AIBU to think friendship is over if I am uninvited to a wedding?

[Borisisuseless]

School friend who I used to see regularly in 2019 and previously was due to get married in late 2020. We used to talk about the wedding all the time in 2019 and it was very clear me and DP were invited (down to discussing what I would do with my then unborn child as it was a child free wedding). Seen a lot less of her in 2020 due to pandemic (we live an hour’s drive away) and I had a baby in early 2020. Wedding got postponed to late 2021 due to covid.

I felt like I was putting more effort into staying in touch and trying to arrange meet ups than her during the last year or so and she started becoming more and more vague when I asked about the wedding. A few weeks ago when I still hadn’t received an invitation I started thinking something was up but tried to maintain my usual chatty contacts. Eventually she asked to ring me and pretty much told me the wedding is smaller with only family and good friends (huh? I thought I was a good friend?!).

I didn’t say much because really what can you say, but we then caught up on other things - but obviously I have been feeling very hurt about this since that conversation and am not sure where to go from here. I strongly suspect our mutual friend (we have always met up and travelled as a 3) will be going - they live in the same town and have continued to meet regularly through the pandemic as they could meet outside for walks etc more easily so maybe they have remained close. I don’t want to put other friend in an awkward position by asking her outright if she is going or not but my gut tells me she is and our other friend is phasing me out of our friendship.

AIBU to think the friendship is effectively over? At this point I don’t feel like reaching out or making an effort to see her but maybe with some more time I will want to do this? Has anyone’s friendship survived this? I would 100% have invited her to my wedding (which also won’t be huge) but now I would feel foolish doing this as she has uninvited me from hers. Am not sure if I just continue to meet with other friend alone now without friend who appears to have dumped me? Just a bit confused as nothing changed from my side except a pandemic and a baby so a bit bewildered about what happened here?

I’d carry on with the other friend tbh, and leave the bride to it.

There’s a whole raft of reasons she’ll have for her distancing herself from you, but probably nothing you’ve done.

It’s shit. I feel for you!

If you’ve not had a falling out I would just leave her to it, and if she still considers you a friend she will get in touch and make that clear. If not, you have your answer. She has openly told you you are not ‘close friends’.

You can’t control what she is thinking or feeling. But what you can do is come up with your own boundaries and work out how you feel about it, so that it’s clear in your own mind and you feel you have some kind of closure in your own mind. It sounds like a horrible situation to be in, I’m sorry.

I think that if quality time is high up on your friends needs - then not seeing you (for legitimate reasons errr lockdown - but the feeling is not logical) will have affected how close a friend she views you as.

It does hurt though especially as you were so involved previously.

I'm not sure that you can class yourself as being uninvited if you never received an invitation in the first place. You just have to accept that this person wants a small wedding. If it turns out that loads of other friends end up going then yes it could be a bit hurtful but maybe they are struggling financially or have other reasons for wanting to keep the numbers down?

Lots of people decided to scale back their weddings because of Covid, so you not making the final guest list isn't necessarily a sign she doesn't want to be friends. She rang you to tell you herself when, let's face it, she could've just texted or even ghosted you. That can't have been an easy call to make. So yes, it hurts, but I don't know that I'd write her off just yet.

Don't write her off. Covid has meant alot of wedding s are vv small. Sounds like she doesn't know how to tell you she had to change her wedding plans. Just send a card and leave the door open

Did she actually say to you it's close or good friends only?

As surely that is specifically saying you are not close or good friends and is tactless as hell!

So yes pull back fir now and see how it goes. Does she make any effort with you any more or were you making the effort.

You weren't really invited in the first place and she probably felt really awkward as it sounds like she's had to scale it right back. A lot of people have.

Just let it fade naturally by not running after her but making arrangements with other friend as normal. If she's there, well and good, if she contacts you see how you feel about meeting up.

You are not required to invite everyone who has ever invited you to a wedding to your own wedding - invite who you like and if anyone asks just smile and say "oh numbers, you know how it is" and leave it at that.

I think you’ve drifted apart because of Covid, distance and you having a baby since the wedding was originally planned, so it’s not that surprising that you’re not invited to the much smaller wedding. I’m not surprised it stings a bit, but I wouldn’t write off the friendship, even if it’s less close than before. Unless you no longer like her.

I wouldn't ask the friend - I'd just leave her to it and limit the amount of airtime I gave it in my head.

I've never really understood the mentality that all friendships have to be equal (IE how you feel about someone is the same as how they feel about you).
I have a friend from school who was my bridesmaid. I have a few friends, but not loads but I'm very loyal and close to those I have. She has a huge collection of friends and I'm under absolutely no belief that I'll be a bridesmaid at her wedding. It doesn't bother me at all because our friendships are very different.
You said yourself contact has been reduced due to covid. If she's had to make tough choices with the Guestlist (which are hard at the best of times) of course she's going to pick the friend who she sees more regularly than the one she chats to ad hoc a few towns away. It certainly doesn't mean the friendship has to be over, or that you cant invite her to your wedding .
If you still enjoy each others company, then keep seeing and speaking to each other. If you don't, or your calls go unanswered regularly or you get one word replies to your messages etc, then yes the friendship is probably dying out. People make friendships so complicated and such hard work when it really doesn't have to be like that.

I guess you didn't notice the drift as much because you have a baby to look after 24/7 but she obviously feels things have changed. Which happens a lot when people start families. Don't be too offended and just go with what you genuinely feel about her.

As well as people now rethinking events, lockdown made people reconsider friendships and even relationships with family. A lot of people are scaling back everything. Don't go to any particular trouble to keep in contact, but friendships don't have to be all or nothing. It's fine to have casual friendships. Could it be you having a baby?

OP I am going to be in your friend’s position soon and honestly it sucks. We had a huge wedding planned pre-covid, which we postponed once and then eventually cancelled, but have said we will organise again properly in future once we’ve had kids and the pandemic rules are truly gone.

Partly due to covid and partly due to getting pregnant, I’ve found that the friends we saw often pre-covid are quite different to who we see often now. Our priorities have also changed hugely and we are no longer looking for a massive party but just a nice day with our closest friends and family. We want to uninvite about 60 people but know how awkward it will be - we haven’t fallen out with any of these people and still like them all, but just can’t afford spending £100 on each of them any more.

I’m sorry you’re hurt (it’s bound to sting) but it’s likely to be a budget issue and I would just leave the ball in your friend’s court going forward if you would still like to be friends with her.

As someone who is currently planning a wedding myself, it's so hard to make these decisions. Ours was cancelled in 2020 and now we have acquaintances who were invited to that one but have drifted since and we don't know whether to invite them again in 2022. It's really difficult to make a decision whether to still invite them - and whether they would still want to be invited! - It's all a bit of a minefield.

So although I feel for you with this I also feel for your friend. She's having a small wedding and you've obviously drifted a bit.

As previous posters have said, friendships don't have to be all or nothing. It might just be a more casual friendship. She will have had to uninvite a lot of people if she's scaling back - you won't be the only one.

Try not to be bitter about it. She probably wouldn't have even realised it would upset you this much not to go.

Do you still want to try to keep the friendship going? If she is still friendly apart from this I would send a card for the day and keep going with it. If she seems to have lost all interest in the friendship then I would just make less and less effort and let it slide.

Of course you’re going to feel hurt especially as you’ve been discussing it before.

I think there’s so many reasons why brides are looking to have smaller weddings now after a postponement. It may be financial, most wedding insurance companies are not covering postponements and I know of a wedding venue that charged a couple £5,000 to move their wedding to the following year. They had already paid £10,000. There’s would have been in April 2020 when you were only able to have 15 people so it was really harsh. If they have agreed to something like this, you can understand why they would be scaling back numbers. If the bride or groom has a big family they may not be able to invite as many friends. I was lucky to have the wedding I wanted in the summer, but I was prepared to go ahead with 15 or 30 people if we had to, so we would have had to uninvite guests. I would hope that my friends would have been understanding and still happy for us.

Thanks everyone for the kind words.

@MzHz It’s my turn to host the next gathering at my place soon but am hesitating and unsure whether to just invite mutual friend (which would then clearly reveal that there is an issue with the getting-married friend) or just invite them both as usual (and take it as a sign if getting-married friend finds excuses). Don’t massively feel like seeing getting-married friend at the moment obviously but also don’t want to necessarily burn my bridges.

@Bancha yes you are right I do feel like I need some sort of closure. It is much more complicated with friendships than romantic relationships as there is less of a definite end

I think you are the one being a bad friend here.

A good friend would be understanding and supportive, and reassure her that of course its completely fine, you understand she cant have everyone she wants at her wedding, there are always cuts to be made, and she can rely on you to accept gracefully and support her from the sidelines

Weddings are a bit of a blip really. Months - years given covid - of planning and gone in a flash.

I have close friends now that weren't invited to our wedding and have lost some friends that were there.

I'd let things slide a bit from your end - sending a good wishes card is a nice idea - and see how things unfold without expending too much emotional energy on her.

@Cherryana getting-married friend definitely pulled back more during covid. Of the 3 of us she was by far the most anxious about covid. Me and other mutual friend both have kids in nursery so were doing more mixing anyway whereas getting-married friend worked at home throughout and only saw people outside. I thought it was just covid but maybe she was pulling back from me for other reasons

@jessie436 they could be wanting to keep numbers down as they are anxious about covid, and they are house hunting at the moment so that is a reason to keep costs down (but they already own property and one partner comes from a wealthy family so I doubt money is the reason)

@Orangejuicemarathoner I haven’t for a moment let on to her that I am unhappy about being uninvited (I was quite nonchalant after she told me as I was very much expecting it after the radio silence on the wedding - even though she knows as well as I do that the original plan was for me to be there) as I don’t want her to feel bad and don’t want the friendship to end (but feel that this is a sign that she does, and am just feeling rather rubbish about it).

@Loudestcat14 yes I took that as a positive sign that she called me to tell me and we continued to chat for another 30 mins after that about life, work, families etc. But I also learned that her and our mutual friend are planning a city break together for mutual friend’s 40th which I was not invited to (we often used to go in together on presents for each other and so I asked her if she wanted to do this or if she had sorted her own present this year). The planned weekend away is going to be a few weeks after my 2nd child is due - not sure if they arranged it for then because it was convenient or because they knew it would definitely mean I wouldn’t be able to come). So another not good sign :-(