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.

@DoItAfraid
her husband who called you / left you the voicemail with the weirdness and the taunting and laughing

It was the husband's phone, no evidence it was actually him. The voicemail was from a withheld number call. She was probably using his phone but forgot to withhold the number on one call

The excuses for absolutely appalling manners are something else

There was/is no excuse for her behaviour, especially how easy it is to send a quick message - less than a minute.

If you commit to something you absolutely should go unless you give lots of notice or there's a genuine emergency, which clearly there wasn't

To be fair the other people on their table were quite happy…. We told the staff to serve their meals anyway so that table had a great feast! 😁So at least the food didn’t actually go to waste! It was all eaten by the gannets rest of the table!

There is no excuse for the unexplained wedding absence. None whatsoever.

The only excuse that exists for missing a wedding without an immediate real time communication is some kind of sudden crisis in health or family tragedy. Even then, at some point afterwards your friend could get in touch or even ask someone else to contact you if she was distressed and not up to it. In any case we know that didn’t happen, they were alive and well enough to be visiting tourist attractions.

If she had forgotten the wedding then it would be mortifying and some might go silent but really she should have contacted you and in any case, I don’t for a second think that she forgot about it.

So there is no explanation other than her being either deliberately mean, or having so little regard for you that she thinks she should be allowed to act this way without repercussions.

It must be really bugging you as to why on earth she would suddenly be like this, it would me but I guess you will never really know. Either way it’s good you no longer have her in your life. I hope it didn’t cause too much upset on the day of the wedding.

@Nanny0gg I wasn't making excuses for terrible manners.

I was sharing a really horrible time in my life that to an outsider might have looked like I was thoughtless.

This happened to me too. It really annoys me still 17 years later. She didn't even bother texting me and I would have invited other people. I didn't say anything so it's still festering! So good for you saying something! Strange how she didn't say anything but saved it until a drunken night out! What a bell end. You're best off without her.

Can you unblock and see if she sent you anything (I don’t know how it works). Would it show blocked messages/calls?

That is really poor behaviour from your friend, particularly to not send any kind of apology in the days after the wedding. BUT for someone that is supposedly an old, good friend I would have given them a bit more grace.

Social media isn’t real life, so I don’t think seeing some photos from a NT place is as much of a ‘gotcha’ as you seem to think it is. Photos could be being posted days after they happened, or something awful could have happened within the family that meant she was trying really hard to distract the kids - and felt that the formality of a big wedding just wasn’t appropriate at that time.

It sounds like you never gave her a chance to explain as you blocked her as soon as you saw she’d read your message - which is a pretty bitchy move tbh. Reading a message doesn’t mean someone is necessarily able to reply immediately, particularly if it warrants a more in depth response

In what circumstances though would something terrible have happened and you would have your sh** together enough to go to a NT site / post old photos of you visiting a NT site but you couldn't just send a message saying: "I'm so sorry, something has happened and we can't make it."

It's not bitchy at all to cut someone like that out after giving them days to offer an explanation / apology / just something.

very rude of them even without the childish voicemail messages. Not a real friend

I do get that things can happen and for whatever reason you can’t go. But let’s say your example happened. She didn’t want to bring the kids to a formal wedding. Cool. No problem. Just text and say you can’t go. Lie. Say the kids are puking. For someone I’ve known 30 years even if she’d have said look I can’t explain at the moment but we’re really not able to come I would have been fine with that. It’s the complete no contact that annoyed me the most!

Also I didn’t block her the second she read the message you know. I sent it one evening. She read it at some point overnight/early morning as it was blue ticked in the morning. I blocked after no response for over 48 hours of her having read it.

You’ve done absolutely nothing wrong at all here. It’s all on her.

The contortions on here to make Op the problem rather than the friend.

If you can’t make an event you at the very least message in advance or, worst case scenario, apologise profusely afterwards.

The friend did neither. And then followed it up by drop calling at 1am.

Put her to the back of your mind Op. Not worth wasting your time on.

I'm absolutely mystified at this - it's completely bizarre that she didn't show up (and of course, it's appallingly rude, and in the absence of any plausible explanation, really rude and hurtful).

Of course you are puzzled and upset.

But blocking her? Without even asking her for an explanation or letting her know how you felt - to someone you knew for 30 years? That's really odd behaviour. In terms of basic curiosity, I would want to know, but also in terms of the friendship, and making sure she was ok.

I'm not saying you should necessarily continue the friendship (she'd want to have a very good explanation) but it's silly to have blocked her.

Oh give over, the woman had weeks to say something, she could have messaged her the day before, the day of, the day after, the day she read the message. But she chose not to. There really is no excuse whatsoever for this rudeness. To say that OP didn’t give her the chance to explain is ridiculous.

The only thing I can think is there's some kind of backstory to this - maybe something you don't know anything about. Like, she's been told you're shagging her husband or something! It's all very odd.

And maybe she is just a horrid woman. They do exist.

Or shall we continue to blame the man. (with no evidence at all).

Sounds like she was bitching on a drunken night out with friends about your message and subsequent blocking her and they thought it’d be funny to call you to give you a piece of their mind.

Your so called friend is rude. I doubt she ever made any booking for your wedding - the flakey hen night cancellation suggests that.

People are horrible sometimes and take no accountability for their behaviour.

Some of my in laws failed to tell us they wouldn’t be there, meals, button holes all paid for and wasted.
Infuriating really.

Your friend messed up and is now feeling defensive. It’s reasonable to assume that the calls were all from the same people. I’m guessing it makes her feel better by trying to make out like you’re the bad guy. It’s not acceptable to just not turn up to a wedding with your family and not let the host know. Even if there is a family emergency on the day, you gave her enough grace to contact you in the days following your wedding and she didn’t bother. I can understand why you would block her. I’d be tempted to unblock but just move on with your life. Perhaps her marriage is going badly and she was jealous, it’s likely you’ll never know. This isn’t on you to make things right so to speak. I’m sorry you’ve been let down and treated poorly by someone you thought was a friend.

Completely agree! It is so rude I would be pretty pissed off too.

One of my friends ghosted me in the run up to my wedding (she had already no showed a baby shower) with no explanation whatsoever. Very odd. Some people are just self-absorbed twats unfortunately.

What strange behaviour. I’m not surprised you want to understand what happened

People lose their minds on MN falling over themselves to find "reasons" (more like excuses) for heinous behaviour.

Her not attending your wedding and not making contact at any point after was appalling behaviour. You'd expect your plumber to call you if he were so much as running an hour late to fix a leaking pipe. She couldn't even be bothered to make contact days after the event, no doubt because she knew she'd behaved appallingly and it's easier to ignore you than have a conversation where she knew she was so very in the wrong, would end up feeling guilty and generally shit, and might be asked to cough up some cash!

You were not at all unreasonable. Put her back out of your mind. There are shitty people everywhere. She's clearly one of them. She doesn't deserve your headspace.

No no no!! You can’t ignore this. I’ve got your back over this. Unblock the bitch and message her ‘what the fuck is the matter with you’… do it now!! 🤣

You have done nothing wrong but I knew there would be dickheads here trying to blame you for your lack of concern.

She had every chance to explain herself.

My friend stopped talking to me twenty years ago for not attending her wedding. My mother was vomiting blood that morning and the wedding was on the other side of the country. There was nobody else to help. I told our mutual friend left a voicemail for the bride on the day and apologised again she returned from honeymoon via text and email. She never acknowledged. I had planned to send a gift but at some point I decided not to, I think I was smarting a bit.

They are horrible people.