For getting married in the same month as my best friend?

[MumLife90]

My best friend and I have been besties since we were 5! Recently, she’s been acting strange with me and after asking what’s wrong, it’s come to light that she’s upset we’re getting married in the same month, 3 weeks apart.

She is having the big white wedding, me eloping with immediate family only and her, as to me, she is family (we also invited her husband to be and two sons, one of whom is my god son).

She explained that she’s upset we’ve planned it in the same month and said if it had to have been that month (which it did because of school holidays, other family commitments and financial benefits) then I should have asked her.

I didn’t ask her, because i genuinely didn’t see it as an issue. The reason being that they were two totally different weddings and with the exception of our wedding guests, no one else was going to know we were married until after the wedding so it wouldn’t detract from her day in anyway. Maybe I was selfish in this regard but had it been the other way, I really wouldn’t have had an issue.

Anyway, we then ended up telling people as she suggested doing so as people may be upset not that they weren’t invited, but because they weren’t told. It seems that it’s been after telling a specific group that she’s had these feelings again (but this is the first I’m hearing of it) and I can’t help but think they’ve stirred the pot and heightens emotions that were may be already there.

that’s by the by but I wanted to give as much detail as possible as I really want to understand if I have done something wrong. I hate that she feels like this and I would never intentionally try to hurt her or detract from her day in anyway.

i can’t help but wish we’d not told a single soul (including my best friend) and dealt with the negativity after the wedding instead of having the lead up tainted.

But what if the summer holidays is when op wants to get married? Why should she have to pick another holiday because her friend acts like a jerk.

You could both have genuinely concentrated on her wedding.

Why is the friend's wedding more important?

Tbh OP I think most brides/couples (whether they’d say it out loud or not) would be pretty irritated by being made to feel compelled to go on holiday, buy a new dress and suits, give a cash gift etc for their best friend within the same pay packet period as their own already-planned big wedding. You’re downplaying the ask on your guests by calling it eloping, it’s a destination wedding.

You have two choices.

Get married as planned with your family and enjoy a wonderful day and tell bf you understand why she can’t make it, and arrange to celebrate on your return.

You change the month and accommodate your best friend.

I would discuss it with your husband to be and your family. It’s best to come to your own decision.

My bf didn’t come to my wedding, she was heavily pregnant. It has never impacted our friendship at all.

The importance of weddings fade very quickly once it’s been and gone. I wouldn't load this with too much emotion. Let her decide if she can come, she may be overwhelmed. Or change the date.

Op it is your wedding, and special day, don’t let this problem overshadow it. Be decisive and if it has to be that month then just remove her from the guest list and go with your original plan.

Only if they are having a wedding they can't afford.

Then it’s a destination wedding, not an elopement. Also, how many is a few weeks? Like a fortnight after hers? Straight after her honeymoon?
Mumsnet love to call women bridezillas, but I understand why she would be upset too. It’s upstaging her a bit, I think you know that too, deep down.

It’s risky to pay for friend, her husband and her sons. What if they don’t turn up?

I think you’d be better off telling them it’s cancelled.

They have a perfect reason to decline - that it’s too soon for them after their own wedding.

Instead the bride has forced OP to tell everyone and made OP feel like shit.

OP - I’m like you and wouldn’t be bothered but I guess if you change the question to would it be weird for one sister to book her wedding in the same month as the other without even discussing it it might reframe the issue? I’d probably find the latter weird and it sounds like you are almost that close usually? Anyway, the fix is obvious - explain you didn’t realise it was a big deal but now you’ve thought about it you understand why it might bother her and your sorry about that, however there are logistical reasons that it has to be in that month but is there anything else you can do to make the situation better.

I think the best friend clearly doesn’t feel she can decline, if they are such good friends.

She is hoping to pressure op to change the date.

It’s very poor form to involve other people, and this is not showing her in the best light at all.

Because her friend did it first? If all mutual friends think it is a bit off too then it’s a bit strange OP is insisting she can’t understand.

We got married a different year to sil and bil so we could each enjoy our time as the wedding couple.

i kind of get how she’s feeling, she will want to be swept up in her wedding not thinking about her best friends wedding.

But no you shouldn’t have to ask permission to get married in the same month. It’s up to her if she attends not what you do.

im not sure there’s a lot you can do to resolve it, you havent really done anything wrong but to her you have taken away from her wedding. Only she can decide if she can let this go. You can apologise for not realising she would feel this way maybe. Hopefully once her wedding is over she will realise it’s really a day and normal life resumes pretty quickly after.

She’s being ridiculous. I hope you don’t both fall pregnant at the same time because that will be problematic for her too. Wedding month. Ffs.

The key point is the mutual friends aren’t invited.

They’ve been best friends their whole lives, maybe she doesn’t want or feel able to miss her wedding, but has just been honest that she feels OP’s planned it in a way that makes it difficult for her. And I’m not sure where you’ve got ‘forced’ from, the word OP herself used was ‘suggested’.

Hi OP
What’s done is done, so I can’t see it’s much use to you to have all these posts about whether you or she are being selfish. You asked about how to move forward with your friend and I think that bit of your posts hasn’t got much attention.

I wonder if it would help to think more about the friendship dynamic here and less about what is or isn’t ‘done’ for weddings.

I’m thinking it’s possible that she was excitedly planning her wedding,which is the biggest and most emotionally significant event of her life, with lots of input from you as her bestie. All great. Then suddenly she learnt…that you and she aren’t as close as she thought, because it turns out actually you’re planning your own wedding for a very similar timeframe, and hadn’t even told her about it until now, and are only now inviting her as an afterthought. You hadn’t needed or wanted her help and input with planning, or her emotional support, and maybe she feels shut out by that. Maybe she feels like you might think she’s a bit of a fool for doing all this big faffy planning. Maybe she feels you kept a big secret from her, while accepting her confidences. Maybe she feels marginal in your life, or a bit betrayed by your secrecy. And maybe those feelings, combined with the stress of wedding planning (some people find it stressful, some people don’t), are making it hard for her to tell you - or even to realise herself - why she’s so hurt, so she is latching onto the date issue as that’s easier to say she’s hurt or cross about, than to acknowledge all these other more vulnerable feelings.

Given your wedding is 3 weeks after hers and in school holidays I am going to guess they are getting married at the beginning of August. So to be able to go abroad in school holidays you could have either gone in July or the other end of August. July might have upstaged hers although a different month. 3 weeks later seems much mire reasonable.

If you are paying for her to be there as you give the impression you are then all the arguments she can't afford it don't add up.
And if she and her family (think you said her husband and children invited) were out the original equation there would only have been 10 of your family when first planned. Then she is being totally precious.
How can you fix it? I don't know. But maybe by the time you come home she will have realised that the world doesn't actually revolve around her and you have been quite thoughtful not just in your planning but in inviting her too.

Enjoy your wedding

Well no. You could have whatever budget you have, it doesn't then mean you have budgeted for another few grand a few weeks later! Given they've been best friends since they were 5, they are more like siblings. It would be strange to have the next wedding a few weeks later for most and a big surprise expense

I think your friend is being totally unreasonable. If you’d slotted in your date before hers, she might feel as though you’d ’stolen her thunder’ but it’s 3 weeks after. If it were me, I’d be grateful for something fun to look forward to once the adrenaline and excitement of my own wedding wore off.

Well no, that isn’t the ‘only’ conclusion at all.

Not unless you are the kind of person who posts endlessly about your big day for months and months afterwards….

Then you politely say "I'm sorry we can't make it, have a lovely time"

I missed a wedding of friends because I was on honeymoon. I'd have loved to be there in other circumstances, but it's just not the way things fell. I had no right to dictate their dates for my convenience.

My bridesmaid lost a friendship over my wedding. I set my date first and planned over a longer period. Her (not mutual) friend planned her wedding for 2 months before mine. It made no difference to me and it was quite nice having more wedding talk (lots of friends had hit wedding mode around then).
Bride 2 was a bridezilla anyway with far more appointments for hair/ beauty/ changing mind over dresses and re-ordering and consumed herself with jealousy that her BM was being BM elsewhere the same summer. It ended up blowing up over the stag weekend that seemed to turn into a second hen do, friend was "sacked" for "not being supportive enough" and never spoke to each other again including not going to the wedding a few weeks later

Weddings seem to turn some brides into power-crazed loons.

And the divorce rate for the bridezillas I've known is high and fast- I suspect they plough through the relationship ticking boxes, plough through tick boxing through the wedding planning. Maybe tick box through a baby or two. Then it all implodes when there's no other tick box features of the relationship to plough through and the relationship dynamic is not balanced and healthy enough to last the mundane years afterwards.

I’m a pretty reasonable person, I can look at it from all perspectives.

OP this is not a good thing. She just wants to focus on her wedding and enjoy that now she has to worry about you’re and travel. If I was in her shoes I would be fuming with you too. You’re just adding extra stress in a time when there is enough already.
she has every right to be annoyed with you as you have been very thoughtless.
i don’t understand all these responses who say she’s being a brizezilla, I don’t believe she is.

“Then you politely say "I'm sorry we can't make it, have a lovely time"

To your lifelong best friend? Yeah okay.

complete nonsense. how is it possible that any sane person would think she has the right to stop another's marriagesbecause she wants to "relax and chill" after her own wedding.
we have a plague of narcissism amongst young women.