Invited to a hen weekend - not to the wedding.

[Pebblexox]

Hi all.
Posting on phone so sorry if format is funny.
Over the last year I reconnected with an old friend, she recently got engaged and has a wedding booked for next year. She's getting married abroad, so I assume a semi intimate so wasn't expecting an invite due to only recently becoming friends again.
I've been invited on her hen weekend which will cost me over £200 to attend, not including travel etc.
However I've been added into a group chat with all the people going on the hen and it seems I'm the only one not invited to the wedding. I had no problems with not being invited, however now they're all talking about what they'll be doing the night before the wedding I feel rather awkward and a bit meh about it, and I don't want to go and that be all they're discussing whilst I sit in the corner like a lone recluse.
Would I be being unreasonable not to attend the hen? Or am I just being silly?

[AlexisCarringtonColbyDexter]

I can't imagine anything worse than a Hen weekend away with people you don't know

Exactly this. I dont know why people are acting as if going on a hen weekend is your only chance to have fun in life. I adore my friends but every hen weekend Ive been on has been pretty cringeworthy and everyone got really drunk. Thats cool- no judgement, its what hen dos are usually about but they arent usually a great place to properly catch up and have long chats with people. I cannot imagine anything worse then an entire weekend spent with people I dont actually know.
I would not spend £200 on that. Sorry.

[Jocundest]

Oh, I can entirely see why the OP doesn't want to go, especially if, having fallen out of touch with the bride to be, she doesn't know any of her other friends. All I'm saying is that I don't think the OP's friend was in any way entitled/rude to ask if she'd like to go on the hen weekend -- as is so often said on Mn, it's an invitation, not a summons. It may be that the friend wanted to mark the OP being back in her life, and that she was happy about that.

It might be that if the OP and the friend had reconnected a year earlier, the friendship would have rekindled to a level of closeness to merit a wedding invitation. Or that she would have been invited to a wedding if it happened in the UK and was larger.

[Rezrex]

I was a MOH a few years ago at a friends wedding. The bride wanted to invite friends to the hend do that were not invited to wedding. One person declined coming to hen do due to this reason. I spoke with 3 who did come and they were really excited (genuinly). They basically said "I know we haven't been that close in the past years that we would be invited. But it's so nice to come to here and share this". So I feel like it really depends on the person and how people think about the hen do. If you don't want to go then that is fine.

[SoPanny]

I completely agree that the “payback” element doesn’t make sense to me either but in my mind it boils down to this:

What on Earth is the motivation of the bride here as heaven help me i would feel like a grade A turd inviting someone to the hen and not the wedding.

It’s like inviting 13 people to a birthday party and slicing the cake 12 ways: why would you do that?

[MimiLaRue]

What on Earth is the motivation of the bride here as heaven help me i would feel like a grade A turd inviting someone to the hen and not the wedding

I agree. I dont know how I could even look someone in the eye when inviting them to a very expensive hen weekend yet then snubbing them for the actual wedding.

How embarrassing.

[Jocundest]

What on Earth is the motivation of the bride here as heaven help me i would feel like a grade A turd inviting someone to the hen and not the wedding.

It’s like inviting 13 people to a birthday party and slicing the cake 12 ways: why would you do that?

I don't see it that way, I see it as inviting a friend to whom one is not very close to one event where there's no pressure on numbers, but not to another, related event which does.

[FTstepmum]

Blimey! She sounds horrid - and quite clearly misunderstands the etiquette of wedding culture.

[Pebblexox]

Thanks all. All responses have been super helpful!!

[Timekeeper1]

I don't see it that way, I see it as inviting a friend to whom one is not very close to one event where there's no pressure on numbers, but not to another, related event which does.

That would be fine if for example, their were 12 hens guests, and 6 were invited to the wedding and 6 weren't, or 7 were and 5 weren't, or even 3 maybe. But ALL of them going to the wedding but ONE? That's not very nice. So, say, 11 going to the wedding. 1 not invited. That's really awkward for that 1 person who hasn't been invited. Surely you can see that? What you're saying would work if there were more than one not invited.

[Jocundest]

Honestly, @Timekeeper1, I have deep sympathy when a child is the only one in the class not invited to a party and feels excluded and sad, but I think adults should realise it’s not necessarily some kind of Mean Girls exclusion scenario.

In the OP’s case, she’s only recently reconnected with an old friend, while other hens are presumably more longterm, established friends. It’s hardly a matter of ‘Hello, dearest friends, plus that loser who doesn’t rate an invite’...?

The one time I can think of that I was invited on a hen weekend with no wedding invitation, it was because I was a very new friend of the bride to be — we’d only known one another a couple of months by the hen weekend — and I went as much because it sounded fun and inexpensive (renting some remote coastal holiday cottages in winter) as because I liked the bride to be. I’d only met one of the others once, but I had a great time. Her philosophy was that she’d met someone new she liked and wanted to invite me.

I mean, I‘m not suggesting the OP should go, only that it’s not necessarily some deadly insult or calculated rudeness.

[AlexisCarringtonColbyDexter]

I certainly wouldnt say its calculated rudeness. I just think its completely thoughtless. In my experience, people do stuff like this without thinking how embarrassing or awkward it would be for that person, then get all huffy when they dont want to go to the hen.

A little consideration goes a long way, and it increases the chances of you actually getting what you want!