AIBU Disagreement on wedding seating

[RoyalnGeneral]

Wedding one. Some details changed but I am not any of the four people involved.

I have a friend, Alice who suffers from anxiety (relevant). Alice got married to Ben about 18 months ago. Ben is a laid back ‘try to keep everyone happy’ type of guy. Alice and Ben are friends with another couple, Carl and Donna. Ben and Carl have been best friends for over 20 yrs. Alice and Donna worked together for several years but now work at different organisations.

Carl and Donna have announced they will be getting married next spring and Carl asked Ben to be his best man. Planning was going well until seating arrangements were discussed when it turned out Ben would be sitting at the top table while Alice would be at a guest table. Alice was upset and said she didn’t know anyone at the wedding and didn’t want to sit with strangers. She wanted to sit next to Ben at the top table.

Ben spoke to C&D and asked if Alice could sit with him. Carl and Donna said no, they understood it wasn’t ideal but that A&B would only be separated for a few hours. Alice said if she couldn't sit at the top table then she wanted Ben to sit at her guest table and do his speech from there. C&D refused again as they wanted Ben at the top table with Carl, so he could do the toasts/ read the messages/ keep people on time.

Things went back and forth without resolution, then last weekend Carl phoned Ben and uninvited him from being best man. A&B are still invited to the wedding and can now sit together at the guest table. The new best man will sit at the top table. The best man’s wife will be sitting with friends at another guest table.

Alice told me about this last night. She was taken aback that Ben had been uninvited. She said that at her wedding she hadn’t cared about wedding party only at the top table. What was important to her was that her guests felt comfortable and she didn’t think it was fair she had been expected to sit by herself with people she didn’t know.

I said that while Alice hadn't minded who sat at the top table at her wedding, Carl and Donna seem to want a more traditional approach. Also, C&D have accommodated Alice’s request to sit with Ben, although not in the way Alice expected. Carl will now have his best man with him at the top table, as he wants, and the best man’s wife will be sitting with people she knows, so perhaps it is the best compromise C&D can come up with, given the circumstances.

Alice disagreed. She said C&D are overreacting and she doesn’t see why she couldn’t been seated with Ben in the first place. She isn't sure she wants to go to the wedding now as she thinks it will be awkward.

AIBU to think Alice should have accepted C&D’s initial refusal and not continued to insist on sitting with Ben?

I know Alice’s anxiety means she finds these situations stressful so perhaps C&D could have been more sympathetic. But it’s C&D’s wedding day which I tend to think puts the onus on A&B to try to accomodate their friends' wishes.

Alice is completely out of order. Feel very sorry for Ben having to put up with her!

But as a grown up you generally meet new people on a daily basis? Form friendships etc so why would being sat next to a few people who all know the bride or groom be daunting?
I'm glad you've never experienced proper diagnosed anxiety then. I can assure you, it's more than daunting.

That being said, Alice is still being a bit of an arsehole.

I'm not severely anxious but spending several hours making small talk with a load of strangers I'm never going to see again just isn't my idea of a good time. I only make the effort to go to weddings where there are other guests I'd like to catch up with.

No need for drama if course, she could just decline in this sort of situation.

The fact that the OP hasn't returned does make me wonder if she is Alice.

Just throwing it out there, but where did Alice expect to sit during the ceremony? Did she want to stand up at the front with Ben and the groom?

and what about travel, if the ceremony wasn't at the same venue then presumably Ben would be travelling there with the groom, shock horror she'd have had to make her own way!!

(as I am to an upcoming wedding where DH is an usher and so travelling with the groom....)

I suppose the ceremony isn't so bad as you aren't expected to socialise with anyone

Just throwing it out there, but where did Alice expect to sit during the ceremony? Did she want to stand up at the front with Ben and the groom?

You’re not expected to make conversation during the ceremony. Or during travelling to the venue.

Alice needs to use this as a catalyst for addressing her anxiety, in particular as it has had a significant impact on her DH in this case. (Her insistence on pushing her agenda and lack of compromise suggests to me that she hasn't been talking it through with a good therapist).

OP, when is the wedding?

Was there not enough time between learning of seating arrangements and wedding day to consider meeting some of the people she would have been seated next to - a sort of 'gradual exposures' approach to get Alice used to the situation she'd find herself in? The fact that that wasn't considered suggests to me (and many other posters) that its less about genuine crippling anxiety, and more about getting her own way.

Alice is obviously been unreasonable.

I have declined a wedding due to my anxiety. Friend ( who is still a friend) thanked me rather than her having to worry about me all day.

I think Alice was unreasonable for trying to dictate where she sat, but Carl was also unreasonable to sack his friend as best man.

My solution would have been that Alice and Ben sit together but not on the top table. Or don't have a top table!

When DH and I first got together we went to his friend's wedding, he was best man. Sure it was nice to be invited at all as a +1, and it was a lovely wedding, but I knew nobody, and at a time when we were desperate to be together and could hardly keep our hands off one another, and wanted to be seen together as a couple, we hardly saw each other or had any time alone for the weekend. There was a rehearsal then dinner on the Friday evening, he had to go and set up and help decorate the venue on the Saturday, we sat separately in the church and then at the reception. It was a relief when we finally got together for a dance and a kiss. What annoyed me was as well that I was sat on a flipping singles table with several men trying to chat me up as they didn't even realise I was with anyone. Sure, we survived and had a nice time eventually but it took the shine off what could have been a fantastic experience. So when it came to our wedding we didn't separate any couples!

@Lockheart I said if they were being unreasonable. You know people can be unreasonable even if they are ill.
Alice is being unreasonable. Same way anyone can be. Being a drama llama and illness is not mutually exclusive.
And as I said. I very highly doubt this was the first time she did it.

@IAmALazyArse I totally agree that Alice is BU. It was the first line of my first post on this thread.

But we can agree she's being unreasonable without calling her all the names under the sun and saying she's making up her illness. It wouldn't be acceptable if she had a physical illness, it shouldn't be acceptable for a mental illness.

Is everyone agreed then?

Sacking Ben as best man is a much bigger and more damaging faux pas than anything Alice did, tbh.

Heaven forbid a bride and groom want to do things in the traditional way!

I think Alice's anxiety may have led her to believe the world has to change to accommodate her.

I completely agree, and I say this as someone who has suffered crippling, life-affecting anxiety.

There would be ways of mitigating the problem - Alice knowing who she’s going to be seated next to in advance, knowing a bit about them so conversation is easier, maybe someone on the table being quietly asked to look out for her, or her being put with those the B&G will know will be inclusive/outgoing but Alice doesn’t have the right to demand she sits at the top table. I have been to many a wedding and I’ve never seen this.

I’ve spent my whole life trying to be “normal” and “like everyone else” so I’m afraid those who demand special treatment get right on my thrupennies.

@shartgoblin
Oh that's good, I just didn't want to see a thread later from a poor bride saying her MOH was acting off with her and she didn't know why!

The next challenge is the parents, step parents & new partners. I can't think of a set up that doesn't offend someone!
Good luck with that, tell them to zip it for a few hours!

I would have felt bad a wedding guest who didnt know anybody sitting on her own. Regardless if she had anxiety or not.
Probably the only person here who disagrees though 😂

I think Alice has been completely and utterly unreasonable.

This. Unless she is severely disabled, she can sit on her own for a couple of hours!! You don't dictate how someone else should organize their wedding.

No I agree, PinkCrayon, though I did think Alice was BU as well.

Lots of people are just very selfish when they get married- our wedding, our rules. For me it was all about the guests having a nice time and I would have absolutely hated the idea of someone being uncomfortable.

Sadly, it sounds like Alice has not realised the extent that people have fixed things for her in the past.That she was shocked, rather than expecting this as one of the options, suggests that normally, everyone around her fixes things so she doesn't suffer.

I agree that the next step was probably Alice not wanting to have to get to the church by herself, or have her DH sit away from her in the church. How would she have coped in the drinks reception if it was Ben's job to round up the different groups for photos? (Another typical Best Man job at a large traditional wedding)

She's effectively stated she needs her DH to be with her as her carer in all social situations and can't last any length of time without him, that was always going to make Ben a poor choice for a best man when that would mean he has a caring responsiblity towards her.

Perhaps she needs to realise that other people are accomodating her, and it does put other people out.

Carl was also unreasonable to sack his friend as best man.

What else was he supposed to do? Pander to Alice? It's HIS wedding, not Alice's.

I would have felt bad a wedding guest who didnt know anybody sitting on her own. Regardless if she had anxiety or not.

The likelihood is she does know people though. I find it almost impossible to believe she doesn't know anyone given her and Ben's separate friendships with the bride and groom. I'm sure there will be people she knows even if it has been a while since she last spoke to or saw them.

I agree with @PinkCrayon - I'd want to sit her with people she knows. It would be a bit different if they were friends of both Alice and Ben, but she's effectively his plus one and it seems a bit unfair to sit her with a table of people she won't know - regardless of her anxiety. I don't think attending a wedding is the same as making "friendships" on a daily basis. And usually the meal is the main part of the wedding (especially if there are numerous speeches) so we're talking a few hours of her being on her own. I think people here are a bit unfair!

One thing does puzzle me. If they've been friends for a long time, don't they have any mutual friends that Alice could sit with?

I don't think Alice was unreasonable to ask to sit with Ben at the outset, but I do think she is now BU to threaten not to go at all after the damage has been done in terms of Ben having been ousted as best man.

I accept though that I have less sympathy anyway with the "but it's the TOP TABLE and therefore SACRED and SACROSANCT and we must not deviate one iota from TRADITION" mindset because I find all that etiquette for the sake of it just because it's always been done that way to be total bollocks, quite frankly. So if I'd been C or D and I'd been asked if A and B could sit together I'd have just said yes in the first place.

I know it's not quite the same scenario but I've been to too many weddings where the parents of the bride and/or groom are with second or subsequent partners yet the exes still have to sit together on the top table smiling through gritted teeth because their children have insisted on having a 'traditional' top table, all because that's what some outdated etiquette demands and bugger their guests' comfort or enjoyment of the day.

Of course Alice is BU as is Ben for enabling her.

I don't know whether she genuinely has anxiety or not (sadly it's a condition that regularly gets co-opted by attention seekers) but in this case it's irrelevant.

Having anxiety isn't a free pass to make the world revolve around you and accommodate your every whim - especially wrt important events such as a wedding.

If her anxiety is an issue she could have just attended the evening event. No drama required.

As it is, having got what she wanted re: seating she's still bitching about it and raising the drama by suggesting she won't attend the wedding (and as such meaning the groom has lost his choice of best man for nothing as if she didn't attend there's no issue).

The only thing she should be anxious about is her own poor behaviour and how to properly apologise for it.