Wedding planning can prove to be a real headache.
From choosing the ideal venue, sourcing a wedding photographer, tasting menus and ensuring every detail is accounted for – it all soon adds up to one giant stress-fest.
That’s without even considering the unsolicited advice and opinions that inevitably flood in. But for one bride opting for an intimate wedding to cut costs, the drama ramped up when her bridesmaid caused a stir over her guest invite.
Sharing her story on social media, the woman recounted their deep bond from their uni days rooming together and maintaining the friendship despite moving to different towns post-graduation. The bride-to-be recalled, “After graduation, I moved to the city to live with my now-husband, and she moved one town over to be closer to family. It’s about a 1.5h drive, so while it’s a little inconvenient, we made time to see each other plenty.”
She then discussed the strain her friend’s new romance had on their friendship, pointing out, “He acted like it was the other side of the world. He made a problem out of it even when we were the ones driving to meet them. I was a little sad, but I’m not one to push my welcome, and I chalked it up to them being very in love and wanting to spend as much time together as possible.”
Despite her boyfriend causing a rift between the two friends, the woman still asked her university mate to be a bridesmaid when she got engaged, an offer which was gladly accepted. She said: “We sent out the invitations a month after asking our bridal party, which was about two years away from the actual wedding.”
“This is when all the trouble started – we’d listed him as an evening guest, while she, of course, was a day guest. We did this for all of the bridal party’s partners. For our ceremony, we were limited to about 35 guests, and we decided to reserve this for close family and friends.”
The bride-to-be was then shocked when she received a call from her friend accusing her of “misleading” her boyfriend into thinking he would be at the whole wedding.
She wrote: “[She said] she was ‘heartbroken’ that we had ‘ruined their special day.’ We tried to explain our reasoning: we’d only invited close friends and family, and we simply couldn’t stretch the budget beyond this.”
“We also explained that we had purposely picked a venue that is within driving distance of all our evening guests which meant no one would be forced to take time off or book a hotel just to attend the party.”
The bride revealed they had planned a special treat with a free bar for evening guests. She recounted: “My friend said she understood, but told us that her then-boyfriend needed some time to cool off as he was so furious and couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t ‘get physical’ if he saw us in the near future.”
“She told us that, from his point-of-view, we had been close friends. Again, we had only met him a handful of times, most of which in group settings. He had not even been to our home yet (on account of him cancelling at the last minute every time).”
Although the pair eventually made up, the bride felt their bond was tarnished and said: “From then on, she kept negatively comparing our wedding to their ‘future wedding.’ She told everyone that they wouldn’t bother to have such a small wedding, they would have at least a 100 day guests, they’d pay for everyone’s hotel, they’d have multiple musical acts, more food, more decorations, etc.”
Despite irritation over her friend’s constant comparisons and attempt to “take their wedding down,” the bride chose to focus on her joyous day. Yet soon after, a surprising development occurred as her friend and problematic boyfriend got engaged.
The drama unfolded when a woman recounted her wedding invite confusion, “We were sent an RSVP for the whole wedding day, and we thought this was the sign that the hatchet had been buried. Fast forward to now: my friend’s getting married in half a year, and there have been no ‘proper’ invitations outside of the RSVP’s. I was chatting to her, and tried to bring it up as casually as possible.”
She continued with dismay, “Turns out, they didn’t keep track of whom they invited, and sent out well over 200 RSVP’s before even looking at prices for catering or a venue. They are now scrambling to prune back the list. In addition, they’ve come back from ‘everyone’s invited for the whole day AND gets a free hotel stay,’ and are only inviting a handful of day guests (significantly fewer than our wedding) who are responsible for the potluck buffet.”
And the situation only got worse, as she added, “Obviously, there’s no hotel reservations, and there will likely be no open bar. When I asked if we were the lucky few to make the cut as day guests, she told me that of course we hadn’t BUT at least they had communicated this clearly beforehand. I showed her the RSVP and she went white, when she realised she’d sent over 200 people ‘save the date’ for the entire day, meaning that she had ‘misled’ all these people for over two years that they would be day guests.”
“I can only imagine how many of them have already taken time off (like me). We hugged it out, and she moved sending out rectification invitations to the top of her to-do list. We’re still friends, even if I can’t stand her soon-to-be-husband, but boy was it nice to see them eat crow like this.”
Reddit users were shocked by the audacity of the other couple and praised the bride and her husband for their graciousness. One user remarked: “Props if y’all actually go to the wedding because I for sure wouldn’t. He might ‘get physical’? I’d be close to her as much as possible without ever interacting with him.”
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