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.

Maybe she asked him to raise it with your DH. She might be trying to claw something back. I think she knows she's digging herself deeper and deeper and deeper...

Chipmonkey, I'm not the bride - I'm still struggling to get my guest list down to the number that our venue will allow, and wondering how I can do that without offending anyone.

It's clear that Kittens is very hurt by this, but I very much doubt that the bride intended this if they've been friends for years. It looks to me as though she was trying to include her as far as possible, without putting pressure on her. Would you invite someone you liked to something you thought they'd find difficult and upsetting, but would feel awkward about refusing?

As to her attempt to put it right, what else could she do except put Kittens to the top of the waiting list - once invitations had been sent, she could hardly uninvite people, could she?

I think you need to get a better feel for her motivation, before you decide she's a bitch. Maybe she is, of course. But, you're thinking of letting go of a long-standing friendship on the basis of this incident - maybe the friendship's not as important to either of you as you thought it was?

Really bad idea for MrKittens to still go to the wedding.

GirlWIthALlamaTattoo I think the thing is that it's worse to exclude someone. Orders of magnitude worse. Even if the motivation was kind (in a patronising sort of way), people have to be given the chance to make their own decisions, otherwise it looks like they're not wanted, and that's such a damaging thing to project and to feel.

GirlWithALlamaTattoo - if you really have a too long a list and too many guests, split the number of places in 4, 1/4 for your DH2B's family, 1/4 for yours, 1/4 for DH2B's friends, 1/4 for yours. Don't allow family to argue "oh but second cousin Mary has to come!" tell them there's a set number of places for their family and if they want this person to come, they can decide who's place they have from the family list. Try to invite all or none of particular groups (like uni friends, work colleague groups etc).

If you really can't fit everyone you want there, then you have the wrong venue and should start looking again. (but then I don't understand people who went looking for venues, picked one and then decided how many places they'd need, surely the correct way round is to draw up your potential list, say "ok, we need a venue that'll seat 70/100/3,000 etc" and then go look for venues that meet that criteria...)

well done kittens proud of ya

there is no reason why your DH and DH2b cant be mates, the only petulant one out of the four of you is bridezilla, you three seem very mature about it.

kittens, I really don't think your dh should attend without you. That will drive a wedge between the two of you that you will find hard to get over. His place is by your side, and as much as he may like the groom and be happy to continue their association independently of what happens between you and the bride, his first loyalty is to you. To attend the wedding without you would sort of 'ok' her behaviour towards you.

I do think it is fine for your dh to continue his friendship with the groom, but obviously the nature of their socialising will have to adjust to take account of you not wishing to see the bride.

Llama I understand that fitting people in with a wedding can be difficult but if this woman was any kind of friend she'd have picked up the phone or gone around to see Kittens and asked her whether she would like to/ be able to cope with the whole day. Instead she made a patronising and hurtful assumption and the whole DH to be boss thing has just confirmed that she is exceedingly shallow and not worth the effort.
Hope Mr Kittens doesn't go. Time for a united front in my opinion.

Completely agree with Karma.

GirlWith sorry for suspecting you! But I do wonder if Bridezilla has read the thread as when she phoned Kittens up, she did apologise for precisely those points that had been brought up on the thread.

FWIW, any of us that have had a wedding know what it's like trying to keep numbers down to a reasonable figure, we're not all millionaires. But what is hurtful is inviting most of a particular group and leaving one or two out.

So, for example, first cousins. I would think that if you can't invite all your first cousins, then you should probably not invite any of them or maybe only one or two that you have been close to over the years. But if you had nine first cousins and you invited seven of them, then the two that are left out will feel left out and upset. If you have a group of uni friends, then invite all of them or none of them.

And I would really think that it's beyond insensitive to bring a friend looking at venues and then not invite said friend to the reception.

Kittens the dh2b sounds very nice. Does he realise what he's getting himself into?

I'm all for cutting down numbers, when I married DH we had a very small wedding. What you should never do IMO is to draw the line through a particular group of friends or relatives. Particularly important not to invite every member of a group except one. We invited parents, siblings, siblings partners and nieces and nephews to the full thing. Now we had room to invite 4 more people, however that was not enough room to invite all cousins so we didn't invite any, wasn't enough to invite a complete group of friends on wither side so we didn't. It was sad they couldn't share our day with us but it was a lot more polite and a lot fairer than inviting part of a group.

Oh and telling someone that they'll get an invite if one of the A list guests pulls out is Not On.

Your dh should stick by you and not go, did your friends dh change the invite so that you are going to all of it, or dies the original still stand. Your dh should be loyal to you as his wife, not your friend and her dh.

Minus for me it's not the fact that Kittens was left out. It's not even the fact that she was left out and all her circle were in. It's the fact that the bride told her that she was left out because she'd been "awkward in company" lately (i.e. because she was shy and had been depressed). That's the bit that really makes my jaw drop and makes me think that this bride to be is not just struggling with numbers, she truly seems to think it's ok to ditch friends when they are going through a rough patch and aren't as much fun at parties.

Kittens glad that the fiance has apologised at least. I wonder if his bride to be will do the same ...?

Yes that's the bit that is the most appalling to me too and means that this woman is not worthy of any more consideration. Sounds like she chickened out put her DP up to phoning up Kittens DH. She obviously totally underestimated Kittens calling her on it by phone and now is trying to scrape her way back in (just to make herself feel good - not because she really gives a shit).

Glad you sent mail promptly though so you don't have nights and nights of anxst about this. I would be prepared for a wheedling phonecall from her trying to smooth things over. So have a few choice phrases ready just in case.

Phrases like "TBH I thought our friendship was worth more than that to you, but it's clear that it's not so I guess we have all learnt from this and moved on haven't we? I don't really see that there's much more to be said on the subject. I do wish you all the best, have a great day. I have nothing further to say really. Ok, bye."

Brief, blunt and calm and she will soon get that there is no going back from this.

I think the bride is beyond rude here. It would have been nice to send the invite with a note saying that she knows Kitten is finding things difficult at present, but wanted to include her and no hard feelings if she isn't up to it, but she would love her to come.

Totally agree with LydiaWickham in her response to GirlwithALlamaTattoo that if numbers are really such a problem you have the wrong venue. And, GirlwithA... it is galant that you are trying to defend from a brides point of view but what OP's friend did and the way she went about it was bang out of order.

Kittens I'm shocked at her no-apology apology and so far from being shy or retiring in company, you sound really strong! I'd love to hear what her DH to be had to say on his bridezilla's behalf...

Agree with the above re doing your guest list first - we did this before looking at any venues, and also decided that having a day and evening do was just asking for trouble - it screamed A and B list to us, no matter how sensitively we tried to word it. When we found out how much venues and a sit down meal cost, we ditched the nicer venue and the sit-down meal entirely so we could fit everyone in and not go over budget. Although we were a little worried that we might have some cats-bum faces at just having a stand-up fork buffet (we ended up with enough seating for 30 at a wedding of 130), it was so much better than having to leave people out and just having one party saved an enormous amount of money to boot. And I don't even remember the venue very well - just everyone getting drunk and dancing most of the night!!

We chose our venue because that is all we could afford, (It cost £40 to hire, everywhere else cost 10 times that). It could only fit 100 people, the registry office could only fit 40 people. Ideally we'd have invited 150. It wasn't that we didn't like the 50 people we couldn't include, just that the 100 we did we were closer too.

If we could have found a larger venue for the same cost we would have, and we didn't have a sit down meal either, just a large pot of stew and chocolate brownies!

I can totally understand how hard it is when you have too many potential guests for the venue and you have to cut the list down as I had to do it myself. What is shocking is the patronising note and using her depression as a reason not to invite her and inviting the boss instead.

The people that went from my list were the second cousins twice removed that I'd never met and the great auntie who'd never sent me a Xmas card and I'm afraid to say there were no plus ones that we had never met. I'm sure that raised a few eyebrows, but there was no way friends were getting ditched in place of people I'd never met.

kittens you rock. .

If kittens dh was so much of a mate to this man, than why hasent he been invited to either the A or the B reception then! No sod that for a game of soldiers, well done op! I am about the behaviour of bridezilla, not only was she outright rude to her so called friend, but a friend that she had known since school and was considered to be 'life long' was invited as a C list guest to her wedding, only to attend the ceremony and a mince pie jobby. Don't bloody bother with the invite then!

Bridezilla has also treated other guests in the same manner. The original invite that the op received was meant to be presumebly for somebody not living in this Country, so from abroad. This guest was only invited to the ceremony and mince pie jobby, why the hell should somebody spend all that time and money traveling a distance just for a couple of hours . Thoughtless and rude.