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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.
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.
(all the weddings I've been to, apart from my cousin's wedding, I've been on the groom's side)
. 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'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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