to be upset with wedding and wondering if friendship has future.

[IHeartKittensAndWine]

Lifelong friend (school and university and beyond) to whom I have always been close and trusted (and I find it difficult to trust people) is getting married just before Christmas. When she set the date of the wedding DH and I changed the date of our flight for our Xmas holiday to make it (he is good buddies, but not as close to her husband to be).

I received the invitation a few days ago. She has invited us to the church bit and the mince pies and mulled wine bit directly after, which is given an hours slot on the invite. We have not been invited to the reception proper - I know this because a) I helped her choose the venue (as in I recommended it and she invited me on scouting trip up) and b) she put a handwritten note on the bottom of the invite - so sorry we can't include you due to numbers darlings but we wanted to give you an experience of a wedding in XXX beautiful English town anyway.

I have since discovered that every mutual friend is going to the reception. But what really grates that fucking note at the end of the invite. I know that city like the back of my hand and I don't need or desire the experience of a snowy wedding there because ... I've been to half a dozen weddings there which she has also been to BECAUSE IT WAS OUR UNIVERSITY TOWN. I wanted to celebrate her happy day with her and our other friends, not be treated like some needs to be accommodated gawper.

I feel patronised and humiliated. I can't tell if this is my depression talking. DH says I should give her a call and say, calmly, that it is patronising and we won't be going.

Kittens you are a star of the brightest magnitude!

My advice is to send the RSVP and the e-mail with the suggested edit out of the last sentence and then get on and have a wonderful holiday. If your other friends contact you about why you are not going, I'd be inclined to give them the full facts, unexpurgated.

Well done you!

Gramercy, the bride's going to show that email to no-one, as it makes her look like a bit of a cowbag and Kittens like a mature, reasonable, assertive winner.

Kittens just read the whole thread think your email response is heartfelt and truthful. It has made me cry hopefully it will deservedly make her feel awful. Although she sounds so shallow and insensitive' maybe not ?
Totally understand how you feel I have suffered anxiety and depression and find weddings and social situations an ordeal but would feel very hurt if not invited.

please tell us her response to your email..

How about some poo for a wedding pressie

www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/oxfam-unwrapped-gardeners/OU5023AG

Kittens I think you are handling this brilliantly.

Past Times has a sale on, it's where I go for MiL gifts...
What I've been thinking while lurking is that if you are prone to depression it's really hard to make and keep friends - you don't want to burden/bore them with it - and losing a friend in this way is especially sad, and likely to add to the depression/self esteem things...

I'm sort of torn on the proposed email to bride.

Kittens as I said before I think she's treated you appallingly.

However I do think your proposed email to her is very emotional and might make you sound a bit like you're making too much of it. (I don't think you are, but it could sound that way, iyswim).

Also I don't think she "breached your trust" did she? She only mentioned your depression to you, not to anyone else? (unless I've missed something).

I would still email the bride with a guilt-inducing explanation, but I'd cut it down and be more measured. Something like:

Dear Friend

Thanks for your previous apology - accepted.

I wanted to explain why we've said no to your wedding invitation. To be completely honest I was rather hurt that I wasn't invited to the reception "due to numbers" but that all of our mutual friends, and your fiance's boss, did merit an invitation. I had thought we were closer than that, but obviously was mistaken. While of course it's your right to invite whom you choose, I was hurt by the reasons for your decision and the way you explained it to me.

DP and I had delayed our holiday by a few days to attend your wedding, but given the nature of our invitation, we've decided we'd prefer to have a few more days of holiday instead.

I wish you all the best for the wedding.

Kittens

Excellent suggestion from helenthemadex and bagelmonkey re the present. Contribute to the joint present (if within budget), thereby staying as 'part of the group' of mutual friends. That would highlight her tawdry behaviour to the rest of the group better than anything. Plus she'll always look at whatever-it-is and know that you contributed to it, and be less able to dispose of it (if that bothered her) than if it was something only you had given her.

That's a much better response minipie, I would use that one op rather than the one you were going to send. It's short, concise and less emotional.
Icy

i think that's a bit bald, tbh. it IS okay to be hurt by this, i reckon.

Present? Why reward such a crass person?

yep - i still go with the original email idea

then move on - to a faaaabulous holiday

I am with SGB on this, if someone turns out not to be the person you thought they were, then I would simply move on. Decline the invite, 'we can't come, hope you enjoy your day'. She will know why because of the phone-call. That way you retain the higher moral ground.

Once you start sending emails with words like 'betrayal ' or 'trust' or about what you thought the friendship meant, I think it sounds a bit much. But then I am not a fan of 'telling it straight' in friendships, on the very rare occasions anyone has done it to me, it has just confirmed to me they are hard work and best avoided, and on the one occasion I was honest with a friend, it upset her terribly and the friendship disintegrated anyway.

I think the less time spend engaging in emotional battles with friends the better. Friendship isn't supposed to be hard work (and she will feel guilty anyway, believe me).

Ooh Kittens I've jsut read your reply email to your friend -it is very very good. I wish I'd done that with my ex-friend (whole story was many posts ago) I decided to take what I thought was the moral high ground and say nothing and I regret deeply not pointing out what an A1 bitch she was.

Actually, I rather like minipie's email (though OP's was very good of course!). I do think that the more concise and slightly distant you can make it the better. The simpler the better as well. Writing something long and cathartic will be helpful now, but long-term having kept it slightly more impersonal will be more comfortable I think. She is going to cringe either way when she gets it. Keeping it simple, without a lot of emotive elements, doesn't really leave it open to much discussion/response on her part IYSWIM.

As for a present, given that she got you a rather good present when you got married, giving her something reasonable and then drawing a line under the relationship seems fair enough to me. I think a kind gesture on your part about the gift will be salt in the wounds really, so all to the good.

I've just sat and read this whole thread and I am compelled to reply to applaud how grown up and dignified you are being about this, Kittens. You are the bigger and better person here.

You sound lovely, enjoy your holiday! :)

i think that the distant email sounds much, much more angry and bitter than the first.

Maybe you're right aitch - an even milder, conciser one?

Dear Friend

Thanks for your previous apology.

I wanted to explain why we've said no in the RSVP to your wedding invitation. To be honest, I was rather hurt that I wasn't invited to the reception due to numbers. I had thought we were closer than that, so I was hurt both by the reasons for your decision and the way you explained it to me.

DP and I had delayed our holiday by a few days to attend your wedding, but given the nature of our invitation, we've decided to go ahead with our initial plans and will be away at that period.

I wish you all the best for the wedding.

Kittens

Anyway, I'd imagine this is all hypothetical, as OP has probably sent her own (very good!) email anyway! .

I agree with the short more concise e mail, it's important to send it as she has to be aware of her horrid behaviour, and it's cartharticfur you,after all it sounds as if you want to distance yourself from the friendship anyway. Yes as she sent you a decent present , I would too and draw a line under the friendship.

Hi folk

For those who questioned the betrayal of trust, that had NOTHING to do with receiving the invite and everything to do with using deeply personal information about being depressed and getting worried at how I come across in private against me. For those of you who've mentioned this being about a friendship fading - that happens, and I get that and I can deal with that. I don't like the patronising note on the invite, her use of my MH problems or her lacklustre apology, all of which is in the words of my DN "really sucky". And I never saw the venue scouting trip as evidence of how close friends we are (I thought the intimacies we shared might have accounted for that but I was wrong) just included here as to how patronising her note on the invite was.

I have sent the email. Friends DH 2b called my DH today at work to apologise for friend's behaviour and what she said to me. DH finds this hard as although not hugely close to her DH they are friends independent of us and also come across each other professionally. I've told him he's more than welcome to go to the wedding by himself and keep his flight, but I'd rather get to the sun sooner.

Not good if her DH to be is already apologising for her behaviour!! Did he have no say in the wedding invitations then?

I think it is clear from the proposed email that kittens holiday is more important than the wedding, that will take the wind out of the brides' sails. Serves her right.

Am starting to wonder whether the groom has any idea about what a prize bitch he's marrying, lets hope someone tells him what's been going on. If their friends decide not to invite her at future get togethers, he won't be either by association. Not only has she alienated kittens, but kittens DH her DH-to-be's friend. I wonder how the groom will feel about that.

Sorry, too slow posting. Glad the groom is aware, but agree with Stealth that making apologies for her isn't a good start to their marriage. (Secretly hope they had a row about it, but doubt it, he sounds under the thumb already although might just have been trying to salvage his own friendship with DH.)