Feeling very hurt by close friend's behaviour on my wedding day?

[littleduck]

I had a close group of girlfriends at school, one in particular, and we had known each other for nearly 20 years by the time I got married.

I asked this close friend to do a reading at my wedding and she agreed. The wedding was planned for the same day as her birthday and she knew quite a few people who were coming along - so double party for her, or so I thought.

She rang me about 3 months before the wedding asking if it was still going ahead on her birthday. Was a bit surprised at her question as clearly I would have told her if the plans had changed but I said yes, all going ahead as planned, why?

She was hardly in touch before the wedding and couldn't make my hen do as she was away on a trip overseas. I said I was sad she wouldn't be there and would miss her and her response was more or less that she'd already made her plans so I'd just have to get on with it.

Anyway we got to the wedding day itself and she did the reading. The reception was a late afternoon/early evening fizz and canapes do as we were on a tight budget. DH were due to leave at 8. Just after the speeches she came up to me and said she was leaving as she had to go to her birthday dinner. I said we'd only be another half an hour or so and was there any way she could stay to see us off? She said no, they had a table booked, and left taking her sister and two other guests with her.

I was really really hurt by this, to the extent that I was in tears on my honeymoon about it. She had had nearly a year to telephone and ask me about the timings and could easily have arranged her dinner for a bit later - the wedding was in London and she lives there too, and most places are open quite late on Saturdays. Or if she had to leave early, she could at least have told me in advance.

I later found out that she didn't have a table booked anywhere at all, she was just having a dinner at home.

There are other things too but I won't go into them.

Thing is, her sister got in touch a few years via Facebook and we have met and get on fine. I explained how upset I was by what my friend had done and the sister was genuinely mortified, I don't think she knew that my friend hadn't discussed it with me.

Weirdly the ex friend came running out of a pub the other week to say hello as I was walking past with DD. I hadn't seen her for years and kind of wondered why she bothered although of course I was polite to her.

I just think that someone who was really my friend would not have behaved as she did - especially if you have a major part to play in the wedding, surely it's a bit off. The reason I ask is that seemingly she thinks I am unreasonable and selfish for being upset by what she did.

Your thoughts....

A bit insensitive and rude of her to dash off early.

For you to be "Really really upset and crying" is a way over the top reaction.

And am I right that this all happened years ago? Why are you thinking about it all now?

How long ago was your wedding?

Maybe you should let it go? And avoid your 'friend'?

you broke off a friendship because your friend left your wedding half an hour before you did? seriously?

Sorry but I think that you have overreacted majorly here.

Perhaps she was a little insensitive, but on the other hand she did come to the wedding, she diid the reading, and in all honesty you weren't going to spend another half an hour with her before you left were you?

I think you need to grow up personally. especially iif you still have this grudge years down the track.

I think your friend made the effort to attend your wedding and please you and also celebrate her own birthday. It is a little mean to expect her to devote herself completely to you.

I think that YABU, she came to the wedding on her birthday and only left a little earlier than you. I know getting married is a huge occasion but surely she should be allowed to celebrate her birthday. It's not all about you as much as we'd often like it to be.

I think it is sad if you have allowed this to sour a friendship and upset you for this long.

Yabu.

I am thinking about it now because of running into her recently. Her friendship had meant a lot to me but we saw a lot less of each other after DH and I got together, my impression was that she didn't care for him much.

She announced her own wedding by calling me and saying 'how do you fancy being a bridesmaid' and then, when I next saw her and said how happy I was that she had asked me, she just looked at the floor and didn't answer me. She didn't want me to be a bridesmaid at all. She pretty much cut me dead at her wedding which was only a month or so after mine.

It wasn't the fact so much that she left early as that she lied about why and didn't even think to mention it beforehand.

She would have gone mental if I had left her wedding early, believe me.

Well... it was her birthday too. Not as special as a wedding, but she's allowed her own celebration, right?

She left half an hour before you - surely she was still there for most of the day. If she hadn't have told you, I suspect you wouldn't even have noticed she'd gone (unless you had a very intimate wedding of course).

She didn't miss the ceremony

She did the reading

I think you are over reacting, but you say there are other things in your OP so I am assuming there's more to it

Erm a bit ott, a silly thing to lose a friendship over and definitely something you should of got over by now.

I think you need to move on seen as it's been years tbh. Shame you didn't grab the opportunity to be mature and make catch up again with an old friend which you lost for quite childish reasons.

she unwisely lied to spare your feelings because she thought you would overreact to the truth.

WHich you did.

I haven't said she wasn't allowed her own celebration but if it was being held at her own home and as we were leaving relatively early could she not perhaps have timed it to stay until we left and then gone on to her party? That's what I would have done if situations reversed.

It wasn't an all day wedding and it was quite small so I would have noticed her leaving.

i do think yabu, tbh.

I think you are being utterly ridiculous about this. She came, she did what you asked and then she left. People leave weddings at all sorts of times - you were crying on your honeymoon about this? Now that's overwrought!

It was always going to be awkward if the wedding was on her birthday, and she wanted to celebrate that. I can think of ways she could have behaved far worse, tbh.

I would have just thought it was 'water under the bridge'-not something to be upset about years later.

People often think of someone as a really close friend and it isn't reciprocated. I've done it myself.

littleduck, you are overthinking this completely. Someone else's wedding does not feature highly in anyone else's life.

Why should anyone change their birth date to suit your wedding?

no you're not the only one! but i do think your friend should have told you she was going to leave early.

but, i don't think i would have had my wedding on a really close friends birthday.

I married a frog - that is exactly what I thought. It wasn't a 'big' birthday like a 30th or 40th or whatever.

Yes there were other things as I alluded to in my post a bit higher up.

it is natural tho op for you to be thinking about it again if you bumped into her and you havent seen her for ages. I think you just need to process it, maybe think like unprune said, you looked at the friendship differently to her?