensive hotel.

Boyfriend was invited to be a groomsman. His friend the groom offered to take care of booking the hotel for him for two nights. They wouldn't share the price and demanded we stay there. We had to call the hotel to figure it out the price. Turns out it was $250 a night (we were also flying and hotel rental and gifts and car rental and bride demanded that guests have a certain color for the dress so I had to get a new one). Price tag was very hefty for their wedding. They had also spelled my bf's name wrong on the hotel reservation. We cancelled the hotel and he backed out of the wedding party the week of. Never got a thank you for the gift.

Edit: Yes we are both financially constrained. BF is 250k in debt from his education and I'm in grad school myself. We were planning to spend 1 night with relatives and then go with a hotel that was around $100 a night so this was an extra $400 of expense we didn't plan for.

Edit: We also did not back out exclusively because of the hotel. My bf had multiple arguments about being a groomsman. He tried to back out months beforehand because the couple was expecting him to use 2/4 weeks of his vacation that year for the wedding and the groom said "no you're still doing it" and refused to budge. (They were not that close friends for the past few years and just needed people to even out the brides side). We were planning to book a more affordable hotel and then all of the stuff with demanding that I buy a dress a certain color (not a bridesmaid) and that they had spent our money beforehand started to come out. It sucks but they literally REFUSED to have him back out months before the wedding and then we just said sorry we can't make it till after the ceremony due to work emergency. They ended up losing 2 groomsman last minute and then one had backed out earlier.

Edit: Other fun memorable moments from this wedding:

- The father of the bride saying he didn't like the groom's profession and he wanted his daughter to marry a doctor in the speech. Also didn't like the grooms ethnic background.

- The groomsman and bridesmaid getting into some fight and refusing to speak to each other. (We were happy to avoid this drama)

- The maid of honor insulting the best man during her speech

- Bride having 4 different dresses that she changed into every 2 hours