Nothing comes between friends quite so easily as wedding plans. A woman on Reddit found herself in this situation when she offended her disorganized best friend with her decision not to allow her to be her maid of honor.
She wasn’t sure about how she’d handled it, so she went to the AITA (Am I The A**hole) subReddit for input.
The Original Poster (OP), who goes by Decent-Chemistry-533 on the site, asked:
“AITA for telling my best friend she is not my maid of honour”
She explained:
“I (25F[emale]) am getting married next year. My friend (25F) and I have been best friends since elementary school. I sent out little gift boxes asking all my close friends to be my bridesmaids.”
“She was a little confused and asked who was the maid of honour. I told everyone that I don’t plan on having one and we can organise everything all together. She was incredibly upset.”
“Here’s the thing, I would love her to be my maid of honour. But, she isn’t really capable of being one. She has very poor time management and is the most unorganised person on the planet.”
“Everything is left to the last possible moment. She has been fired from her jobs multiple times for never being on time and really struggles with responsibility.”
“I really don’t want to be stressing about my wedding and worrying about her being organised. She would take on the all the tasks of being a maid of honour but ultimately drop the ball.”
“I didn’t want to tell her she could be one without all the planning because I know it would be incredibly hurtful. She is struggling currently getting her life in order and telling her that she’s not capable would probably break her.”
“AITA for not making her my maid of honour? I really don’t know if this was actually the best choice”
People on Reddit were then asked to judge who’s in the wrong in this situation based on the following categories:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
And some of them understood OP’s point of view.
“NTA – You have a clear vision of your experience ledding up to your big day. By not making her MOH you have now avoided the stress and disappointment of dealing with her.”
“Sometimes we have to pull up our big girl panties, and do what needs to be done, and you did that !” —Drip_Like_Chocolate
“NTA but has anyone ever taken your friend aside and suggested she get evaluated for ADHD? It may save the rest of her life” —Alternative_Year_340
“NTA”
“Planning a wedding is stressful enough so I cannot even imagine how it’d be like to have someone proven to be irresponsible with such role in it. It’s a call for more stress and disaster.” —andwhataboutititties
But many others thought her expectations were way out of line, and called her out for her choice.
“I think YTA actually. There’s no reason why you can’t do all of the organizing as a group, and still have her be your Maid of Honor.”
“The role of MoH is not meant to replace an event planner; it annoys me to no end when brides say ‘well this person who is incredibly important to me is unable to take on all of the mindless and stressful organizational tasks I expect her to do, so she can’t be my MoH.’ No. Stop.”
“A maid of honor is an honorific role meant to symbolize your dearest friend / relative. Their role is to hold your bouquet, and stand next to you at the altar, and maybe do a reading or give a speech at the reception.”
“Their role is to stand by you like they’ve always stood by you, and cheer you up if you get overwhelmed, and help you through the various stresses and awkward scenarios that inevitably come with planning a wedding, in their own way (whatever that looks like). And they’re there for the fun stuff too!”
“But they are NOT your personal assistant and people herder. This is your wedding, and if you want a bridal shower and a bachelorette party and all the rest, and you think your BFF won’t do an adequate job to meet your needs, then you can find another way to organize it. Which you’ve already done!”
“I fail to see the problem with giving your friend the title and letting her know how special she is to you; all you’re doing now is signaling to her that her friendship is only worth as much as her organization skills (so, nothing worth recognizing).” —wolfholler
“It also seems like kind of a dick move to not even talk about this with her best friend before sending out the bridesmaid invites. And this:”
“‘I told everyone that I don’t plan on having one and we can organise everything all together.'”
“Makes it seem like she told best friend she wasn’t going to be maid of honor in front of all the other bridesmaids.”
“It would be reasonable if OP was trying to handle a difficult person who unreasonably expected to be maid of honor, but for a long time best friend it’s kind of cold.” —looc65
“YTA. Honestly, I don’t really get it when people expect their MOH or Best Man to do a bunch of prep work for your wedding. I was the best man for my brother’s wedding, and while I planned some stuff for his bachelor party weekend and had to prepare a little speech during the ceremony, that’s about it.”
“If you want your wedding to be a certain way, then make it happen without offloading a bunch of work onto your friends. That’s what the wedding planner is for!”
“If she’s your lifelong best friend and you knew her not being MOH would be hurtful, then you’re the AH for not extending the offer just cuz you can’t rely on her to do a bunch of logistical work for you for free.” —Diligent_Asparagus22
Hopefully OP and her best friend can find a way through this.