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Didn't get to wedding. What should we have done?

55 replies

NotHilda · 27/05/2014 18:26

We've had an email from a friend abroad 5 months after we didn't get to her wedding, telling us (telling my husband - he copied it to me. I was the one who did most of the work, including all the emails, so it's my fault) that she is not just disappointed, but disappointed and hurt. "That is where I'm at now" she says. Because she says we didn't confirm we weren't coming in the days before the wedding, not even 24 hours before.

In fact I kept them up to date all the time with our situation (which I won't go into, it's complex) and the last conversation was a week before the event. I said it was very unlikely we could come. SHE said she had thought so since early January when she learned we didn't have air tickets. She said if we came, we must be on the (guest) bus by 1pm. I said we would, and if anything went wrong we would hire a car. But the whole message was that there was now little chance of this happening, and she (personally, he husband had done most of the emails to date) agreed.

I thought we all understood that there was a vanishingly small chance of our getting there. Now she says I should have "given them a yay or nay" in the week before the wedding, and because I didn't, it was a "logistical nightmare" and they couldn't firm up either the bus or the catering numbers.

They (or rather, her husband, now that I look back) had encouraged us all along the way. There had been no mention of needing confirmation for catering, ever. They never let us know they had a problem, never asked for a decision. (I checked with him about the after-party where hotel rooms were involved. He said that was fine. Again, this was a week before the wedding.)

She says that she would have been disappointed if we had not come, but is far more disappointed and hurt over "what happened".

I just kept on checking for flights as long as I could. I thought I was doing the right thing.

Now this.

I honestly don't know what would be the right thing to do now if I was faced with a similar situation.

Should I have set us a deadline for stopping even trying to get there, regardless of anything they told me?

Or was I right to trust that I was being told the right thing, and they would say if there was any problem?

Normally I am the kind of person who checks everything twice, to the point of being irritating. There was just no cue that we were causing them (her?) a problem.

I feel mentally in limbo about this. I'm losing sleep, and I'm angry and upset too. It would have cost her nothing to say "Please give us a yes or no, we need to know now to firm up the event."

Better stop there! Sorry about the length.

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ThinkIveBeenHacked · 27/05/2014 18:34

Did she send an RSVP with the invite?

Personally I am of the opinion that of you cannot give a definite YES within a set amount of time then you have to give a NO and be done with it.

Not knowingng final numbers for a wedding is a total PITA and a costly addition.

You should have given a formal no well in advance.

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expatinscotland · 27/05/2014 18:35

It was a wedding, not the second coming. I wouldn't bother responding to her. Ever.

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TheHoundsBitch · 27/05/2014 18:37

I don't know what you can do now, but you should have given her a definite answer before the wedding. Saying you will do this and that to get there and then just not showing up on the day is very rude.

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Littlefish · 27/05/2014 18:41

I think that you were unreasonable and quite rude at the time and should have given her a firm answer one way or the other at least 2 weeks before the wedding. Presumably she will have incurred costs for catering etc on your behalf.

However, she is being unreasonable to be bringing it up now, rather than talking to you about it at the time.

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IkeaFurnitureAssemblyChampions · 27/05/2014 18:41

A polite refusal would have caused less offence than what happened. Same goes for any kind of event. I would do something like write a hand-written note apologising; you were quite rude. (I'm not married and I hate weddings, FWIW, but you were very casual about an event that was very important to her, and that's why she is hurt.)

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mercibucket · 27/05/2014 18:43

Its not usual to do that with a wedding invite. Normally its really important to know numbers etc far in advance so everyone says 'yes' or 'no' and then doesnt change their mind. I dont know why you thought it would be ok - was it very informal for instance?
But yes, they could have prompted you.

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Justtoobad · 27/05/2014 18:46

Did you get her a lovely present and card saying how sorry you were for missing the wedding?

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Bowlersarm · 27/05/2014 18:47

I agree with pp re a definite answer. She must have been hoping all the time you would have made it, and when you eventually didn't, she was clearly upset.

Not sure how you reply, assuming you want to keep the friendship going.

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StrawberryCheese · 27/05/2014 18:49

I can see why they are upset, I agree with above posters that you should have given them a definite 'no' well in advance. The weeks leading up to a wedding can be chaotic and chasing up guests rsvps is rather tedious (I speak from experience). However, I don't understand why the couple have decided to bring it up now. I would reply and apologise for any inconvenience caused at the time but I would just leave it short and simple. They need to just move on and get over it.

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StrawberryCheese · 27/05/2014 18:51

And I speak as someone who had a guest cancel on the morning of the wedding and two people who missed the ceremony, ate the food and then left!

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ThinkIveBeenHacked · 27/05/2014 18:59

Maybe she is bringing it up now because she has needed time to do honeymoon, thank you cards, and await your heartfelt apology (which it seems was not forthcoming), and maybe take some time to decide whether to try and speak to you or drop the friendship.

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magpiegin · 27/05/2014 21:18

From what you've written it seems like you should have given a firm yes. We had some people cancel at the last minute with little excuse and it was annoying! We bought them meals that weren't eaten and we could have invited others.

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wafflyversatile · 27/05/2014 21:35

I think all you can say now (if anything) is that you are sorry about the upset and inconvenience and on reflection you should have given a definite no a week or more before and just accepted that you wouldn't be going even if circumstances changed, but didn't because you were reluctant to give up on the smallest chance of joining them on their special day.

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wafflyversatile · 27/05/2014 21:37

Is it that they were wanting to keep it open just in case or that you kept saying you wanted to come but didn't know yet, didn't know yet, dragging it out?

Really the easiest thing would be to say right at the start 'We're not sure we will be able to come so will say no'

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Itsfab · 27/05/2014 21:42

It seems like you were giving her the impression you were trying to sort things so you could go when really you knew you couldn't and it was up to YOU to say no not wait for her to demand a reply Hmm.

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TheHouseatWhoCorner · 27/05/2014 21:50

Surely it was obvious to you that they were incurring costs while you were unable to confirm either way?
Have you seen them since the wedding?

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NotHilda · 28/05/2014 13:09

HI thank you everyone

First I know my post was rather long. I need to clarify a couple of things.

I didn't say I was coming and then not turn up.

Both sides discussed the whole situation a week before the wedding, so she knew it was very unlikely we could come. And of course I would not have just turned up without telling them

They (he) encouraged us all the way.

They never gave us any deadline, or asked for a decision. They could have done that so easily. Why didn't they? I now wonder if it was because other people weren't coming and they wanted to get us there if possible. I think the reason I am so hurt now is that we were being given "it's OK, it's OK" all the time and are now months later being blamed, in effect, because they never told us that they wanted a deadline. This probably sounds daft if you are thinking of a big, silver service, wedding do but it wasn't like that.

We all come from a batch of people who are fairly informal. Nothing they did or said rang any warning bells with us.

They gave us the impression it was going to be large (I can't go into reasons why) and it turned out (when we saw the wedding photos) that it was very small. I don't know what happened. I can only surmise that quite a few people from "back home" didn't come and this was adding to the stress, but of course she would not mention that.

SO I particularly thank those who give the view that we should have given up the idea some weeks in advance (by the way, some of their family members were only buying air tickets 3 weeks before the wedding, because of the timing). It's still not crystal clear, but I have more idea of what the world thinks the right etiquette is, and I hope I won't let myself get drawn into something like this again.

The other thing I will have to remember is: never try and combine traveling with someone's precious event. But even that sounds ridiculous. How do you say "we aren't coming because it will cost us over £4,000 just to travel, minimum, and we think if we try to plan for a real holiday, it will just screw everything up." That would never have occurred to me before this happened. But now I know that is what happens.

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DocDaneeka · 28/05/2014 13:22

I think that ' "we aren't coming because it will cost us over £4,000 just to travel' is a perfectly acceptable reason not to attend.

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ruddynorah · 28/05/2014 13:31

Where was it that cost £4k? Of course it's fine to decline on that basis.

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NotHilda · 28/05/2014 14:44

I won't say exactly where, but over the other side of the world, the kind of place that very often costs over £2000 per person cattle class, particularly at that time of year. (It was ideal for them as it was holiday time, but the most expensive and crowded time of year for visitors.) And we were prepared to do that ... but we couldn't go much more, and as it's not the kind of place we could go many times in a lifetime (this was our first opportunity, I mean financially) everyone, including them, said, if we go, we should travel around. But that did need a lot more planning. There's an awful lot I don't know about traveling around a foreign country. When we do go abroad, we have nearly always gone somewhere particular and stayed there. But it was that (and my hospital investigation back in December) which caused the crucial delays.

But they knew all this and they never said, "great but we must know for definite by this date". That would have been no problem to us, in fact it would have been a relief. I kept on going as a tribute to them. I can see that I have been incredibly naive. I strongly deny being "rude", I think I can't lay out the full situation clearly, but in the old sense of being a rustic, a clown, a clodhopper, a fool who doesn't know what she is doing, I can see I have been rude. If it had been anyone but club friends I would never have fallen for it. I think that in some ways we all still think that we think like students, even though some of us are verging on pensioners. Then we find we can't handle it ... Life lesson.

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Itsfab · 28/05/2014 18:34

Confused.

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ThinkIveBeenHacked · 28/05/2014 19:12

At that price, how could it get to a week before and you not know you couldnt make it? Unless you were expecting a winfall.

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JodieGarberJacob · 28/05/2014 19:17

Have you not spoken since the wedding?

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magpiegin · 28/05/2014 19:39

Have you spoken to them since the wedding? Did you send a gift and card for when they got back? Could that be why they are upset?

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NotHilda · 29/05/2014 00:17

Because every now and then you get dropdown prices which would have brought it back within our range - but it didn't happen to us any time in those crucial weeks but once, and that was at the wrong time.

Yes, I should have backed off, but I didn't know that then. I was being optimistic.

We normally cross on social media - they sent the wedding photos link quite recently and we replied but we didn't then hear anything till now. That's not as odd as it sounds - there are quite often long gaps between contact, always have been. DH is normally the medium of contact as he has the Skype.

I sent them a tribute at the time.

No, it's not about that. There is something behind this that I don't know. Why didn't she ask us to draw a line if there was a problem? Maybe one day I will get a chance to ask her, but I can't do that right now as it will just look like playing blame tennis with her and I don't want to do that.

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