A bride can’t invite all of her friends to her wedding when there are limiting logistics involved like budget and venue accommodations.
The hardest part is sending out the invites to coworkers, where everyone eventually finds out who made or didn’t make the matrimonial guest list.
One coworker who was snubbed caused drama at work and subsequently visited the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA) subReddit.
There, Redditor WilliamBHuggins asked:
“AITA for letting people know I was the only one in my department not invited to coworkers wedding when they were told I couldn’t attend?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“So a woman in my department got married. Everyone in the department (10, excluding bride) was invited except for me.”
“I was personally told the wedding was being kept small as they didn’t want to spend extravagantly. The others were told that I couldn’t attend.”
The OP continued:
“At a department meeting following the wedding when the bride was back from the honeymoon, everyone was talking about the wedding. A coworker commented it was a shame I couldn’t attend; I remarked that I wasn’t even invited.”
“I could see the brides face visibly change and now she is mad at me and our working relationship is cordial at best.”
The OP shared a sneaky suspicion.
“To further this, our department had a dinner and celebration for her and I contributed to the gift. The date was selected and changed based on others availability, but I couldn’t attend due to a trip overseas I had planned last year.”
“It wasn’t even discussed if it could be changed so I could attend. The person organizing it was another coworker and her best friend.”
“I think this other coworker and not the bride herself is the one behind my exclusion for some reason unbeknownst to me.”
“So AITA for clarifying that I was never even invited in front of the whole department that was told that I couldn’t attend?”
Anonymous strangers weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
Redditors needed more information and weighed in accordingly.
“INFO: Why would the bride have chosen to exclude you in particular? What might have happened in the past between you two that could have caused her to exclude you? I don’t think you’re an a-hole for saying you weren’t invited, it’s the truth, but I do wonder what the backstory is here.” –cascadia1979
“No backstory. We had a really good work relationship, everyone in department gets along. No idea why the exclusion. The other coworker (who is her best friend) seems to not like me and I have no idea why.”
“I’ve been working with them for 4 years and they were already here for a few years together before that. And it’s not like I took a job they should’ve gotten because they don’t have the skills to do the job I do and that’s not even a question.”
“They aren’t on that level and won’t be. They do more admin-type work.” – OP
“Going to have to disagree with you that you guys have a really good relationship. Either you’re lying to us, or lying to yourself.”
“There’s no way she thinks of all of her coworkers equally but just happened to exclude you (and only you) on a whim.” – pinlets
“To be fair, the coworker could be the liar; if the OP has always found her colleague to be a reasonable person and good colleague then why would she dig deeper? It’s the coworker who has a problem. She has been deceived.”
“And… that’s fine. I’ve often worked with people who I haven’t liked but have made nice and hopefully they’ve never noticed. It’s this BS about the wedding which is the problem.” – FoxySlyOldStoatyFox
“I only don’t think it was the friend (or not ONLY the friend) because OP’s post says that the bride’s face changed upon hearing the clarification and that the bride is mad at OP, not her friend. This tells me the bride either made the call or at least knew and was on board with it.” – Three-Pegged-Hare
“Or…..the dodgy friend had told the bride that OP had mentioned they were busy on the wedding date, so bride didn’t need to send an invitation. The bride looked shocked because she was genuinely surprised.”
“OP – who handed out the invitations? Maybe MoH offered to hand out invites at work, and yours found it’s way into the bin.” – WelshB*tch92
“The kindest interpretation I can think of is that the work friend convinced the bride not to invite OP, and the bride thought nobody would mention her lie to OP, and when the lie was revealed, she didn’t fully know how to react and her embarrassment has displayed as anger.”
“But even if all of this is true, it’s still on the bride. If you don’t invite somebody to somewhere because somebody else doesn’t like them, that’s on you to deal with the fallout.”
“If the bride wasn’t an actual AH, and wanted to not invite OP, it’s on her have a conversation with OP about it. Or if she couldn’t do that, not invite the rest of the office so that OP isn’t singled out.”
“She had the wedding she wanted, unfortunately you don’t get to do that consequence-free if you deliberately exclude somebody and lie about it.” – haleorshine
“My husband had a woman who loathed him at work because he took an unassigned desk that she happened to like on the day he started, and she wasn’t there. So he sat there to finish training and she HATED him for it.”
“Like when she left the company, he wasn’t invited to the get-together. Years later, he started working somewhere else, and she happened to be working there. She saw him, gave him a death glare, then apparently tried to talk sh*t about him to other people.”
“My husband though was beloved at that job and no one could figure out what her problem was. Some people just feel the need to have a rival or someone they hate for no good reason.” – bbybear712
“The whole situation of the bride lying to the department to save face is what’s being critiqued here. OP doesn’t seem to be particularly bothered they weren’t invited on the basis of it being a small wedding and had OP just been exactly what you’re saying, not as close to the bride as others, I don’t see why the bride can’t just say we were keeping it at X amount of people and I could only afford to get in so many.”
“There’s no need to lie, especially if we’re making the assumption that OP and the bride are acquaintances rather than good friends, as OP claims. Plus, the fact that others in the office were surprised OP wasn’t invited suggests that optically, OP and the bride were on good terms looking in from the outside and had there been any open tension or visible friction.”
“I doubt people would be so careless to ask such a sensitive question with both OP and the bride in the room had any hard feelings between them been public.”
“I think though that since OP is witnessing some exclusionary treatment with this dinner they couldn’t make but was arranged for others to make, in conjunction with noticing the very cold treatment, now there will probably be obvious friction.” – starfire92
“Is it really that hard to believe there are Mean Girls attitudes in a work environment?”
“NTA OP. She decided to exclude you and thinking that you would be in on lying about why you werent there are naive at best.” – Rude-Conclusion-2995
“I think from op’s perspective, she has a good relationship with the bride. But it might not be the case for the bride herself. Telling this from a very personal experience.”
“So basically, I had this school friend (think F1); I used to sit with her best friend (F2) and was very close to her. So that’s why I was close to F1 and used to have lots of memories with her.”
“In my mind, I thought we were good friends. But during her wedding, she invited a girl who she wasn’t in close touch with for 1/2 years, yet she didn’t invite me. Hell she didn’t even tell me she was getting married. I remember I was so heartbroken and sad.” – Particular-Way8018
“Info doesn’t matter to this question. OP corrected a misconception. She wasn’t sworn to secrecy, she didn’t reveal anything personal about the bride, didn’t betray her confidence in any way… whatever else is going on between these two, OP is NTA for this action.” – TUBEROUS_TITTIES
While more specifics were requested for Redditors to make a confident judgment, the general consensus was that the whole situation was catty.
They generally sided with the OP because they thought the bride was manipulative to her coworkers by not being truthful about why the OP was excluded from the wedding.