Well, best of luck to her. A wedding invitation is a request, not a demand, and it is kind of embarrassing to expect other people to fund your social life.

I don’t travel for weddings/wedding-adjacent activities unless it’s somewhere I would choose to go of my own volition. One of my dearest friends had her ceremony in absolutely the middle of nowhere; it would have taken 12+ hours to get there, not to mention upwards of 2k in travel costs. I sent a very nice registry present with my sincere regrets; she was extremely disappointed and went so far as to offer to pay for my flight, which of course I refused. It wasn’t just the cost; spending 4 days in the middle of nowhere with a group of mostly strangers is not my idea of a good time. We are still friends.

Another dear friend had her bachelorette party in Manhattan and her wedding in Yosemite, so that made two great vacations for me! (Although I did have to push back on the $700 per person bottle service one of the bridesmaids suggested.)