Wedding no show. Was I unreasonable to block her?

[Nowtinit]

I got married earlier this year. It was a fairly big wedding. 100 guests with a sit down meal etc.

I used to have a friend who I was fairly close to back in the day. Knew each other from school. Had many a fun night out drinking in our youth as well as some holidays away etc. She got married and had her kids a few years back now (her children are 8 and 10 now) but we never lost contact and still saw each other regularly for the most part. She moved away 2 years ago to an area about 2 hours away from our home town. We still kept in touch but neither of us went to see the other as life was always just busy. But we were always friendly on text but they dwindled a bit as well.

Anyway when i was organising the wedding I messaged her to say I know we haven’t been in touch as much but I’d love it if she (and her husband and kids) could come to the wedding, but I understood if it was too much of a hassle coming the 2 hours back this way. She replied immediately saying she’d definitely be coming and would there be a hen do etc. I said there would be but I hadn’t organised that yet so would be in touch and would also send out a formal invite.

I sent the invite, she RSVP’d immediately for the whole family including the meals they wanted etc. Once the hen was organised I sent her those details (night out in our home town. Meal and drinks). She replied great I’ll be there!

Two weeks before the hen party (which was 4 weeks before the wedding) she text to say she’d forgotten it was her nephews birthday the same day as the hen so she couldn’t come. It was quite a blunt text (for her) but I said no problem and I was looking forward to seeing her at the wedding. She replied with “yes me too. I have our hotel and train all booked!”

Day of the wedding arrived, and she just didn’t show. I checked her instagram and she’d been posting pictures of her family as normal the week leading up to the wedding as well as on the day on the wedding (they appeared to be at a park or similar on the day). I gave it a few days to see if she’d get in touch but nothing. One evening (after a few wines) I did send a passive aggressive text saying I assume you couldn’t make the wedding then? She read it and didn’t reply. So I just deleted and blocked her on everything.

It’s been a couple of months now and I’ve pretty much just forgotten all about it. But the other night I woke up and I’d had 4 missed calls. 3 were withheld numbers and 1 was her husbands number. One of the withheld numbers had left a voicemail which was just people laughing hysterically followed by someone (female but not my friend) saying bitch really loudly. No idea if it was her/related to her but I’m guessing it was due to her husbands number also ringing me within a few mins of that message.

I don’t really get what happened? She was always a normal person. Not flakey. A good friend. Not aggressive or rude. Just…. Normal. Yes we’d lost touch a bit but we’d never fallen out. I always messaged her happy birthday and she did the same. Yes my post wedding text was a bit PA but the fact she didn’t even bother to let me know she couldn’t come or even apologise after the fact did piss me off a bit. We’d paid for the whole families meals etc and there was 4 wasted seats. To just not get in touch at all was just rude in my opinion. I was quite happy to just forget about her and carry on. But then this weird phone call/voicemail happened and its brought it all back up again. Especially as it seems very out of character for her to be so almost malicious. She’s never been like that before. But I guess maybe she’s changed in the past 2 years. Who knows.

Lol and we all know SM post reflects RL. Ignore she's been making an effort to make SM even more normal than usual, that's also a concern.

I’d block her too. It doesn’t seem there was a major family emergency if she was posting online. Even if she forgot (how if she said she’d booked hotel and train) she would’ve seen your photos online.

We don’t have any mutual friends. I don’t think I said anything anyway other than messaging my bridesmaid who was organising it to say she wasn’t coming. It wasn’t a hen party that mattered about numbers so her dropping out didn’t affect anything or anyone.

I think blocking people is childish. Either ignore her or have a conversation. But blocking stops the opportunity for any sort of explanation.

I would suspect the DH didn’t want to come & likely didn’t want her to come to hen do. Or she got the fear about an event with people she doesn’t know or no longer sees.

In any case a card & gift & apology for not attending would have been the best way to deal with it.

How does anyone know if she’s been making more of an effort than normal to appear normal? If something appears normal then why don’t we assume it is normal? Only the person making the posts can tell you if they are making more effort than normal. She posts pretty much every single day. She posted those days. How am I meant to know that’s more effort or not?

Because OP was enjoying her own wedding not chasing up no shows.

I actually kind of agree. In a way I wish I hadn’t blocked just to see. But I’ve done it now so I need to stick to it.

To be honest I would have contacted her after the wedding to make sure that all was ok. You seem very focused on her posting on social media, but equally she could have been posting old pictures from her camera roll while sitting in a hospital bed. It is poor form that she did not contact you.

I wonder was it a friend in the group that made the bitch voicemail and that she used the husband's phone to let you know.

If this was me I would have been furious! Very rude! I wud have messaged her with exactly what I thought - “how come you said you were coming to my wedding but instead you bailed and went to a national trust place that day instead? Unless there’s something really bad going on, I think that’s really rude and would like an explanation and an apology.” Then I’d see what she said. If I didn’t like the reply then I’d block her and move on. She’s obviously actually not your real friend, I’d never do that to someone, not even someone I didn’t really like!

Whats the husband like OP from what you know of him?

Im probably completely off track but im thinking maybe he could have put a stop to her going/could be controlling etc?
Especially the fact he was the one ringing you.

It does sound like she was initially excited to go at first both to the hen and wedding.

Obviously I don’t know her and she might just be a total cow but that thought just came in my head as I’ve been with someone controlling.

But surely if you can post old photos you can send a message? Why would she prefer for me to think she just didn’t show rather than send an apology and blame illness? Let’s face it having kids gives you a great way out if needed. Just say one has been puking all night!

I would have been on my honeymoon for the next two weeks though and rather busy.

You are absolutely not being unreasonable and it sounds like she didn’t have any sort of excuse not to attend the wedding and not to tell you about it. Did something happen in the background that made her turn on you? Who knows… either way she should have been in touch. And she should have responded to your message.

The thing I don’t really understand is the blocking. What is this achieving other than to create additional drama? Blocking her husband as well - next level childish behaviour. I understand why you were frustrated but this is just not necessary as it shows her you are annoyed/upset. Move on quietly and let her stew for being an asshole. Now she has reason to think you are also there creating drama and she probably feels justified.

I'd say she feels guilty, she knows she's done wrong so she's trying to make it your fault, I'd guess by trying to provoke you into being rude to her. That way she can say 'see? I KNEW we were right not to turn up to the wedding!'

But she knows she did wrong.

Is it possible she is under her husband's control? Coercive partners often do things to isolate their victim. He may have been behind the 2 no shows also.

I wonder if she is being controlled by her husband.

No you don't. You can tell her you were upset and acted rashly, but is everything OK, does she need anything.

I would message her and her husband, on both their phones along the lines of,

'I'm very disappointed you didn't have the common courtesy to let me know you and your family weren't coming to my wedding despite RSVP-ing that you were as recently as X date. We could have invited other people, even fairly last minute, rather than host 4/5 empty seats which we still had to pay £££ for for the meals that weren't eaten. I can't imagine that you yourself would want to be treated this way by someone you thought was a friend, a friend who said they were looking forward to coming. Instead, you just didn't show up, didn't apologise, didn't explain, didn't reach out, and instead decided to make prank phone calls calling me a bitch on your husband's phone and what I presume are your friends' phones in the middle of the night X evening. I would like that behaviour to stop or I will be reaching out to the police for advice re harassing phone calls and providing them with all the phone numbers that have been used. I hope this will be the end of it. Wishing you the life you deserve.'

Snap! I literally posted the same thought at the same time 😅

OP, how weird! It sounds as though her not coming to the wedding was a lucky escape all round. Imagine how she could have messed up the whole day!

It sounds as though you haven't seen much of her over the years, and unfortunately people can change... sometimes into a nasty piece of work.

The money wasted on her no-show was money well spent if having her out of your life was the end result.

I would hazard a guess that she thought you may have blocked her and when drinking with mates tried calling you from friends/husbands phones to see if they connect whilst hers doesn’t. Very childish.

Yes, I think sending a passive-aggressive text and then blocking her was an odd response. I’d have been worried and called to check she was ok.

Blocking is quite an extreme thing to do and took away her ability to explain or apologise. She may well have been really hurt and frustrated by that, leading to the silly calls.

See if that’s what they were doing is it really very childish? She was trying to find out if she really had been blocked so got a friend to call husbands phone, and then when it connected friend panicked, giggled and hung up.

Double post, sorry.