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!

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

I mean, I may have not understood your post properly, but which part of her message wasn't 'honest'?

She didn't say, 'oh my sick granny can come after all, so sadly we've had to tailor the guest list'.

She didn't say 'we've decided to have a smaller wedding because my mum's going into hospital'.

She very honestly said: You're a flake and I don't want to spend money if you won't turn up.

I wouldn't call that bitching and plotting. I'd call that straight up telling you how it is.

I don't think you were unreasonable not to want to go in the circumstances, but I can see why you'd be considered flaky. I don't really think your friendship will survive this based on the bride's reaction, so you might as well cut your losses.

or, oh, do you mean she said you were only invited to the evening, but you have inferred from that that she thinks you are flaky and won't turn up?

In which case. Are you?

And - would you have felt better if she had said, look, I don't want to waste my money on you?

You are sending quite unreliable messages, plus second-guessing a lot of things: The bride's motivation, your partner's ability to look after his child, your child missing you.

You're right, there is a lot of wedding drama here, for sure.

Possibly so, neither show them in a great light tbh

Your child was mildly ill and had another parent present, but you pulled out. You didn't want to go and you would absolutely pull out of the wedding without a thought. I think she's been very sensible, though I'd never have had the balls to do that. If you don't fancy the evening, then pull out now so she's clear on numbers. Next time you don't want to do stuff, decline straight away as it saves everyone effort, including you!

You clearly didn't want to go and cancelled late as soon as you found an excuse. Your child had her father to stay with. You were flakey and she's right to downgrade you and invite someone who'll turn up instead

How did you get to know the bride and how well did you know her / how many years
Dud ye have a close friendship or just acquaintance?

You are right that you did nothing wrong in missing the hen. Sounds like the right decision in the circumstances. You’ve nothing to feel bad about.

But I don’t think that being removed from the group chat was necessarily a bitchy move. Maybe the admins thought you wouldn’t want to be bombarded with photos of a weekend away that you weren’t at. I probably wouldn’t.

As for being downgraded from a day to evening guest, I agree with you that this is a bit off. But I guess this is ultimately the b&g’s decision.

I wouldn’t confront the bride about it. I can’t think that there’s that much to be said. You made your decision and she has made hers. I don’t think one should flow from the other but nevertheless that’s what’s been decided. I guess it’s up to you if you still go to the wedding. To me it would be based on how far away it was and whether I wanted to catch up with the other guests. No one ever gets much face time with the b&g anyway.

The amount of posts on MN about hen do’s makes it very clear that very few people actually like going to them ( especially abroad ones) and don’t want to spend a lot of money on them as they will also more than likely be spending quite a lot on the actual wedding day
Why do brides think people want to fork out loads of money on THEIR wedding

I think this is true. I have been on a lot of hen dos and declined a few. The hen-dos I have enjoyed have been the simpler ones. Not ones where 30 people have been invited to the arse end of nowhere with a range of mad activities that I would never choose to do outside of a hen do.

you don’t know they where bitching about you, you were removed from the WhatsApp chat as you weren’t at the hen do. I’m sure they have more interesting things to discuss than a non attender. You were probably mentioned in passing, maybe the hen felt let down by someone she thought was a friend. You could have declined the original hen do invite based on reasons 2 & 3 but to accept and then bail a few days beforehand is a bit wet.

You didn’t want to go to the hen party so you didn’t. As a result, she doesn’t want to invite you to the wedding daytime, so she’s not. No one is being unreasonable as such, you’re just making your own choices and this is the consequence.

I’m not sure why you would remain in the group chat if you weren’t at the event. They will all be sharing photos and stories which you’re not a part of.

I guess maybe the folk who do like them wouldn't make a thread about it?

Some folk may see them as a fun holiday or minibreak and not mind.

I've been on two memorable ones, and a much larger number of 'few drinks together and cake' ones. Loved them all apart from a couple of the latter where it became a bit too much of 'let's get more drunk than we've ever been' , any event like that becomes a bit boring and a waste of time IME-and I like to have a drink! But something else needs to be happening too.

Yes, this. But as VMO says, I'd be nice about it. Nice card. No hint of stress or acrimony.

Yep. Agree with this. There's nothing dishonest about her reason for not inviting you. You've outed yourself as a flake and she doesn't want to take the risk.

You are too flakey to risk a day-invite.

My DH was a bit inept at times but he would have been livid if I’d used his incompetence as an excuse to bail on an important social event.

If your post had just said you couldn’t attend as your child was unwell I’d have been on your side. The other points make it sound like you were glad to have a flimsy reason to get out of it.

I don't think anyone has covered themselves in glory here tbh. Your reasons for pulling out of the hen do at the last minute were a bit feeble, and by your own admission you really weren't keen to go in the first place. It will have been very obvious to the Bride that you were glad of an excuse to skip it. Clearly, you should have just declined the hen do invite from the start. So YABU on that score. But if you were previously invited to the whole wedding (it's not entirely clear from your post) and Bride has now rescinded your daytime invite as a "fuck you" for missing her hen do, that's a pretty immature response.

As an aside, your DH is presumably a grown man so should really be capable of taking care of a mildly ill child without you supervising him. I suspect he is in fact capable and you just didn't want to go, but if he genuinely can't look after his own mildly poorly child then you should be far more concerned about that situation than whether or not a bunch of women you don't know have been bitching about you on a hen do.

How ill was your child? Did you communicate this to the bride?

If it was standard temp, cold, D&V etc then you should have gone - if you told her that they were very ill and A&E might be necessary then she's unreasonable.

I suspect it was the former given the lengths you've gone to bolster your case.

Whats wrong with your DP that he cant support his own unwell child - this is something you need to pay close attention to.

..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'd be saying all of this to her

I wouldn't be bothering with the wedding, I don't think. She sounds bitchy, entitled and hard work.

Coming from the brides P.O.V I can see how annoying it is when people are flaky. Your child has two parents and it’s not as if you’re separated and it was your custody time. You are unreasonable for thinking you can’t leave the man you deemed good enough to create a child with to look after said child when they’re ill. THIS is the issue you should be most worried about.

If youre constantly seeing yourself as the go to parent you’ll end up with a child who doesn’t want or respect your partner as they know that mummy is the one who calls the shots and daddy’s word doesn’t matter. You’ll also end up with a partner who resents you because you undermined them in their parenting and on top of that you’ll end up stressed and burnt out because everything child related falls on you but it will be of your own doing.

to be honest it sounds like your excuse for not going was weak and in reality you just couldn’t be assed and the bride knew this hence her retaliating in the manner she did.

The Bride may be a complete bridezilla, or it may be that you are flakey and she's had enough. Do have form for cancelling plans last minute? It does sound like your child being poorly was convenient for you to be honest, it sounds like you didn't want to go and this was the perfect excuse to drop out. I'm assuming your child had a mild illness and not something serious like a hospital visit ( that would be very different and a genuine reason to miss it)

She doesn't want to have an empty seat at her wedding, and if you cancel at short notice that is likely what would happen. It's not always about money. I think she is well within her rights to do this, especially since from her POV your child's other parent should have been able to cope so you could go to the hen do. Just accept it and make your own decision about evening do. I do not understand all the social media/Whatsapp group stuff but it sounds like far too much drama, that you are better off without.

I can see both sides of this:
I feel you didn’t really want to go as you only knew two people there. Your kid being unwell gave you a perfect excuse to pull out.

From her point of view, you flaked. Your kid would have been fine with your husband.

You were flaky, and it backfired on you

I have a grudging respect for the bride for prioritising guests who are more likely to attend, TBH