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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU Disagreement on wedding seating

430 replies

RoyalnGeneral · 03/10/2019 08:52

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.

OP posts:
BlueJava · 03/10/2019 20:06

Alice sounds like she thinks it should be about her... but she has been kindly accommodated (just not how she expected).

Cryalot2 · 03/10/2019 20:06

Another who thinks Alice is unreasonable and unrealistic.
Yes she may be ill, but the world does not revolve round her.
She has to accept that it is the height of bad manners to even think she could sit at the top table.
She is only a guest . She does need help

SureTry · 03/10/2019 20:19

Alice is the kind of person you phase out of your life once you've caught onto what she's really like. She sounds spoilt and entitled under the guise of having anxiety. Don't bother offering her help or advice, she won't take it. I got rid of my 'Alice' 3 years ago, life is a lot simpler and smoother without her.

StillCoughingandLaughing · 03/10/2019 20:41

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.

That all makes you sound lovely and caring on paper. But what happens if it’s more than one person who feels ‘uncomfortable’? What if ‘squeezing in’ someone at the top table (which isn’t exactly a beer garden bench) is the beginning of the adjustments rather than the end? In the case of Alice and Ben, Alice could have been just one extra person at the top table. However, she could also have been the catalyst for the maid of honour to say ‘Well if the best man gets his wife at the top table, I want my husband there too’. She could have added insult to injury to parents who were told stepparents would not be at the top table due to lack of space. She could be taking a place that might have gone to a sibling otherwise. Is that fair?

I speak as someone who ended up at the top table at my brother’s wedding because my mother made a fuss. As a result, the bride’s mother was angry that I was there and her second husband wasn’t. In reality, her husband would never have made the top table as the bride hated him and had invited him under sufferance, but that didn’t stop the mother of the bride blaming me.

Figgygal · 03/10/2019 20:47

Yup sorry but Alice got what she wanted

Babybel90 · 03/10/2019 20:51

I’m going to go against the grain and say I think C&D were the unreasonable ones, I didn’t split any couples up at my wedding so the best mans girlfriend was on the top table, even though I can’t stand her, I wouldn’t have made her sit separately.

I hate all this ‘it’s your day, you can do what you want’ bollocks, you’re hosting an event, you should make efforts to ensure your guests are comfortable and sticking an extra person on the top table is not the end of the world.

thatmustbenigelwiththebrie · 03/10/2019 20:54

Alice is being U.

And I say this as someone whose DP was best man at the top table and I had to sit with loads of randoms.

I didn't enjoy the day and found it hard as I'm quite shy but that's life. Not my wedding.

Starlight456 · 03/10/2019 21:02

Ok so reading update . I still wonder why post now .

Yes as someone who suffered severe anxiety in the past . I didn’t expect the world to change for me.

emilybrontescorsett · 03/10/2019 21:03

After reading the ops update I think Alice was out of order. I'm not surprise D&C have fazed A & B out of their lives. Alice sounds hard work.

Salene · 03/10/2019 21:09

Alice should of stayed at home

StillCoughingandLaughing · 03/10/2019 21:09

I hate all this ‘it’s your day, you can do what you want’ bollocks, you’re hosting an event, you should make efforts to ensure your guests are comfortable and sticking an extra person on the top table is not the end of the world.

But what happens when it becomes two, four, ten extra people? It’s easy to be magnanimous when it’s ‘only one extra person’. What happens when everyone decides they don’t like your seating plan, or even want to invite extra people?

DeRigueurMortis · 03/10/2019 21:40

In response to the posters suggesting anyone is minimising the crippling impact (medically diagnosed) anxiety can have, I don't think the vast majority of people are.

I'm certainly not, but at the same time it can't set a benchmark for how everyone who comes into contact with you has to behave.

I know someone (family) with anxiety. It's bloody awful.

However, what we learned (the hard way) is you do a disservice to the person when you constantly plan the minutiae of any contact in a bid to alleviate their MH issues.

You think you're being kind. However, you're simply feeding the monster and reinforcing a dependency on the anxiety to retain control - rather than gaining control through medication/therapy etc.

Then (as per the OP's update) it becomes harder to discern the boundary between behaviour that's a symptom of the disorder and that which has become a normalised sense of entitlement, for which the disorder is now a very much needed prop to maintain.

I'm not suggesting people shouldn't be accommodating of MH issues. However my own experience is that you can't let them be the overriding focus of every decision/action at the expense of everyone else.

DisgruntledGuineaPig · 03/10/2019 21:54

Alice doesn't think she has a problem, because she doesn't. Her husband and friends fit round what she wants. She gets to be demanding and it works mainly.

Occasionally, she comes up against someone like Carl and Donna who are happy stand their ground and say no, we'd rather not see you at all than let you dictate the terms - but on the whole, if it's not for a special event like a wedding, people will be flexible around someone with an issue like this.

She doesn't need to seek out additional help to change, because right now, by marrying the man she has and surrounding herself with the friends she has, she doesn't have a significant problem.

ENormaSnob · 03/10/2019 22:04

Alice is an arse hole.

cstaff · 03/10/2019 22:10

Alice would do my bloody head in. It has to be all about her all the time. Anxiety or not, she needs to learn how to deal with it especially in circumstances like above.

buckeejit · 03/10/2019 22:31

Why doesn't Alice just miss the meal? Is there a church service? Any other friends of Alice's there?

Myimaginarycathasfleas · 03/10/2019 23:09

The last wedding I went to, the best man AND his wife AND their toddler were all on the top table. It was a lovely inclusive wedding all round.

However if the bride and groom didn't want the couple sitting together Alice should have simply declined the invitation.

mlockyear · 03/10/2019 23:35

Alice is being very unreasonable. I was heavily pregnant at my husbands best friends wedding. He was on the top table as he was best man and his ex girlfriend was also on the top table as maid of honour. I would never have dreamt of asking the bride and groom to change the arrangements (I just wish I could have had a few drinks)

BrightYellowDaffodil · 04/10/2019 06:08

@DeRigueurMortis an excellent post :)

ScreamingValenta · 04/10/2019 07:24

People keep disregarding this segment of the OP:

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.

Yes, it might not have been possible or practical to seat Alice at the top table, but when this was declined, she suggested Ben sat with her - at which point it seems Carl and Donna simply sacked Ben as best man.

Youseethethingis · 04/10/2019 07:27

We took an Alice approach to our wedding. Couples and friends sat together, none of this splitting people up for the sake of what I consider strange rules about a “top table”. Our best man was at another table with his BF, everyone was happy and the speech was one of the best best man speeches in the history of Ever!
I’m one of two bridesmaids for my oldest friend and they are doing the traditional top table so DH will be stuck with the other bridesmaids awful DP for a few hours at another table. Not fun and not necessary in my view, however I would never dream of mentioning it let alone causing a big fuss over it. My role is to support and help my friend, not give her extra stress!
Alice is a massive PITA and totally out of order to kick off like this, anxiety or not.

Farfarfaraway · 04/10/2019 07:58

So let me get his right she can’t sit without her husband for a couple of hours yet she wants to be on the top table which is the main focus of the meal with everyone facing that way or looking that way.
Ok strange anxiety

SnuggyBuggy · 04/10/2019 08:41

I don't get why post about this now but I feel sorry for Ben if his wife's behaviour drives people away. He's going to end up lonely.

StillCoughingandLaughing · 04/10/2019 08:44

People keep disregarding this segment of the OP: 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.

Who is disregarding it? It doesn’t change anything. It’s still Alice desperately trying to get her own way at someone else’s wedding.

Nicolastuffedone · 04/10/2019 08:45

I don’t even know Alice and she’s annoying me.....