Real life dilemma - weddings
This might be one more suited for Wedding Tactics but I thought I’d share it here.
My best friend had a (years) long engagement, but asked people to be in her wedding soon after she got engaged. Soon after her engagement, she realized that her friendship with one bridesmaid was completely one sided: she (bride to be) was the one always calling her (bridesmaid to be) to hang out. As she realized this, my friend also realized that there was one woman who she was becoming closer to, with whom she had a more normal friendship of give and take. So she did something that I don’t think I would have been able to do: she asked the first girl to step down and invited the other girl to join her wedding party. It wasn’t an easy thing to do but my friend’s rationale is that she wants everyone standing up for her to be someone who is important and special in her life. She didn’t want to ask someoen to be her bridesmaid then lose touch with them shortly thereafter.
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This leads to my somewhat related questions:
- What is/are your rule(s) when it comes to asking someone to be your bridesmaid/groomsman?
- What if they asked you to be in their wedding? Is the polite thing to ask the people who have asked you?
- If you don’t, do you think there is a large chance that they will decline the invitation to your wedding altogether?
- Have you ever had to change your attendant list after selecting your bridesmaids/groomsmen?
- Have you ever been asked to be in somebody’s wedding and declined?
I’d love to hear your stories!
June 19th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
I have been asked to be in many people’s wedding parties. I have been asked to be an usher (groomsmen) three times and only declined once. I have been a best man, twice. Being asked to be in someone’s wedding party is a difficult thing to turn down. It is considered an honour to be asked as they cherish your friendship and want you to share the glory with them so to speak. And I don’t think there was a single wedding I actually wanted to attend.
However, even when I didn’t want to attend, and didn’t want to be an intricate part, I did, and put on a good face.
And the one time I declined was a bit over the top for me to handle. It was a wedding that was 2000 kilometres away and was going to cost me somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2500 dollars to attend the festivities. I had to decline on the cost. In hindsight, I wish I had scrounged up the money somewhere and went, but alas, I did not.