Is friend a CF? Wedding Edition!

[Goldfish92]

Finally after many years & cancelling and rebooking our wedding, me and DH to be are tying the knot this summer.

A few weeks ago, DFriend announces she has booked her own wedding a couple of weeks later. This itself would never be an issue, I realise I do not have a monopoly on wedding and I’m not the only bride in the world!

However…

As we’re trying to save money wherever we can, I have been making lots of the decor/favours/flowers etc for my wedding. I had been sharing a lot of this with DF as we share everything & are very close. She had now started to say, firstly jokingly now seriously that she’ll have all my decor after me (for free!) and she likes all my ideas etc. She’s asking what my dress is like, what food, music etc too.

I’m also feeling pressured to help with her wedding when I already feel maxed out trying to get everything done for ours with 6 weeks to go! I’ve stopped sharing things with her as it’s a) making me feel uncomfortable but b) like she’s stealing my wedding! I’d also quite like to resell as much as possible and I feel pressured to give it all to her! It’s also making me feel like my day isn’t my own.

AIBU?!

As you’re apparently so close, tell her you’re hoping to recoup some money by selling stuff after the wedding and that someone else has already made a bid. Then she’ll have to start looking elsewhere.

Otherwise, you’re being silly and dramatic. It’s one day out of your entire life and nobody else cares about these minor details so I doubt even if you had the same guests attending, very few would notice any similarities between the two weddings.

At this point, I'm only surprised the friend hasn't suggested a double wedding "to save on expenses".

Be unavailable.

Don't let her have the decor

Stop discussing any of your plans

Your friend sounds a bit like a free rider, piggy backing on your hard work for free. Just thoughtless as well as cheeky, unless you want to sell it all to her?

It would be very reasonable to tell her, asap, that you’ve been thinking about it and realise she absolutely shouldn’t be relying on your ideas or decorations for her own wedding as you don’t know how you will feel about selling it all on so quickly afterwards and you will need to take your time to decide and just don’t want to be rushed. Tell her you have put so much love and effort into it all that you are bound to feel attached to it all for a while.

At the same time, tell her that you simply don’t have the head space or time to help her out in this very busy countdown to your own wedding which is imminent. Tell her you feel it will be impossible in the interim two week period to try to switch your attention to her wedding and in fact, you really want to feel the glow of your special day for as long as possible.

And tell her what sort of dresses you like or that you think would suit her, but you have decided to keep your own bridal gown a total surprise for everyone of course.

I would say

Jane, I am really excited you are getting married this summer too. I think weddings should reflect the couple, it would be best to keep them separate. I would love to help you after my wedding.

Would you like to meet for an hour and run through colours and ideas? I am going to be really busy preparing for my wedding for now, but how about x date. If see anything that really suits you/your style I will send links xx

And send a handful just to fulfill our obligations which are nothing to do with your wedding and tell your family or other friends your wedding plans instead op.

Wanting to know your ideas and maybe nicking some COULD be thoughtless.....expecting to be given your handmade decorations for no cost is deffo CF. This should be a happy, if busy, time for you so sadly I'd be dialling back on the sharing and telling her that you are going to put your work on ebay so need to keep it as fresh looking as possible so will only be using it for your wedding and then storing it carefully. You will of course be auctioning on Ebay so can't even set a price OR you'd be happy to sell to her but set a truly ridiculous price that you know she won't pay. Sadly i think either way you have lost a friend.

No! She only sent the final invite out last week…!

Thank you, this has actually hit the nail on the head for me…if she was helping and we were doing these final touches together I’d probably feel differently!

How strange of her! Is she having a very small, low key wedding then? I got married years ago but it takes ages to plan an average wedding I thought!

She's freeloading off the OP. If she were at least offering to contribute financially or help with the prep, it might be more acceptable.

The OP hasn’t done anything wrong. She hasn’t retaliated or caused drama. All she’s done is post on mn to ask if she’s being unreasonable for feeling used. Noone can be made to feel unreasonable for feeling off about something, surely?
She's trying to process an uncomfortable situation with a bit of outside perspective.

How would you feel if you spent time, effort and money carefully choosing flowers, table decor, planning everything to reflect your personal taste - only for someone to come along afterwards and act like they’re entitled to help themselves to it all, no discussion, no gratitude?

Sometimes when people defend this kind of behaviour, it makes me wonder if it’s because they’ve done something similar in the past and want to justify it.
The OP is being taken advantage of, plain and simple.

Can you honestly say you have never seen a tight, opportunistic, CF side of her before?

Because this is so cheeky it seems highly unlikely to come out of nowhere.

CF's are always on the lookout to make hay!

If you're very close, could you tell her how you're feeling and ask her to take the pressure off a bit?

Having said that, I wouldn't worry too much - her wedding is unlikely to be exactly the same as yours even if she has some similar stuff.

I get this, but just a fortnight later? Plus floral decorations look rather more individual than bunting.

I admit to being biased. It's not quite the same, but my mum was guilted into loaning her SIL her wedding outfit a year after her own wedding.

Mum told me that she sat at the reception, telepathically begging her SIL to remove it all when she saw her smoking at the top table.

The dress came back with sweat stains in the armpits and the veil had a cigarette burn. Mum was so disenchanted that when the SIL later asked to borrow the veil and headdress for another wedding on her side of the family, Mum handed them over. They were never returned.

Had they come back to Mum, I could have at least used the headdress for my wedding.

Actually, that's a good point. Our table decorations went to my mother and her sisters.

I totally get you OP. You have done all the thinking, planning, crafting.. only for your friend to then want to scoop up all your hard work instead of doing her own research, planning etc. I wouldn't be happy with this either.

Don't tell her anything, be vague with things, tell her you're undecided on some things if she is pushing you for info.

Similarly, my friend used to ask me what I was getting my DD for Xmas. Our DDs were the same age. I would spend hours looking up ideas, thinking, researching etc. ..and my friend wanted the ideas to steal. These were not necessarily the main gift but all the smaller gifts. I don't mind our DDs having the same things but I had literally spent hours rattling my brain, googling etc and doing all the donkey work to try to think of ideas.

No, she’s has inviting 60 people! We’re not far off that number ourselves.

She hasn’t allowed herself anywhere near enough time, so she is looking for short cuts!

Absolutely this

Ok I need all the advice to stay calm tonight MN…she’s just shown me her dress and it’s so similar to mine it’s ridiculous. I had to use all of my will power to stay calm. Luckily it was on a message so she didn’t see my face! I feel a bit like I’m going round the twist…

How strange of her! Why is she organising her wedding in such a hurry do you know?

FWIW please don’t worry - if anyone notices they’ll just think she’s been weird. But wedding dresses are largely pretty alike.

This sounds perfect to me!

They do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but this is getting ridiculous. However, wedding dresses can be pretty similar and most people will probably assume it’s the current trend for dresses.

I agree that dresses can be similar but mine is a very specific style, which you definitely wouldn’t say was a coincidence if you saw it! I could actually cry, is that stupid?

On the plus side, your wedding is first, so people will know that she's copied you if they notice the similarity.