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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to be annoyed that friends marriage is over after 2weeks!

388 replies

Littlewhitedoves · 12/10/2023 10:08

AIBU to be annoyed at spending so much money on my friends dream wedding day for it all to be a sham and over in a matter of weeks. I know it sounds selfish but I can't help feeling so upset at the amount of effort I went to and money I spent on making it amazing for her. She is being so blasé about the whole situation and laughing about it being the shortest marriage, she knew it wasn't going to last etc. I've tried speaking to her seriously about it to get a better understanding. We knew he maybe wasn't the right fit for her and I could totally understand her decision if it was a DV situation but she said they are not right for each other. She said she didn't want to let people down and would've been embarrassed to cancel. She wanted her fairytale day and the wedding of dreams.

Three Hen Do's, one in Tenerife, one at home and a UK trip also bottomless brunches, dress try ons with lunches. The hotel for the wedding was £450 for a room to stay over plus every other expense that goes with a wedding, outfits, shoes, bag, make up, drinks. That takes me to a few thousand pounds easily. Then don't get me started on the wedding gift!! Just makes me so mad. I surely can't be the only one feeling like this!?

She gave no indication that there was anything wrong in the relationship and I understand totally that you never know what is going on behind closed doors. Obviously her happiness comes first and is more important than money but it has just irked me that I spent so much and put so much effort into little details to make it really special and essentially the guests funded a day for her to feel like a princess and it was never about getting married.

OP posts:
Sugarfree23 · 13/10/2023 21:09

@Julescan you might be better starting your own thread in Relationships.
No harm in doing it. I wouldn't spend a lot though.

If it helps keep things amicable between you then it will be money well spent. You have a long time of co-parenting in front of you.

Julescan · 13/10/2023 21:12

Sugarfree23 · 13/10/2023 21:09

@Julescan you might be better starting your own thread in Relationships.
No harm in doing it. I wouldn't spend a lot though.

If it helps keep things amicable between you then it will be money well spent. You have a long time of co-parenting in front of you.

Thanks so much, new to this and didn’t realise I was adding a comment to another post. Going to see if I can delete this one 🙈

MadisonR · 13/10/2023 21:12

I see your point of view, she just wanted the fancy do's and a load of fuss made over her. She must have had an inclination things weren't right beforehand.

Some friends were married less than a year following a huge no expense spared wedding and honeymoon in Venice. This was all paid for by the grooms parents and then she was off with someone else.

Cornishclio · 13/10/2023 21:16

Luckily no one I am close to has done destination weddings but I would give them a wide berth as well as the costly hen dos etc. If you enjoyed them just think of them as holidays, meals out etc as undoubtedly someone has had to foot the bill for the actual wedding which presumably is even more. I kind of get why you are annoyed though but as others have said you could have said no although it might have jeopardised your friendship.

Blackandwhitemakesgrey · 13/10/2023 21:19

What do people even say at a third wedding. "Well, here we are again. Thanks for coming out. We've got a nicer champagne and it's lamb this time, so that's a bit different"

😂

CruCru · 13/10/2023 21:21

SurprisedWithAHorse · 13/10/2023 20:33

If you begrudge time and emotional energy for a wedding, you clearly aren't actually friends, so don't go.

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I’d begrudge using up my annual allowance for a hen do abroad. You only get a limited amount of annual leave.

Springingintosummer · 13/10/2023 21:23

Ask for the gift to be returned. Ad no marriage.

Jacesmum1977 · 13/10/2023 21:24

Iwasafool · 12/10/2023 10:52

Maybe she's heartbroken but she's hiding it well. Maybe he did something unforgivable and she doesn't want to tell you.

I've been married twice, the first time I was young and madly in love. Back then it was unusual to live together before the wedding so we had great fun equipping our flat that was to be our first home. We had a nice wedding, low key compared to your friend. Eight days after the wedding I was contacted by a woman who worked with my husband. She told me they had been in a relationship for nearly a year, she was pregnant and as a final slap in the face the night before the wedding they had sex in the bed we had bought, so on my wedding night I was in a bed where they'd had sex less than 24 hrs earlier. I was so embarrassed, so ashamed I told no one. My heart was broken and I couldn't share it.

So I'm probably biased but I'd worry she's hiding something distressing. I do sympathise with your irritation though.

Reading this made me feel sick.
I’m sorry that happened to you although it was probably a good thing now; I hope anyway x

SurprisedWithAHorse · 13/10/2023 21:28

LuluBlakey1 · 13/10/2023 20:59

Nonsense. You don't have to agree with everything friends want to do. Our best friends didn't want to come to France on holiday with us- doesn't nean they're not our friends.Rural France just isn't their idea of a holiday.

Show quote history

That's a holiday, not a wedding.

Time and emotional energy are literally the things you're supposed to have for friends.

GreyGoose1980 · 13/10/2023 21:29

70sDuvet · 12/10/2023 10:29

I'd say she is putting on a brave face.
Noone would actually get married for a laugh or to feel like a princess. Something has gone badly wrong in her relationship for it to be over so quickly.

It's very difficult to say stop I can't do this when everyone has paid to come, the dresses bought, people have travelled. At least she has backed out now rather than staying in a bad relationship for years.

If you are truly her friend you will be there for her. As someday that "oh what a laugh" mask will come off and you will find out the truth of why the marriage ended so suddenly.

This

golden1989 · 13/10/2023 21:47

You have every right to be pissed off IMO, but unfortunately it's done now. To make peace with it you'll have to take it as an expensive lesson learned for future weddings & that u spent it making good memories & a stay in a fancy hotel :-)

Blackandwhitemakesgrey · 13/10/2023 21:48

DH has an old uni friend whose marriage broke up either on honeymoon or shortly after they returned from honeymoon.
His friend was devastated. He hadn't seen it coming. He thought his ex was having an affair as she had had one and he thought it was over before they decided to get married.
When they returned from honeymoon, she told him she didn't love him.

He found out later that she had told mutual friends that the reason it was over was because he had physically hit her. He was devastated and really embarrassed. Maybe he did hit her but DH said he'd really doubt it. She was in a 'new' relationship within a couple of months after splitting up.

Its an awful thing to say but knowing the above story means I don't automatically believe it when I read that marriages broke up because of physical abuse. Sadly I think this is sometimes the reason people give because it makes the break up understandable.

helpplease01 · 13/10/2023 21:55

I completely get what you’re saying. I feel exactly the same way. She’s shallow and self absorbed. No emotional intelligence.
who goes through that and doesn’t confined in closest friends that you think this may be a mistake?
To be honest, I feel it’s extremely unaware and selfish to expect your dearest friends to spend so much money on your wedding day.

BOOTS52PollyPrissyPants · 13/10/2023 21:58

Thanks Lulu I agree my sister got married many many years ago and only close family/friends local and was the best wedding ever as we all danced all night and everyone so relaxed and comfortable and food amazing. Now it is all for show and am not like that at all, would hate all the attention on me anyway. Agree it is a lot of stress and palaver. I will see how things go but know others will not understand as they are well off and people forget how it is when you are living on a lot less. Appreciate your input.

Feetofanurse · 13/10/2023 22:05

YABU.. You were invited to her preparations and the wedding day and voluntarily attended. How much money you spent on these occasions was also your choice. I would guess your friends apparent lack of care about the breakdown of the marriage is bravado. If that was my friend I would reach out to offer them support, love and care.

tkwal · 13/10/2023 22:08

Without knowing more about the couple , I couldn't judge. I know after I got married we felt like we were beginning our relationship all over again. Might they reunite after a period of adjustment ? Or is it that she wanted the wedding but not the marriage ? The pre wedding celebrations do seem excessive , she must be a very good friend for you to have spent that much, or is that par for the course in your friend circle ?

AmandasFleckerl · 13/10/2023 22:21

I can’t imagine how awful this must be for your friend. Being judged by people purporting to be friends, the subject of gossip and having to face the aftermath of her marriage ending after such a short time. You’re presumably not the only one who spent a lot of money and you willingly accepted the invites to all of these pre wedding events. I wouldn’t spend £450 to stay over at anyone’s wedding not even my brother. The rooms were £250 for the hotel at his reception and I didn’t pay that. If you could afford it you paid for a service that you received and I assume that you enjoyed the day. And as for the gift, it was just that, a gift which you decided to spend however much on. If it was offered to be returned then I probably would accept it but I would never ask for a gift to be returned, I don’t know how I would even broach it.

Fatcat00 · 13/10/2023 22:26

I’d be annoyed too

IveHadItUpToHere · 13/10/2023 22:28

No woman has a wedding day to be a 'princess' with the intention of leaving two weeks later. And tbh no friend would be counting the financial cost when there's obviously a much bigger emotional cost to the person who has just had to end their marriage after two weeks.

T1Dmama · 13/10/2023 22:29

sunglassesonthetable · 13/10/2023 18:41

No one should stay in a bad marriage longer than they have to but what jumps out at me is THREE ( yes three ) Hen Dos , not forgetting one was abroad and those bottomless brunches ( plural )

WTF? All for one wedding?

Is that the standard now? Seems so gratuitous and over the top.

I suspect some people couldn’t make the one abroad so they had one here too for those people…. However some brides expevt everyone who went abroad still to attend the one here too…. It gets ridiculous & I don’t understand people having the big expensive hen dos… I’d rather plough the money into day trips on the honeymoon…

YoureALizardHarry11 · 13/10/2023 22:35

Each to their own but she sounds very immature putting on a show just to get the fairytale and attention. I can’t say I’ve ever understood it. I wouldn’t be attending that charade in the first place. Who has three hen do’s? Very ‘look at me!’ 🤣

You shouldn’t have spent so much but at the same time I’d be pissed off with her anyway if she knew it was a sham. You still wasted money attending no matter how much, in the middle of a cost of living crisis. I’m guessing she rushed into it?

NanFlanders · 13/10/2023 22:55

My great aunt Gladys said she knew it was a mistake when she woke up on her wedding day, but her mam had already cooked the ham...

T1Dmama · 13/10/2023 22:57

Not that OP Iisprobably even bothering to read these, but I suspect something more has happened.
He cheated on honeymoon or she found out he slept with someone on one of his stag dos.. or something!
My cousin married a man who had already got another woman pregnant .. when she found out they obviously split up, (within months of the wedding)… no one was told and I just happened to find out through someone else…

Mamanyt · 13/10/2023 23:28

ComtesseDeSpair · 12/10/2023 10:15

I’d imagine she’s trying to put on a brave face and laughing it off because she’s upset, embarrassed, all the other emotions anyone feels when their marriage ends. Even looking at it from the purely financial perspective you are, do you really think she wanted to spend tens of thousands of pounds of her dream wedding and then break up a fortnight later?

This was my thought as well. I've seen people laugh things off in public then cry in private more than once.

pollymere · 13/10/2023 23:34

I went to a wedding where it was obvious the groom didn't give a jot about the bride and wanted a passport out of it. The bride was deeply in love and just thought he didn't want a wedding fuss. It was a beautiful wedding but we all sat on our hands during the ceremony. The groom spent the reception getting drunk with his mates and ignored the bride. When it was announced they weren't together anymore I was relieved to be honest.

I guess these days there is so much money being spent around attending and beforehand. I had a dress and shoes already and stayed with family. Hen-do was a night out. So costs were minimal.