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  • Wedding Drama Rawr (Too Long)

    I apologize in advance for the novel that this will inevitably become.

    So my best friend from high school decided to get married, even though her and her fiance's relationship was a little unorthodox. Basically, the situation is that the bride lives and has always lived in central Canada, and her groom lives and has always lived in Texas. As you can imagine, this is a seriously significant distance. They, both being young and my friend still pursuing her university career, were unsure with how they would proceed with the immigration process. Their plan was for her to move to Texas and transfer her university credits to one of the schools down there, so that there was a minimum of an interruption in her schooling, but the paperwork and finances involved proved too daunting, so they came up with another plan. Have their "wedding" here in central Canada, big white dress, reception and all, but to leave aside the legal part of it. So it would be the ceremony but they will not have been legally married. Okay, fine, I can try to put that aside - it's a tough situation and, like one of my brilliant friends said, "everybody gets one", essentially, this will count as her true wedding.

    She asked me to be her maid of honour, and told me that her current sister-in-law (her brother's wife) and her soon-to-be sister-in-law (her fiance's sister) would be the accompanying bridesmaids. The fiance's best friend, his brother and the bride's brother would be the groomsmen. But then, a little while later, she decided that she would add on one of our high school friends as a bridesmaid. They lived together briefly and took a lot of classes together, so they are fairly close. But with this decision came an interesting addition - she decided that the inclusion of our high school friend (HSF for short) demanded the inclusion of HSF's best friend, a very... Difficult girl to get along with. Let me reiterate; she asked Difficult Girl to be her bridesmaid simply because her best friend was going to be in the wedding party as well. Alright, so there are now five bridesmaids. Time to try to find two more groomsmen to make the party even out. They were only able to find one more groomsman to add on, because the distance and cost prohibited their second choice coming out. They, both poor young people in their early 20s, were angry that this second choice would not invest in the wedding.

    When she asked me to be in her wedding party, I agreed but warned her that I didn't have much disposable income to throw into the whole process. She told me that would be no issue, as she was in a similar financial situation as I was. I asked if it would be possible that she choose a colour for the wedding party, and let us find dresses in that colour that were similar styles but not identical. It would be a great savings in cost, as the last bridesmaid's dress I'd bought, after alterations, sunk me at least $300 and I didn't want to go down that road again. She said no, we all had to choose bridesmaids dresses from the same designer, but we were allowed to choose different styles - that solved the problem, right? Nope. Another $300 spent.

    So we set about planning the wedding, and she insists on all the frills, all the princess extras. I personally HIGHLY disagree with all of these things, but who am I to stop her from her dream wedding? I did, however, caution her to try to remain in her price range. She told me that the original budget was around $10,000. This is more money than they had at their disposal, but it wasn't too extravagant for the amount of people they wanted to invite. The last I checked, their plans had brought them closer to $25,000. I can only shake my head at this, but I did my duty as a maid of honour - I'm not there to be her conscience, only to provide gentle warning. What she does in the end is her decision. Deposits were put down, venues were booked and the date was decided - New Year's Eve of 2011.

    Fast forward to May 2011. Difficult Girl (from here on, named DG) drops a bomb on the bride - she won't be attending the wedding. What? Why? Well, there are a number of reasons. Reason 1 - she has decided that she cannot support a wedding not being held in a church. When pointed out that HSF's wedding the previous autumn was held at a golf course, she spluttered and said, "Well, she's my best friend!" Reason 2 - she cannot support the wedding as she sees it as nothing but a cash-grab or a party to receive presents. I can't fault this one quite as much, because it is starting to come off that way. I am willing to give my friend the benefit of the doubt, but I understand if others won't. And reason 3 - the date of the wedding clashes with the date of a yearly Christian youth rally she wanted to attend on the West Coast. The same one she'd went to last year. Let me reiterate - she would rather go to a youth rally that she had BEEN TO BEFORE, one she knew the date of when she accepted the post of bridesmaid. I was ready to strangle her, and took this as my opportunity to cut ties with her. We'd gone to high school together, but she had a tendency of making every social gathering about her in some way, and this was my breaking point.

    Okay, now we're down to four bridemaids and four groomsmen. Synchronicity! Ring-ring goes my phone. Uh oh. Turns out, bridesmaid number three, her future sister-in-law, must also back out of the wedding. At least she has a reasonable excuse - she has found out that she is pregnant and will be far too pregnant to do that much traveling and wedding craziness at that point. So now we are down not only another bridesmaid, but a key member of the groom's family. Oh well, no matter, continue on! The remaining bridesmaids (myself included) start to plan the bridal shower and the stagette. We finalize plans for the stagette and start making invites. I was actually very excited about this one, as it was right up the bride's alley. A deposit is payed and invites are sent out. Yay! I was getting very, very excited at this point - I'd picked up my dress, I had an appointment to get it altered, I'd bought shoes (they were on sale and were BEAUTIFUL), we'd invested money and time into parties, accessories, invites, presents, and all seemed to be going well and then...

    I got a text message from the bride a week and a half ago. "Wedding postponed till December 2012."

    ...
    Buh?

    Yes. They'd decided that they were going to postpone their wedding for a year for a few reasons, the two prominent ones being the budget (remember that they'd more than doubled their original budget) and the second one was something that shocked them greatly - there was no enough time for the groom's family to plan and save for the travel, accommodations and everything associated with traveling to another country for this wedding. This was at the start of October, the wedding planned for the end of December, and invites had still not been sent out. Understandable if guests were local, but I think it was inexcusable for international guests.

    So I called her and we lamented back and forth a bit, me trying to be understanding and supportive of what could not have been an easy decision... And then she drops one final bombshell on me...

    "Well, since I'll be getting married eventually, we can still go ahead with the bridal shower, right?"

    Yes. Never mind all the money we'd already spent on this wedding, she wanted us to go out and spend even more on an event that was meant for something that wasn't even happening for at least a year! I have reservations as to whether this wedding will ever actually happen, but again, giving her the benefit of the doubt, even if it does happen in December 2012, there is no guarantee that my dress will still fit (I don't plan on ballooning or losing a ton of weight but you never know) or that any of the money or time we'd put into this event already will transfer to the wedding next year.

    I am furious and am not sure how to get over my feelings about this. She's been rather inconsiderate throughout this whole process, but postponing something like this so close to the execution date is so completely over the top that I can only shake my head.

    ... This is the first time I've ever laid everything out like this all in one place, and this isn't even everything. There is the drama of the bride and groom's relationship up until this point, and the drama of the bride's family and the groom's family separately... Augh. At least it feels good to share this with people who aren't sick of hearing it from me already.

    If you've gotten to the end, congratulations. I have virtual cookies for you and your sore, tired eyes.

  • #2
    The whole thing strikes me as absurd. When we married, my wife & I wanted to keep it low-key as we knew we and our families weren't able to splash about that much cash. As it happened, we were a little wrong & got a lucky donation towards the event, but we still had only the basics - the legal binding & a good party afterwards! My brother and his (immigrating) wife did things even more low-key, with just the witnesses!

    I don't see this as a "money grab" although I do think it smacks mightily of attention-seeking... They can't be with eachother so they'll make certain that everyone else pays attention to them instead. It's completely missing the point of marriage.
    This was one of those times where my mouth says "have a nice day" but my brain says "go step on a Lego". - RegisterAce
    I can't make something magically appear to fulfill all your hopes and dreams. Believe me, if I could I'd be the first person I'd help. - Trixie

    Comment


    • #3
      Honestly, I would be tempted to bow out as well. I'm pretty sure she'll be pulling a repeat of this next year, and I really hope she doesn't change her mind about her colour scheme, as that will result in all new bridal party clothes.

      I would have put my foot down at the $300 BM dress. <OldMaid> When I got married, I only had one BM, so I paid for her dress, and it cost less than $50. And it was something she could wear again and again. </OldMaid> The disregard for your budget shows the disregard for their budget as well.
      The report button - not just for decoration

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      • #4
        The more of these bridezilla stories I read, the more I can see that weddings really do bring out a person's true character.

        ALL of the person's character, including those facets that were previously hidden from others.

        So, let's see. Your friend doesn't have a problem telling you that you have to spend more than you can afford on a dress. She doesn't have a problem inviting Difficult Girl. She's upset that one bridesmaid is now pregnant. She's spending more than they should. She didn't give the groom's family enough time to make arrangements to attend the wedding.

        I think you have a very healthy attitude that you're "not there to be her conscience". My advice is, step back and detach yourself as much as possible from the whole thing. You haven't mentioned what the groom's doing, but it seems he's no better at planning a wedding than the bride is, given that they're so far over budget. What really matters here is their lives together, not this one day - but so many people overlook that.

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        • #5
          Thanks for your advice and response, guys. My family and my boyfriend are sick of hearing from me on this subject, so it's nice to have a little reassurance that I didn't do anything wrong.

          Quoth iradney View Post
          I'm pretty sure she'll be pulling a repeat of this next year, and I really hope she doesn't change her mind about her colour scheme, as that will result in all new bridal party clothes.
          I admit, if I choose to remain in the bridal party and she pulls this stunt, or any other that involves re-ordering the dresses, I am going to flip out. It would just be the shit icing on this whole crap cake.

          Quoth iradney View Post
          I would have put my foot down at the $300 BM dress.
          If I had realized it was going down that road, I would have. But the original plan was kind of sneaky, and I'll admit I wasn't diligent enough in checking the numbers. We went to do the fitting for the dresses, and when I asked the bride how much the dress I chose would be, she told me it was $100 up front. When I mentioned that that was a tad out of my price range, she said that she would cover the cost of alterations. Alrighty, fine.

          What she failed to mention was that the dress was actually $200, $100 was owed as the deposit when I ordered the dress, and then another $100 when I went to pick it up. Imagine my surprise. So I make my appointment to get it altered, and I get a quote from the seamstress. She says it'll be around another $100 for the alteration. I call me friend, and she tells me that she'd only agreed to cover before they started planning to have a very expensive wedding photographer there, and she couldn't afford it now.

          So $300 and I'm left holding the bag.

          Quoth Eireann View Post
          You haven't mentioned what the groom's doing, but it seems he's no better at planning a wedding than the bride is, given that they're so far over budget. What really matters here is their lives together, not this one day - but so many people overlook that.
          I don't really speak to the groom, as he lives in Texas and doesn't belong to any social networking sites. To a point, I feel bad for him. I really liked him when I met him, he's a great guy, but he's also the type of person who fears that they will never get a girl, so now that my friend has agreed to marry him, he has become the ultimate doormat. I have several wonderful examples of this. They are both gamers, that's how they met, but the groom is a PC gamer, while my friend like platform games as well. She has an XBOX here in Canada, but she insisted that he buy her another one to keep in Texas for when she visits. She hasn't seen him since February, because, DUH, they have no money for travel! Or how about the fact that she made him drop a significant chunk of change (over $200) on sex toys for her, and then the same thing happens - they're sitting there, waiting for her, not being used. This guy is willing to move heaven and earth for her, and she treats him like a therapist, a piggy bank and a toy all in one - there to be used when she needs it, but not terribly significant the rest of the time.

          I have no doubt that she loves him dearly, despite everything I just said. I know that she treasures him and that she truly believes he is the one. But she has never had a healthy relationship (partly her own doing) and continues to use the tactics she's learned in the past in her current one. It's sad to see.

          Comment


          • #6
            Quoth Eireann View Post
            The more of these bridezilla stories I read, the more I can see that weddings really do bring out a person's true character.
            Ergo why I looked at my husband and said "Can we cut all the craziness and just go down to the court?"

            ...of course now I find out on our 5 year anni that he really wished we'd had a church wedding. ><

            Quoth the_std View Post
            This guy is willing to move heaven and earth for her, and she treats him like a therapist, a piggy bank and a toy all in one - there to be used when she needs it, but not terribly significant the rest of the time.

            I have no doubt that she loves him dearly, despite everything I just said. I know that she treasures him and that she truly believes he is the one. But she has never had a healthy relationship (partly her own doing) and continues to use the tactics she's learned in the past in her current one. It's sad to see.
            I really, really feel bad for that guy. Just sayin'. ><
            By popular request....I am now officially the Enemy of Normalcy.

            "What is unobtainium? To Seraph, it's a normal client. :P" -- Observant Friend

            Comment


            • #7
              It's ok to spend $300 on a bridesmaid's dress. I'm sure you can shorten it and wear it again!!!

              I hardly speak to the girl whose wedding I was in last spring. She used the above line (the dress got sent to a charity that gives prom dresses to girls), made us buy Mary Kay makeup from her for the wedding (so we'd match) and was upset that I got engaged a few days before her bridal shower, which she saw as my attempt to upstage her.

              Don't hold the bridal shower or the stagette, even if you lose deposits. Those are intended to happen shortly before the wedding--the bridal shower is to help set up the new home, and the stagette is to enjoy one last night out with the girls. I don't trust that this girl will get married next year if she continues on her current path, and it would suck to pay for a bridal shower for someone who doesn't even get married.

              Comment


              • #8
                I will admit here that, out of all the bridesmaid dresses I've seen, the one I ended up with is my favourite by far. Strapless with a corset back and just a tad higher than knee length. It looks fabulous on me. The only downside is that it's so intensely formal, and I am such a casual person, that I cannot think of a single event I could conceivably be invited to where it would fit in or be appropriate.

                In fact, trailerparkmedic, when I was a bridesmaid is HSF's wedding last year, she made us wear horrendous floor-length dresses, and afterwards I did exactly what you did - donated it to a charity that gives prom dresses to poor girls. When HSF found out, she was super happy and encouraged the rest of the (large) wedding party to do the same thing if they had no use for the dress. My friend the bride was, however, appalled. "Oh, come on, there are so many uses for something like that! If you do that with my dress, I'll be very upset."

                I just ignored that comment and continued on with the conversation as if she'd never said it.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Quoth trailerparkmedic View Post

                  Don't hold the bridal shower or the stagette, even if you lose deposits. Those are intended to happen shortly before the wedding--the bridal shower is to help set up the new home, and the stagette is to enjoy one last night out with the girls. I don't trust that this girl will get married next year if she continues on her current path, and it would suck to pay for a bridal shower for someone who doesn't even get married.
                  that is the first time I've ever heard the term "stagette."

                  I've always referred to it as either a "hen's night" or a "bachelorette party."

                  I've only ever heard the term for the male equivelent as "bucks night". When I went to my first wedding, I wondered why my dad was going to a "money party" and asked him where the money was the next day! (I was around about 9 at that point...) (all the weddings I've been to, apart from my cousin's wedding, I've been on the groom's side)
                  The best professors are mad scientists! -Zoom

                  Now queen of USSR-Land...

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Um, if you paid for the dress, it's none of her damn business what you do with it after the wedding is over. My dress from my friend's wedding hung in the basement for several years; I think my mom finally donated it to somewhere. On the up side, it was only $120, plus $45 for alterations (and her mother ordered them and had them sent to us so we didn't even have to go shopping), and she requested a specific pair of shoes that were $7 at Payless. I was able to carpool with some other friends (wedding was in Connecticut, my friends came up from Philly and picked me up on the way) so travel only cost me a bit for tolls and gas, and the bride's parents paid for our hotel rooms.
                    I don't go in for ancient wisdom
                    I don't believe just 'cause ideas are tenacious
                    It means that they're worthy - Tim Minchin, "White Wine in the Sun"

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Wow... when I got married back in August the wedding was nearly $5000, and everyone who went there said it was probably the best wedding they'd ever been to!

                      For my Bridesmaids dresses I just got swatches of the colors I wanted and sent their assigned color to them (Royal Blue and Dark Green) so they could find a dress in their budget that could match the swatch as close as possible. For my Maid of Honour I wound up buying her dress for her and in return she's making me a Ren Faire outfit (as soon as she gets out of her painting phase and back into her costuming phase, but I don't push her). And one girl who's totally broke couldn't find anything so she paid some and I matched it and bought the fabric and we had the MoH make her her dress. It all worked out in the end and was AMAZING.

                      Also I had peacock feathers decorating the tables instead of flowers and peacock feather fans instead of bouquets, that also worked as gifts to my Maid and Matron of Honour and Bridesmaids.
                      "There is a sadist inside me. She likes cake." - Krys Wolf, my friend

                      In a coffee shop in Whitehouse, Texas: "Unsupervised children will be given two shots of espresso and a free puppy."

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        AlmightyALT, that sounds beautiful! It sounds like you had a fantastic, realistic wedding and I very much wish that my friend could take notes from you and your method of wedding planning.

                        Did the dresses end up looking somewhat matching? Cause that was my friend's problem with buying separate dresses, she insisted they wouldn't "match" unless they were all from the same designer in the same colour of their fabric.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Quoth BookstoreEscapee View Post
                          Um, if you paid for the dress, it's none of her damn business what you do with it after the wedding is over.
                          Agreed, in fact, my wife donated her gown to the Salvation Army by now some lucky bride scored a serious bargain. As ours was not her first (it was my first--otherwise hello Vegas), she had only a flower girl and matron of honor. The later had a dress she wore for a prior wedding. We cut quite a few corners and avoided going insanely into debt.

                          I would suggest that you give serious thought to ducking out of this wedding (train wreck?), std. Is your friend auditioning for Bridezillas by any chance?
                          I'm trying to see things from your point of view, but I can't get my head that far up my keister!

                          Who is John Galt?
                          -Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

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                          • #14
                            Back in 2003, our wedding and honeymoon together cost around $6,000. We paid 1/2 and my parents paid 1/2. And my gown was only $450...and that's for a plus-sized gown, which are often more expensive because of the extra cloth.
                            Don't wanna; not gonna.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Quoth the_std View Post
                              Cause that was my friend's problem with buying separate dresses, she insisted they wouldn't "match" unless they were all from the same designer in the same colour of their fabric.
                              Who cares if they match perfectly? Actually it seems like the latest trend is to not have your bridesmaid dresses completely matching. Then again since I will only have a maid of honor and a bridesmaid, I've told them that we'll go shopping and they pretty much have free reign over what they pick.

                              Oh and another "low-budget" bride here I've been picking stuff up on clearance as I find it so I'm down to his wedding band and outfit, reception stuff (food, plates, plasticware, serving stuff), honeymoon, dress alterations, and photographer. I've spent $750 so far.

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