Lots of planning goes into a wedding, but what about the next step after a wedding that many people embark on — family planning?
Redditor need-a-name-94 is still in the planning stage of her wedding, but she and her partner have already started the plans for their family.
The Original Poster’s (OP’s) timeline happened to directly conflict with her friend’s wedding, causing her to opt out of being in the bridal party.
This caused the OP’s recently engaged friend to get mad and ultimately drove the OP to subReddit “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA).
She asked:
“AITA for declining being a bridesmaid?”
She went on to explain.
“So,“
“My friend of 10 years recently got engaged. She had already asked me a while ago if I would be her bridesmaid when she gets married (this was at least a year before she got engaged).”
“Once she got engaged she messaged me and told me approximately when she is thinking of getting married and the location.”
“Unfortunately the wedding date coincides with when I think I maybe heavily pregnant or I may have a newborn baby (my partner and I want to start a family straight after we get married).”
“Her wedding location is also about 7 hours away in another country so would require some serious travel.”
“As soon as she messaged me I rang her (she lives about 2 hours away and my schedule is hectic at the moment as I planning my own wedding so I didn’t have time to tell her face to face, which in hindsight would have been better).”
“I called her and told her that although I would love to be a bridesmaid I am more than likely going to be pregnant or have a newborn baby at the time of her wedding, so I don’t think I can commit to being a bridesmaid as I may have to back out of the wedding at short notice.”
“She took this news very badly- she was trying to interrupt me on the call and then when I asked her ‘how the wedding planning was going’ she said it’s all going to sh*t and then she hung up.”
“She hasn’t spoken to me in nearly 2 months.”
“As a side note she has constantly stated how much she hates surprises, has a tight budget and she likes to plan things in advance.”
“I thought the best thing to do would be tell her straight away instead of leaving it until a couple of months before her actual wedding and before she spends any money on bridesmaid dresses etc.”
“AITA?”
“Edit:”
“Just to clarify a few things.”
“-The friendship-yes I have known her for 10 years, however she is not my best friend.”
“-She is not a bridesmaid at my wedding – my sister and my best friend are bridesmaids. The date of her wedding is approximately 14 months after mine.”
“-When she asked if I’d be a bridesmaid it wasn’t in a serious conversation- we were in a group setting and saying ‘oh we’ll be in the same nursing home together’ or ‘ow we’ll be bridesmaids’.”
“Myself and another friend didn’t take this conversation seriously. The other friend is a bridesmaid and she also felt a little caught off guard that the bride took this conversation seriously.”
“-Timeframe- She got engaged and it was about a week later that she sent the message about bridesmaid duties.”
“The actual day of her engagement I rang her to congratulate her. During that phone call she never mentioned me being a bridesmaid.”
“-Her wedding- I am very happy that she is engaged and excited about her wedding. It’s a destination wedding (train or plane to get there) with a destination hen do .”
“This is definitely not a ‘just turn up in a bridesmaid dress’ commitment.”
“She wants pre-wedding photo-shoots with bridesmaids and is expecting bridesmaids to turn up to help pick flower arrangements, go over seating plans, help send out invites etc.”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
-
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided:
“Dear op, I think your enthusiasm took over… A pregnancy lasts 9 months, you could wait first to become pregnant and then inform your friend, still many months in advance.”
“Pregnancy is something that can’t be timelined or planned easily. Her wedding may come and you are not pregnant or you are a couple months pregnant. And all this would have been for nothing.”
“No one is the AH here, but you should communicate better. I wish you good luck with your friend and your pregnancy plans”
“*edit to add the word “first”, cause some people got confused of my meaning” – Massive-Action1709
“YTA — I think you are vastly overestimating the predictably of the pregnancy timeline.”
“Some people take 1-2 years of trying, some people take 6 months, and some immediately. It was very premature to completely refuse for this reason” – blamjam237
“YTA. You may get pregnant the minute you try, it may take a year, or it might not happen at all. You have no idea.”
“Yes, tell her that you are planning to try to get pregnant and that you may need to adjust plans if it happens, but to flat out refuse to be a part of the wedding because you HOPE you’ll get pregnant is an a**hole move.”
“This is obviously a very important thing to her and you not participating because of a fantasy pregnancy is very self centered. Are you even friends?” – br00kish
“YTA-”
“‘she was trying to interrupt me on the call and then when I asked her ‘how the wedding planning was going’ she said it’s all going to sh*t and then she hung up’”
“It seems she had something to say to what you were telling her, but you felt it was an interruption.”
“For this alone it seems you don’t really care if you are an AH or not or even if you finally get pregnant or not when the time comes.”
“Also, as most people already stated, is not that simple planning a pregnancy.”
“Is like saying that in a year from now you will be a millionaire for winning the lottery because you are planning on buying a lot of lottery tickets.” – AwesomeBeardProphet
“YTA kinda. I agree it is better to be honest about your plans. But I think I’d have left it a bit more open given that you aren’t actually pregnant and you don’t know for sure how fast it will happen.”
“I don’t think potentially having a baby stops you being involved at this point, it’s just a warning.”
“If it were me I would probably have positioned it as I’d love to be considered a bridesmaid and get involved in planning and prep but mention that you hope to be pregnant or have a newborn so that may mean you won’t be the best choice.”
“You’d be happy to let her know if you do get pregnant or if she’d prefer to not have you as an official bridesmaid you won’t be upset and are still happy to be involved.” – Arstanoth
“Soft yta. You’ve pretty much bailed on your best friend of 10 years when you’re not even pregnant.”
“You could have tentatively accepted but informed her that you would be trying.”
“I really do hope you get pregnant right away but unfortunately for a lot of the time it can take months or even years to conceive.”
“I think you’ve jumped the gun on this and possibly hampered your relationship with your friend.”
“I know you think you were trying to do her a favour by bailing now but I would be very disappointed in you as a friend for not even seeing how things went.”
“You’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself to conceive in time as well, it’s going to be awkward if it gets to her wedding and you’re not pregnant so it was all for nothing.”
“Poorly handled.” – TheSuperAlly
“i asked a long time friend to be my bridesmaid she declined and i accepted it. I was a bit sad but put on my big girl pants and moved on..”
“Then my maid of honour started trying for a baby i jokingly said you cant be due between x and y date.”
“she ended up being due 3 days after the wedding but god love her she made it and managed all of her duties despite being in the early stages of labour on the actual day along with this another of my bridesmaids and myself were significantly pregnant for the very catholic wedding.”
“It was a running joke and tbh fretting about moh’s contractions took my mind off stressing about silly things.” – icanhearsheeps
“NAH”
“You thought you were being honest but I think you were underestimating how important this was to her and the fact that you KNEW right away and hurried to tell her prob made her feel like you didn’t really consider it to begin with.”
“And mainly – as others have pointed out – pregnancy very often takes longer than expected.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t but – your optimism prob made her feel like your best case scenario doesn’t really give AF about her.”
“Your intentions were to not let her proceed with a wrong assumption but I think you also needed to think more about how she would feel about it.”
“I would def tell her you would love to help in some ways (your own wedding isn’t really a reason to not spend a little time on her IMO)”
“and that you realize life doesn’t go as planned and it’s up to her how involved she would like you to be, knowing you MAY end up pregnant and unable to travel.” – OLAZ3000
Such optimism.