Wedding drama!!

[Pebblesx]

I was invited to a hen do last weekend. My child was ill and to be honest,

1. don’t like leaving my kids when they’re unwell (I remember being a child & when I was poorly all I wanted was my mum)
2. I wouldn’t be able to enjoy myself as my other half just isn’t as understanding and if there were any issues, would have left it for me to worry about when I got home
3. i am a bit of a socially awkward person anyway and none of my close friendship were going, so I feel I wouldn’t have enjoyed myself as much as I’d like

i cancelled, yes, it was probably not the right thing to do, but as mentioned above, I had my reasons! a couple days later I got a message from the hen and she basically said she can’t have us come to the day as she can’t risk losing the money and seats etc. fair enough. But she wasn’t honest and i wuld prefer honesty, athough it would have made me feel rubbish, the truth hurts. so she basically rold me were not invited to the day, but the evening. to add to this, i then saw a notofication that i had missed whereby the hen was added to the group chat, uploaded pics of them all, rhen i was immediately removed from the group (by someone else, which shows it was topic of conversation among them!)

the more i think about it, the more it hurts and im questioning my morals. my predicament is - do i leave it, move on and act like norhing has happened, or do i say "thanks but no thanks". people get ill, circumstances change and EVERYONE at some point has had to cancel plans last minute, its life.

i paid for myself and i paid extra for the hen (not everyone did) so the only person that missed out and was inconvenienced is me. i hadnt even met all but 2 of them, so my not being there wouldnt have changed any of their plans or circumatqnces, instead probaby benefited them as they could make use of my food and alcohol package!

am i overthinking this? or is she being unreasonable and they spent time b'tch'ng and plotting to uninvite me?
genuinely curious as i feel like my anxiety is taking over and causing me to doubt myself, but at the same time, im thinking this is petty playground drama and im too old for this rubbish!

I'm on the fence with this one. I can understand not wanting to leave your child because they're ill but honestly if you can't trust their own father to parent properly with a poorly child while you're away then he's pathetic and you're a mug for putting up with it. It's learned incompetence, he doesn't have to step up because you're there doing the bulk of the work for him.

She probably sees you as flaky with cancelling last minute. It's all well and good covering your costs but if something came up on the actual wedding day she doesn't necessarily want her costs covered, she wants her guests there and I'm guessing would rather invite someone else she can be confident will turn up than a potential empty seat, albeit a paid for seat.

Your reasons for not going sound a bit rubbish to be honest. I probably wouldn't have uninvited you from the actual ceremony but I do think I'd be worried you'd be a no show again.

Running away from social situations isn’t helpful to you. Best thing about attending what quite possibly was a nightmare of an event is that you get to know some of the other guests before the do. No doubt your DC would have liked you there, but it has to be possible for you not to be. It’s not healthy for you to fe the only one your DC can turn to and your excuse sounds a tad feeble. Sometimes you’ve got to suck it up and put yourself out of your comfort zone. That said, your friend has behaved badly in retracting your invitation, so put yourself outside that comfort zone and drop her.

What a cow.

I wouldn’t go.

I imagine one of the hens was only invited to the evening or something and she’s swapped you over

tbh you’ve come up with so many excuses but if you wanted to be there you would

im on the fence but leaning towards yabu and imagine there’s a back story of cancelling short notice

@Acc0untant if you can't trust their own father to parent properly with a poorly child while you're away then he's pathetic and you're a mug for putting up with it. It's learned incompetence, he doesn't have to step up because you're there doing the bulk of the work for him.

Plenty of women live with incompetent husbands. Even if they don't, sometimes small children really want their mum when they're ill and it can be hard to judge how serious it is sometimes. Real friends don't punish you for it, they send a message saying wish you were here and hope your little one gets better soon.

Not sure why lots of people having incompetent husbands makes it ok. Friends don't always have to put up with flaky people, maybe this is the only time OP has cancelled but the fact she's been invited to the wedding straight after leads me to think maybe she has form for it.

Who does that? How petty. When she’s a mum she may understand, though I myself would not have cancelled unless my child was very ill.
I wouldn’t go to any part of the wedding day.

Drop her

I’m upfront with people now, and say that I don’t do hen dos. Dropping out is bad form really

I’d reply ‘No worries, totally understand. All things considered I don’t think we’ll come to the evening do after all. I hope you both have a wonderful day.’

And I wouldn’t speak to her again.

She sounds vile.

The reasons behind why you dropped out of the hen do don’t sound great and 2 of them sound like you were looking for a reason not to go - I hope you only told the group/hen that it was because your child was poorly!

As for being downgraded as a result, it’s not great but perhaps the couple, I’m not saying just the bride as the groom gets to choose guests at his wedding too, had put you above other friends/more distant relatives when planning the wedding and had second thoughts after you dropped out of the hen do and decided this was an excuse they could use to swap the invitations around - crap but happens!

Is the wedding relatively local that you can attend just an evening do without too much hassle or expense or would you need to book a hotel room or travel a long distance for a couple of hours that would make it a less exciting prospect?

I would also consider whether you want to continue with this friendship and if there would be fallout if you now dropped out completely before you make a final decision.

You should never have agreed to go in the first place. You are 100% a flaky friend and would have felt the same as the bride.

You were looking for an excuse not to go. Dropping out at the last minute for such flaky reasons is extremely rude.

The bride can’t be arsed with you anymore. I would decline the evening do and accept the friendship is damaged.

You are the flaky friend. You didn't want to go and came up with an excuse.

It's not the bride's fault you have a shit husband.

I can absolutely see why she would remove you from the meal. Would I do it? No, but can understand why she did.

As for WhatsApp group, you weren't at the hen do why would you want to be there spying? Very weird! I would assume they had much better things to do than talk about you.

I can understand you being hurt, but hopefully you can salvage your friendship when the bride isn't so hurt.

Kids wanting their mum when they are ill doesn't mean their other half is rubbish.

Downgrading someone's invitation and bitching about them because they didn't come to the hen do though is beyond crass.

Bin the wedding off, OP, the bride and her cronies don't deserve your time or money. Feel lucky you didn't waste your time or more money with these horrible women. I am sociable but would find it hard with a group like that.

I once went to a hen do with a group of old friends, but the women on the groom's side were a right bunch of bitchy chavs and were bloody horrendous, so so drunk from the first hour and just fucking nightmares, trying to get off with men even though they were all married as we were and just so competitive and back stabbing. We can drink, and like a dance and they probably thought we complete stuck up bores but I've never been so glad of my group of friends. My friend is still happily married, and her DH is lovely but they live quite far away from his family!

Unless you have form for lots of last minute cancellations, the bride is being very unreasonable.

If you do repeatedly cancell, I can see that she might be angry that you did it again, and downgraded your wedding invite out of frustration.

If you value her friendship, and if you want to go to the evening event, then accept the invite. Refusing would probably be the end of the friendship.

The OP's second point is literally how she doesn't trust her husband to deal with things.

I think you’re both unreasonable really. You flaked out at the first opportunity - your child was ill but it was an excuse as you didn’t know anyone else - and she’s unreasonable to downgrade you. I personally wouldn’t go to the evening do.

I find it astonishing that so many women can detach from worrying about a poorly child, even with a hands on partner.

I wouldn't have been able to enjoy a hen do under those circumstances and probably would have abstained from alcohol in case I was needed back home quickly.

YANBU @Pebblesx

I wouldn’t be able to enjoy myself as my other half just isn’t as understanding and if there were any issues, would have left it for me to worry about when I got home

This stood out to me- maybe she’s annoyed you cancelled because your other half is a useless man baby? I’ve had friends with partners like this before and it is wearing when they’re forever cancelling things because they can’t trust their partners to parent properly.

I don’t think theres any evidence they sat around bitching about you though- I am sure she had better things to do on her own hen do. That’s your anxiety talking.

It does read as though you were glad of an excuse not to go. Given that your post is all about the events surrounding the hen do, it's reasonable to assume your child's illness wasn't very serious and they could have been left with your partner. There's nothing wrong in not wanting to go to a hen do, for any reason, but you should have declined it from the outset.

Last minute drop-outs for events are so common now, and it's rude and annoying unless there is a genuine emergency. You can no longer take someone's 'yes, I'll come' as meaning it - it means 'I might turn up if I feel like it and don't get a better offer'. I can understand why the bride has downgraded your invitation, as you've shown yourself to be unreliable - I'm not sure why you think she was dishonest - she doesn't want to risk her money being wasted on people who might decide at the last minute they don't feel like going, which is reasonable.

You weren't a party to the hen do so it's logical to remove you from the group chat.

If you want the friendship to continue I think you need to move forward with good grace. Accept you didn't behave very well and go to the evening event. Or, if you're not bothered whether you remain friends, drop this group from your life - you are under no obligation to continue a friendship from which you've mentally moved on.

It’s normal to remove people from the group who haven’t attended the event. Personally I don’t like photos and drinking stories shared with lurkers.

Look you didn’t really want to go to the hen and you largely found reasons to cancel from the sound of it. If it was just your child being really unwell you would have left it at that and not included all the waffle about being socially awkward and not having fun.
You’re obviously not that close to her to drop out at the last minute in part due to worrying you wouldn’t have enough fun!

How old is your child & how ill were they? I mean there’s a difference between a 2 month old that might need hospital treatment & a 5 year old with a sniffle.

I suspect your social anxiety means the DC are less used to being left with dad & he’s less used to dealing with the difficult parts of parenting.

I can understand why you didn’t want to go, but I’m sorry it does sound like you were being flakey.

This.