... to not go to this wedding?

[boltofblue]

I have been with my DP for less than a year (we have moved from being boyfriend / girlifrend to DP) and things are going really well. One of her best friends is getting married and DP was invited and will have a biggish role in the wedding (she'll be a bridesmaid).

The invitation was originally for my DP, but since we get together and became a solid couple, I was also invited. However, there's a problem. The wedding happens to clash with a conference (that was planned prior to the wedding and is important although not life-critical for my work) that I was going to which happens to be on the other side of the Atlantic, and the wedding is in rural France. The conference itself isn't in a very accessible place (think rather than New York, imagine a place an hour's drive away from a smaller city).

The wedding itself is on the Saturday, and the conference begins on the Sunday but the conference proper begins on Monday morning. I have looked into travel options, and the best option I can find is really difficult. I'd have to wake up on Sunday morning after the wedding, drive across rural france, take a train from a small city to Paris, fly across the Atlantic, then take a four hour train trip across the US to get to the conference at 10pm on the Sunday evening and I'd be shattered on Monday morning.

My DP is upset about this, and I've thought of cancelling the conference and getting a refund, or if I should do the difficult trip?

AIBU? I think I'm not, and I think for her, this is about something else (an ex didn't like to go the weddings with her, and I think she was getting very excited about going with me to such an important wedding). Am I being selfish here?

Even if I am or not, I would really welcome some advice and how to handle this

PS, I've changed some details to make it less identifiable, and I am male. Thanks

If you are unsure and not confident about the trip then don't go to the wedding. You will be alone there most of the time anyway, and won't really know anyone, so you'll be meeting extended family for the first time mostly by yourself with no cues from dp as to how best to deal with things and she won't be available to smooth things over if that's necessary too.

Then, you have a long trip about which you also feel uncertain. Once you arrive, you'll be knackered, and probably unable to network as well as you would normally. Half the point of these conferences is the networking, getting to meet with - and perhaps impress - people who are further up the ladder than you and who could give you a leg up if you impress them.

You haven't said why this wedding is so important to your dp. So far, nothing about it seems to trump the opportunities the conference could present to you if you are there at your best.

I'm impressed with those people who think this is an easy trip, although a tiny bit sceptical, if I'm honest

Holdmecloser, I'm being sceptical in your trip from your home to the US, as it at least starts with at portion that is presumably quite well known and you've done it quite a lot (your home to the airport).

that's what lots of people will think of OP

Well, I don't think so; no one at the wedding really knows him, so how much of a shit will they really give if he isn't there?

And the journey involves rather more than 'taking a train in France'. What a daft thing to say.

You seem very proud of your hard-as-nails approach to travelling (and I think you may have mentioned that you do it with kids sometimes, too), but there are loads of people on this thread who are presumably capable of doing this trip. People are making the point that just because one could do it, doesn't mean in this case the OP MUST do it.

What are you skeptical about boltofblue. Some people make lots of trips with considerable risk involved and very long hours with multiple changes. I mentioned earlier trips to a village in Iraq or the Amazon. I have done this, alone, in the past few months. 35+ hours each. No nice hotel and conference room on the other side either. If you do this from time to time (and many do much worse than me) a trip between France and the USA seems quite easy, no matter how tired and long it will make you feel.

It is subjective and depends on personal experience, level of fitness and how bad your body deals with jet-lags, change of attitudes, secondary effects of vaccines, etc.

It is as reasonable to find your trip very daunting as to think it is incredibly easy. Not like you will be doing the piloting anyway.

I'm staggered that someone who travels so regularly to the West Coast of America rarely encounters problems that can't be sorted out with a phone call. In my trips I've had bomb scares that evacuated whole airports, planes that sat on runways for four hours, planes that had a galley fire mid Atlantic and had to do emergency landing at nearest available airport, pilot turning up still drunk from the night before causing long delay until other pilot could be found - and I don't even travel that regulalry! None of these could be sorted with a phone call!.
I don't think that wishing to make sure I have plenty of time to arrive at my destination makes me gauche - it's called sensible planning. And as OP has already said he is anxious about the proposed journey, it's just plain nasty. Not everyone is a confident traveller. And not everyone can sleep on a plane. I certainly can't.

If at a wedding a bridesmaid told me that her new boyfriend was at a conference in America, I wouldn't think anything of him at all.

Camaleon, without outing myself, I have travelled alone to Bangladesh, rural China, India, Japan, the middle of eastern Europe so I'm not some completely inexperienced traveller - but the example given on the west coast was a trip completed on a regular - far different than mentioned here. And I'm sceptical a touch that these are all easy trips people don't bat an eyelid at

I'm sure there are SAS commandos travelling to deepest darkest Africa alone, but I'm not one of them

If time wasn't a pressure, i probably wouldn't find this trip daunting at all

The "taking the train" bit is the only unknown, because one international airport is much like another and there will be no difference once OP makes it to CdeG.

And yes, I frequently travel on trains, drive (on the wrong side of the road), get taxis, use Google Maps and arrive at airports in unfamiliar places. You can be as "skeptical" as you like about that OP. It is honestly weird to me that people are perceiving this as in some way bragging, because these are totally normal skills for a working adult to have.

One final additional point: a lot of people have said that attending the wedding is putting a relationship ahead of career. I disagree with this perspective. I think that viewing this as a favour being done to the DP is a mistake - OP presumably likes and enjoys being in a relationship, this stuff is part of having a healthy social life. And the reality is that if you want to have a career, make time in your life for your partner, and have a social life, (let alone have children!) you are going to be BUSY. ALL the time. That's just what it's like. Every day is booked up and crammed to the gills. If that lifestyle sounds miserable to some people, that's fine, we are all different, but something will have to give. Career on backburner, no time for dating, or seeing much less of your friends. But you can't expect to have a healthy, "DP"-style relationship (ie not casual dating) without making a considerable investment of your time in things that are important to them. If you want to "have it all", to use a cringingly awful cliche, you have to accept that that means being very busy and tightly scheduled. At least some of time. This is one of those times.

Conference. I can see your DP might be disappointed but she's got an important role in the wedding so will be kept occupied. There will be plenty of other weddings. Maybe propose - then she can look forward to yours together

Definitely overcompensate by proposing!

I don't think that wishing to make sure I have plenty of time to arrive at my destination makes me gauche - it's called sensible planning.

You need to read more carefully, I said that whining to fellow conference attendees about how hard the journey was would be gauche. Everybody will have come a long way; everybody will be jetlagged. People travelling west to east will have it a lot worse than those coming from western Europe.

I'm not suggesting OP would whine, either! Just warning that it won't necessarily go down well!

Conference only. And you'll probably want to be in rural France for six months in the run up to YOUR wedding to her, preferably with no wifi, 3G or phone signal. If she expresses more than vague 'oh shame, would have been nice to have you there' disappointment, she's being ridiculous.

As someone who has done a lot of extremely tight global travel for work I wouldn't go, especially as, as others have said, you won't even see her all day!

definitely conference.

Where are you flying to in the US that requires taking a four hour train ride? I can't think of many places that you couldn't just get a connecting flight to and then drive from there.

I would go for the 'leave saturday evening and stay in an airport hotel near french big city'.

Also we live in California, when we visit family in the UK our trip is usually car-flight-flight-car, or car-flight-flight-bus-car. You are talking the same number of trips only two are trains rather than flights.

Be aware that many passenger trains are late in the US because freight gets priority so you sit and wait for a freight train to pass you. You might be better getting to the conference a different way no matter when you go.

There is no way i would consider doing a journey like that unless it was to the death bed of a loved one. I wouldn't even do it to get to my own wedding, let alone someone i barely knew, or for a partner i had only been with for a year. I also would take an extremely dim view of someone who was happy for me to do that kind of journey just so they could swish me about on their arm for a wedding.

If the wedding is 'Septemberish' it is fine to decline the formal invitation saying you didn't realise it was clashing with a conference you have already committed to. I also don't know anyone who would raise eyebrows if i went alone to a wedding and said my new DP was at a conference.

I think the expectation for me to put myself out so massively for something like this might be a deal breaker for me, and if there was any silly emotional blackmail or sulking, it certainly would. I would make that clear when i said to her 'i wasn't going, hoped they all had a nice time, would love to see pics and take the couple out to celebrate at an alternative date, but this really was my final word and not up for any further discussion'.

Conference, definitely.

OR tell her you can't go, then sneak to the venue without her, wait till the couple are saying their vows, barge into the church dressed like Richard Gere from Officer and a Gentlemen, march up the aisle carrying a stereo booming out Peter Cetera's Glory of Love, pick her up and stride out with her. Then say 'happy now'!

FWIW, I'm in the "cakewalk" category. I do this sort of travel all the time.

Wow, you're so amazing. Big huge bualadh bos for you.

Now, back to the thread - who on earth puts pressure on someone to do a tiresome, long, multi-stage, transatlantic journey just so they can barely show their face at the wedding of a couple they barely know?

If your presence at the wedding was important to either you or the couple, I could see this as a decision to make.

But all the hassle and expense because your girlfriend is needy and her last boyfriend didn't go to a few weddings?

What a ridiculous load of bullshit.

But you can't expect to have a healthy, "DP"-style relationship (ie not casual dating) without making a considerable investment of your time in things that are important to them. If you want to "have it all", to use a cringingly awful cliche, you have to accept that that means being very busy and tightly scheduled. At least some of time.

How very one-sided. The DP also has to "invest" in the relationship and realise that attending the wedding is not actually in the best interests of her partner. Building a decent, considerate relationship where you accept that the other person may be incredibly stressed by tight schedules is much more constructive. It's certainly my idea of hell and that kind of domineering, inflexible attitude would be a deal breaker.

Everyone is different. Just because you can travel to Foula and back in twenty four hours, complete with a gaggle of children without blinking an eye does not mean that everyone feels the same way. Being apprehensive about travel or nervous about unscheduled delays is perfectly normal and nothing to be supercilious about.

1. Go to the conference.
2. (Politely) suggest DP gets some Big Girl Pants for this and (shock, horror ) goes to the wedding alone!
3. Enjoy not having to endure the nuptials of a couple you barely know

Conference only. No brainer. Previous work related engagement. Attempting both is too risky. If the conference were first I'd say give it a go.