Annoyed with friend who ruined birthday surprise

[gummychops]

Long story short, one of our small group of close girlfriends has a big birthday soonish. We try to meet up as a group when we can, which usually ends up being once per month/six weeks. In a Whatsapp group for these arrangements.
I created a new Whatsapp group minus the birthday girl, & suggested turning our next lunch meeting into an all afternoon & evening girlie celebration, as a birthday surprise. Somewhere posh for drinks, nice dinner etc. Everyone seemed keen. Someone said we should check with husband in case he already had a full-on party planned, which I did. No party planned, birthday girl wouldn't like it, fair enough. We'll just go ahead with our little girlie thing, spoil her a bit. Lots of to-ing & fro-ing with me sneakily checking re dates etc with her, which I kept others updated on.
A week before "event", one of the girls texts the original group which includes her saying she's booked X restaurant for dinner that night. I asked on the other text group something like- "Eh? I thought it was supposed to be a surprise?" Friend replies - "it came up in conversation, & I checked what her favourite restaurant was" "Don't be cross" Doesn't seem plausible that birthday girl would have guessed what we were up to....her actual birthday is a month away...
AIBU to be pissed off?

[simiisme]

I think that the surprise-ruining 'friend' is a cow. Deliberately spoiled the surprise to get one up on you. I would keep her a arms length in future.

[cuckooplusone]

Alright, so I don't like surprises either and would be grateful to know about something. But, I don't think that's the point of this issue really. It just seems a bit petty and childish to be worried about who organised a lovely celebration. Why can't everyone just enjoy it? It sounds to me like a very odd group dynamic, something similar to the playground with people worrying about who is a closer and better friend.

[slenderisthenight]

Other friend sounds like a control freak who wants to be the birthday planner.

[Yakitori]

That "friend" does sound like a bit of a pain. It all seems like terribly hard work though for what is a dinner out for four people who have apparently known each other for such a long time. A Whatsapp group, individual texts flying back and forth and a Mumsnet thread. I hope the evening is worth it!

[SallyDapp]

I would hate to be part of a group where all that bitching was going on in the background, where friendships are measured by how much one person does for someone as opposed to another. That's not friendship, that's competition! Any nice surprise is wiped out by the backbiting, 'she did this, she said that', she's my best friend not yours', I'd be embarrassed to find myself the cause of the problem then. My own troubles and the helpful replies I had show that most of us want an easy friendship without the dramas, and someone to talk to without thinking we are being disloyal to someone else.

[mathanxiety]

It's weird that your friends are lying to you, talking about each other behind their backs, probably talking about you behind your back, and generally recreating 'Mean Girls'.

[gummychops]

Sallydap - it's not about measuring friendship by how much one person does compared to another. That's not the issue at all. It doesn't matter who did what in the arrangements. It's not about me looking for praise from the birthday girl.

It's about one of the group suddenly deciding unilaterally that it wasn't going to be a surprise, & telling the birthday girl. When she was questioned on this, in a calm, non-confrontational way, she wasn't straight about it. And told us a different version of events to what actually happened.