Groomsmen & Wife Deliberately Left quietly to avoid helping

[nathanielgriff]

Hi All,

I'm keen to share an experience at my wedding, that I'm almost hoping I'm the one being unreasonble. I just had a really nice outdoor wedding with a pretty early finish time. I had asked him prior to the event if he'd be able to help put down one of the small marquees before he left, to which he said "sure". (About a 10min job)

I have reason to believe his wife hated the idea of having to stay ANY longer than she wanted and so when she decided she wanted to go at about 9.15pm. They took their opportunity to get up and leave without me noticing, as she thought it would be awkward to say goodbye in light of the fact that my groomsmen had agreed to help with a few packdown jobs.

What really gets to me is his wife never talked to me, or thanked me for the day or a congrats or anything. And her time was obviously so much more important than some basic courtesies. I hadn't expected for anyone to stay longer than they wanted. We didn't even end up packing down that night. But what got me was that I ended up running looking for them and after about 10 min someone told me they had taken off.

It just strikes me as incredibly rude and selfish. As these guys are supposed to be my close friends. I remember at their wedding I helped out all day with music equipment and looked after a few of their items at the end of the night.

I had to explain to my mate that that was quite a stressful thing on my wedding night, because of the intent behind it, and deliberate nature. I was now wondering if I had pushed something on them, etc.

You could liken it to being invited to dinner and quickly running out the back door and not thanking you host for the dinner (that'd be incredibly hurtful)

What's most troubling to me is they gave me quite a bit to digest mentally, on my wedding night, and naturally over the course of my honey moon. I'm a reasonable person and had I known she (or he) felt that strongly about leaving exactly when they wanted I would have made it abundantly clear they were good to leave no matter how early. But instead there was a very out of proportion statement made.

I've not said good bye to people at weddings before, usually cause I'm not that good a friends and I've already said thankyou and congratulations. And it's late at night and I can find them.

[MrsDustyBusty]

How are you sure it was to avoid helping and not that they didn't just want to leg it?

[Trollspoopglitter]

Why were you looking for him for 10 min if you didn't need his help because you didn't end up doing the job anyway that night?

Not saying goodbye or speaking to you all night is definitely rude. But from you tone, I got the impression you and the wife have always been icy at best with each other?

[BrickInTheWall]

I think you are way overthinking this to be honest. How do you KNOW there was malicious intent behind this?!
Perhaps they were just tired or one of them had too much to drink.
Anyway I cant imagine your wedding was much fun if you were spending 10minutes running around looking for guests.. shouldnt you have been busy enjoying yourself with your new husband?!

[JakeBallardswife]

I think you're overthinking it. they snuck off so as not to hassle you, no packing away was done that night. No harm done.

[seven201]

I can understand being a bit miffed but I think your reaction is ott. Yes it was rude as he had agreed. But maybe they'd had some really shit news recently (and didn't want to share to spoil your day or just because it was private) so just couldn't put a brace face on for any longer. It is shit though. I think you should ask. It does sound like the wife doesn't like you.

I remember a friend's wife at my wedding - I went over to say hi etc and all she did was moan about how tired she was. No, 'what a lovely day', 'you look nice' bla bla bla. Luckily I'm not married to her though so it doesn't matter!

[Oysterbabe]

I think you're overreacting and you don't really know that it was about you. Maybe they had a row or something?

[AnyFucker]

I imagine they snuck off to have a quick shag in the bridal suite

[missbishi]

Are you sure they didn't just sneak off home for a shag?

[DonaldStott]

What's most troubling to me is they gave me quite a bit to digest mentally, on my wedding night, and naturally over the course of my honey moon

What does this mean? You sound very dramatic.

[witsender]

You're over thinking. I hate leaving events with a passion, it always takes forever so I will take any opportunity to 'sneak' off if I can.

It sounds very much like you dislike and possibly resent the wife. I think this is colouring your view, especially given you are blaming all of this supposed slight on her.

[Lesley1980]

I wouldn't ask a guest (friend or not) to help tidy up after a wedding. Would him & his wife have to stay until all the other guests left? I don't think you can expect that

You are making a lot of assumptions about why they did it & what the wife thought. Maybe she was just tired & wanted to leave & he forgot he had said he would help? Maybe they were looking for you but couldn't find you or saw you were busy & didn't want to interrupt.

[Prettybaffled]

I think that it was pretty early for one of the main wedding party to leave and thinking back I'm pretty sure all ours said goodnight to us if they left before us. Most actually waited for us to leave!

It may not be worth losing a friendship over though?

[sparechange]

It's called a French goodbye... you leave quietly at big social events to avoid monopolising the host to say goodbye
It's the 'naice' way but I can see it is annoying when you had expected them to help

Sounds like you have an issue with the wife though...

[DontTouchTheMoustache]

What time did the celebrations go on to? It's a bit unreasonable to expect them to stay late to help. More than likely they had some drinks and forgot about it anyway, I agree that you are over thinking it. I hate having to spend ages saying goodbyes when I'm already exhausted and just want to go home to bed.

[Lorelei76]

If he agreed to help at the end of the evening and then some kind of row happened, he could at least have called to explain later.

[Sciurus83]

You were thinking about this on your wedding night and honeymoon? You're really overreacting here, they were tired, didn't want to make a fuss so slipped off and let you carry on enjoying your night. Nothing to agonise over here. You clearly don't like your friends wife....

[Want2bSupermum]

It was incredibly rude to leave without stopping to see you because he had agreed to take down the tent. The right way would have been to approach you or your now DH and have a quiet word that you are having to leave early and you won't be able to help.

I wouldn't care about the wife's actions, I think he was the one at fault because it was him who agreed to do something that affected you. It is easy to be upset with his wife since she was so standoffish but really the fault lies with him.

[Sciurus83]

Actually I am a bit confused. Was the "out of proportion statement" something they said or them leaving? If the former what was it, and if the latter you're way overthinking

[Tikky]

YABU. Very.

BTW Are you based in the U.K.?

[nathanielgriff]

Wow thanks for the replies. Maybe I should clarify.

The reason i was looking for my him is that he is one of closest friends and was genuinely interested in where he was. (Maybe it wasn't 10min)

My other groomsmen said to me, "they left and his wife, said lets not say goodbye because it will awkward".

I rang my groomsmen (the one who left) the next morning, my first question to him was "are you guys alright?" (Noting it's quite an unusualy thing to do to your friend. "He just mumbled something about not wanting to packdown and his wife was tired"

So no I'm not over thinking it, I'm just sticking with the facts.

[MyWineTime]

You are definitely over thinking this and taking it way too personally!
You do sound very dramatic, I don't see how this was even a big deal.

[LovingLola]

You spent your wedding night and honeymoon digesting why someone didn't help you take down a marquee after the event was over??? Really?

[Gazelda]

There could be a valid reason why they left early. Or maybe there were just rude and wanted to avoid helping. Either way, it didn't do you harm as you didn't pack away that night.

So I think you are over-thinking it to be pondering about it on your wedding night, honeymoon and after. How long ago was your wedding? Have you spoken them since?

It seems quite apparent that you don't like the wife though. Maybe she's picked up on that?

[LovingLola]

And you rang them the morning after your wedding?
This is plain strange behaviour.

[Palegreenstars]

Why are you putting this on the wife? The groomsman said he'd help and ditched. All of the responsibilities on him.

As you didn't need the help anyway it doesn't matter does it.