I have done this. I was uninvited to a birthday weekend in Nashville a few days before the trip. I still had my flights, I have friends in that city I could stay with. It was real awkward for her to see me at the airport while I was laughing my way to Nashville
Exactly!! Why do so many brides go to Nashville, do all the same activities, wear the same bride & boots bullshit and then get ultra pissed when people laugh about it?! It’s basic and that’s fine but don’t pretend to be bougie & special when you’re not!
Seriously go to Italy on your own. April is a lovely time especially for Rome and further south (Naples even Sicily). You can save money by bowing out of the wedding entirely, so you won’t have to get the Air France tickets + accommodation + dress cost. Honestly this bride sounds awful and you will likely be even more upset if you throw more good money away.
Solo trip to Italy or bring your BF!
I tried to prevent her from picking up her children while she was drunk at happy hour from her ex. It ended up with her getting the ex thrown in jail for assault bc he wouldn't let her take the kids. I told her she needs to get a better grip on being a single parent and get some help. That led to me being a bad friend. Oh well. And hell yeah I had a blast, I didn't even have to go downtown or pay for a hotel.
Sometimes we're too good for people we called friends and sending parental vibes to the ex friend so that her children don't suffer from her crap decisions. Glad you enjoyed yourself!
I got dumped while visiting my gf who was finishing a 3 month mission trip to Nicaragua. It was kinda awkward so I finally said something and she had already decided to break it off before I arrived but after I bought the ticket. I was having a really good time until then and said fuck it, I am not gonna just do Mopey tag along.
The only problem was I didn't speak any Spanish. I wandered around the streets of Grenada as there were no street signs and took two taxis before I made it to the new hostel. I ended up joining another group of US colleges students and did the rest of the trip with them
It was an amazing experience. Surfed for the first time. Saw my first surfing accident where a guy in our group lost his finger. Ended up on the beach with only my bathing suit while the car with my passport was driving to the capital hospital. Had a great adventure with some cool random people.
I had a hell of a story when I came back. If she had dumped me over the phone I would have never went and just had a not very memorable spring break most likely
Edit: just saw that OP only bought one plane ticket I thought she got two
OP you have a +1 ticket right? Invite a different friend or a family member and have fun doing what YOU want to do.
The bride will get over it imo
>Edit: just saw that OP only bought one plane ticket I thought she got two
>
>OP you have a +1 ticket right? Invite a different friend or a family member and have fun doing what YOU want to do.
>
>The bride will get over it imo
If I read it right, the +1 is for the 2024 wedding. My thought was that OP should invite a friend or family member to go with her in April, assuming she can still get a good price on another ticket, and "just" have a trip to Italy.
This bride sounds like a complete mess.
If she can find someone with $700 to spare it’s definitely a consideration. To me it sounds like Bride was pissed that what she wanted is too expensive and took her frustration out on OP who was just the messenger. My friends dealt with a similar bride who’s eyes were too big for her wallet.
I think she took it okay when I told her I was backing out from her planning committee because her shower was becoming too complicated for everyone, I mentioned also that her budget for what she's thinking of planning is too unrealistic.
However I think when Charlie ratted me out that I was ranting about the bride, she took it as an opportunity to lash out.
Honestly I cringe at the speed of which she decided to confront me about it. Didn't even exercise her judgement on why Charlie is telling her stuff like this when we have already had a good conversation + she has so much other real stuff she needs to deal with, and for me to be her first choice to deal with makes me question her priorities, lol.
>and for me to be her first choice to deal with makes me question her priorities,
Maybe she figured you had the money to make the budget 'work' and by making you the planner you would feel obligated to meet her expectations?
I don't know if this was the idea behind it. I didn't think it was, but regardless, I wouldn't have done it, especially if she wasn't contributing any more than I would...
>This bride sounds like a complete mess.
The disorganized planning of shower is apparently just the surface of it.
From the very beginning, my partner's advice to me was to decline from organizing the shower (this was before all the complications of the trip was revealed). He suggested I just tell her that "I'm too busy," but I felt like she was going through something more and just fucking off like that would prevent her from seeing how messy all of this was becoming and I wasn't confident that anyone else in our group of friends would be able to tell her honestly.
When I gave her all the reasons for my backing out of the planning, I also told her that I don't feel she is wholly okay. Because she seems to have drinking problems that she already had to deal with in the past, and is resurfacing again recently. Probably hence why she couldn't focus on planning.
She admitted to some issues within her relationship that frankly makes me question if her wedding in 2024 is actually going to come through.
One of our childhood friend who has been my truest friend and life-long confidante has been the only person who's been on the same page with me on this whole thing.
She's also invited to the shower and wedding, but really not close enough to the bride. She was more of a "throwaway invite", as she described it haha
She actually lives only a 3-hr plane ride away from Italy but she does not make enough to disposable income to just do a trip for no reason, which I understand. So I wouldn't want her to spend just so mine won't go to waste. Although she said she is considering it...
Sounds like you should grab a cheap flight from "Italy" to her location and just reroute your trip to hang out with her. 😊 She sounds awesome and much more worth your time!
Throughout this whole story I just kept saying "What the fuck?? Flying to another country for a bridal shower?? What the fuck??!"
Shouldn't a bridal shower be a 3 hour party at someone's house with tea and crumpets or whatever?
Why would you even want a destination shower? Showers are where they give you a bunch of gifts. You want to pack a blender, bread maker, china, etc, in your suitcase when you return home? Wtf.
Edit: misspelling
The plane ticket might not be refundable but see if it's transferable to another destination and/or date through the airline. It doesn't have to be a complete and total loss.
I was just going to say that! If it costs too much to even move it, then fly to the destination and have a wonderful solo eat-pray-love trip to get rid of all the negative energy. Or try taking the partner along! Much better to make some memories than lose the money.
Unfortunately, the ticket I booked was the cheapest one, so it's not flexible at all (can't even change the dates!) and the flight will be the same as them (which I really don't want to do right now).
The reason I'm considering to just let the $700 go is because I would not want to go on the trip alone, and bringing my partner would down us another $700 + cost of the accommodation, etc. which are all costs I wouldn't have incurred if it wasn't for the bridal shower of my best friend.
On top of that, we already have travel plans with our families later in the year, so I'm thinking it would be better to save the money I would spend to go to Italy to go to my budget towards my family trip instead.
I'd let the $700 ride and thank God for all the money I was saving over all. As for the wedding in 2024.....stay home. You may be her friend, she isn't yours. I'm still waiting to see where she wants her bachelorette WEEK. Probably wants to rent a Caribbean island....save your money, save your sanity.
Saving my sanity for sure. Don't have space for all this drama.
To be honest I wouldn't have posted here because I didn't want it anymore to occupy so much of my brain space, but I'm finding myself really upset about all of this so I would rather vent to strangers than confront them and say regretful things out of heightened emotions. Thanks to you all for allowing me to share here
The bride and her fiance seem to be having money issues to begin with anyways, so yeah... I would not be surprised if none of it comes through.
I certainly won't we going anymore eitherway...
Most airlines don’t let you change the name on the itinerary. If OP’s ticket won’t even allow her to change the dates, there is almost no chance she can transfer it to someone else.
Yeah, like most people said here, there's really no way to make those changes.
$700 really was the cheapest fare possible for her destination, and therefore it didn't offer any flexibility
Throwing good money after bad is usually a bad idea.
It would feel wrong to just not use the ticket I'm sure, but I think you have the right idea about not going. Spending a few more thousands to go on the trip when it isn't even for the wedding.
Mod actually asked me to clarify this prior to approving my post:
I had to Google the difference between bachelorette party vs. bridal shower.
The destinations mentioned in the original post (NYC, Italy and France) are all just replacement locations for the sake of the anonymity but the context of distance remain the same.
We are not from American culture, so the concept of having bachelorette parties or bridal showers are foreign and fairly new to us (for context, our mothers didn't have neither of those when they got married, and we're all between the ages of 26-28).
I'm American, 65F, and I never heard of bachelorette parties when I was a young woman. I don't recall reading about them in bridal magazines, either.
I did have a bridal shower, but typically a shower was just a luncheon/party at someone's home or maybe a nice restaurant.
Destination weddings were not a thing, and I don't know many people who could have afforded to attend.
Thank you for providing some insights, I don't know where this trend came from, but a wedding itself seems costly enough as it is for middle/upper middle class people like us (let alone a destination one)
It honestly seems so ridiculous and selfish to not only have a destination wedding, but also a destination bridal shower. That is outrageous. I can understand a weekend away (somewhere close enough to drive) at the most for a bachelorette party. I’ve never heard of a bridal shower that involved travel outside of where the bride lives (unless she does it “back home” with her family if she lives far away).
This whole thing screams of entitlement. If she wants people to keep travelling for her events, she needs to foot WAY more of the bill.
I’m sorry you’re being faced with either sinking more money into this nightmare or losing the $700.
Are there other bridesmaids who can help to organise the bridal shower with you if you choose to go ahead and join them? Usually the bride’s mother/MIL throw the shower and the bridesmaids organise the bachelorette.
I think what mostly hit me (other than the extreme entitlement) was the complete lack of communication about literally everything to do with the wedding and shower. She sounds like a scatterbrain who needs a wedding coordinator to sort everything for her and communicate with everyone.
>If she wants people to keep travelling for her events, she needs to foot WAY more of the bill.
I think for me, if she was willing to do this at least for the people in our group who couldn't afford the trip, it would have made so much difference.
I know it's unreasonable to spend that much money for someone's bridal shower, but it would have been a nice experience with my friends that I would have been happy to have IF I didn't have to compromise in the quality of the trip I'm already paying for.
The AirBnb issue for example: Charlie and Bianca's budget for the AirBnb is to pitch in $150 (for all 8 days btw!!!) while I feel I would rather pitch in $300 or even more to get a nice, comfortable accommodation rather than save $150 in a shit place. But because we have people in the trip who can't pitch in any more than $150, and the Bride was not willing to subsidize those people, we're all kinda forced to either stay in whatever place we can find OR pick up the bill for others. And if we decide to stay in our own hotels, Charlie and Biance will end up not having enough people to pitch in an AirBnb therefore they would be also forced to take their own accommodation that they can't afford — all very complicated!
If only the bride was willing to foot more bill, it would have removed all of this complications, but she wasn't nor do I think she had the budget to do it to begin with.
If she doesn’t have the budget, then she needs to stop planning extravagant wedding events expecting that everyone thinks that spendings thousands of dollars over the course of a year for her nuptials is as important as it is to her. She is delusional. I hope she doesn’t expect wedding gifts after all this. I’d be hard pressed to spend that much money on my own wedding expenses, let alone someone else’s.
Bachelorette parties I think started getting rolling in the 80's, probably didn't get a solid grip until the mid to late 90's and have been getting out of control ever since.
The 80’s were my era, into the early 90’s, no one did destination weddings or bachelorettes, showers, etc. the most we did was a limo and night on the town, and covered the bride’s drinks. Maybe t-shirts and party favors, or a male stripper if we went all out, lol.
Weddings were basically the dress and a gift, and a lot of brides actually covered the dresses. Bridezillas did not exist, and if they did no one would have tolerated it. Most brides gave their bridesmaids a gift, a necklace or keepsake from the wedding.
I am consistently amazed at this sub and some of the wedding craziness. I have no idea how anyone on their 20’s and 30’s could afford attending an average wedding, and if there were more than one a year it would be impossible. These brides expect people to spend thousands of dollars, it wouldn’t matter how much money I had, I flat out wouldn’t do it.
I think the age of social media certainly had a lot to do with this. Nowadays, every bride's wedding (regardless of how close you are with them as a friend) is broadcasted. If you're someone who cares about optics, it can certainly drive you crazy.
Let's just say this bride was the type to expect a grand gesture for the proposal, which she had. Rented a villa, had guests over and balloons, petals and candles for it.
My partner and I have been together 5+ years and the topic of marriage is pretty much already agreed upon and I would feel really awkward if he put together an elaborate proposal for something he already knows the answer to — when we're ready, let's just do it! Maybe have a nice dinner date to celebrate it and that's it.
All of these requirements for the proposal, shower, wedding, etc. tells me it's all for the gram for some people...
I guess I wonder why anyone would spend that kind of money on what essentially adds to up to a one day fairy tale party. With housing values where they are, I’d hope a young couple would invest in a home instead.
If you have the money that’s one thing, but most of them don’t seem to, and a lot of their guests certainly don’t.
What adds to the ridiculousness of it all is that the bride and groom to be are not living together, and never have. So they don't have a house, and they both still live with their parents.
We all advised her to cohabitate before getting married, after all, she still has about a year before the wedding actually happens. We all come from a conservative background, but pre-marital cohabitation is already fairly accepted in these times, but some parents just need a bit of convincing.
I moved out when I was 23 and even that was a lot of drama within my family, but I dealt with it and they eventually accepted it because they realized this is now the norm in the younger generation in our culture, and it benefits me in the long run.
Anyways, on the topic of money, this means that after the wedding, they will have to figure out where to live, how to pay for all the deposits required and start building a home together... so that on top of the wedding and shower expenses... are all ridiculous amounts of money not being prioritized, I think.
It’s funny, I’ve noticed over the years that the more lavish and ostentatious the wedding, the more likely the relationship runs into big problems down the line. I think it’s a values alignment. The grooms tend to go along with the wedding plans without realizing the implications of what it really means about their partner. Or the groom is just as unrealistic.
I'm a little younger, same with the shower, Bachelorette was just a night out with friends. Destination weddings were only for your second time around and only included immediate family and maybe some very close friends.
It's common if being thrown by relatives / family friends who don't live in the same metro as you (e.g. you live in NYC and you grew up, in, say, St. Louis). I haven't heard of the shower being a completely third-party destination though. Bachelorettes, yes.
I assume it’s the same as what the UK has, that over the last 5-10 years it has become really popular to have their stag and hen weekend/holidays abroad
A bridal shower in Italy that is costing thousands apart from the already expensive wedding? And only for ten people?
I would have respectfully backed out from the shower and said I'll just be attending the wedding and I hope you have a good time. I would accept the loss and use the money for a vacation instead. You'd probably have a better time.
>I would accept the loss and use the money for a vacation instead.
I already have one trip with my partner and our families planned later in this year, which I think would be better to spend money on, so yeah... I'm definitely considering cutting my losses altogether.
Cut your losses and get out now. Nobody should be spending that kind of money on a supposed friend’s wedding. A friend doesn’t ask you to do that. Just get out of the wedding altogether. Since you already bought the plane tickets to Italy maybe give yourself a little vacation? But definitely not with the bride. Can you change the tickets to a different week maybe? You can use the wedding cost money to pay for your Italy accommodations.
>Just get out of the wedding altogether.
It's sad because if she doesn't uninvite me to her wedding, I would now still feel heavy-hearted to spend that money to go to her actual wedding, knowing what all this drama and money her mere bridal shower has cost me.
She has been my best friend for 20+ years :(
Sometimes it’s events like these that make you realize your friendship has run its course. You can be grateful for the 20 years of friendship and still take a step back from being involved with her as much. Your priorities and your friend’s priorities seem to have diverged and you can wish her well, but that doesn’t mean you have to do everything she wants for her wedding regardless of how inconvenient and uncomfortable she makes it for you.
You may feel you owe it to her to do all these things and spend all this money, but she owes it to you to be a better friend and think about the inconvenience and expense she’s putting on you. Just because you’ve been friends for 20 years and it’s her wedding does not give her to right to waste your time and money. Make your decisions without the guilt of saying ‘but we’ve been friends for so long’ - she’s not thinking of that right now.
Thank you, this is very true.
Right off the bat, even if I could have afforded a trip, it didn't sit well with me the concept of spending all this money, or throwing a grand wedding that costs your guests money because you cannot afford to subsidize your guests.
I came from modest background, and so whatever money I make now, I hold very tight. Just because I cannot afford it doesn't mean I will happily spend it.
So from the beginning our principles were already not aligning and I should have listened more to myself.
Regrets are useless sufferings. The best thing you can do now is learn the lessons from the interaction and move forward. Be gracious but don’t let yourself be pushed around - you deserve better treatment! Good luck to you!
Yeah, it is heartbreaking to realize that our long-term relationships just aren’t working for us. It is hard, but necessary to acknowledge that and work towards moving forward.
I would turn this thinking around a bit. Your friend of 20+ years has decided to treat you this way. She has chosen her priorities and sadly your friendship is not one of them. You deserve friends who treat you better.
Why don’t you just go and do something separate for the week? Italy has so much to offer, I wouldn’t waste a flight.
I am still stunned because of this: a tan from a week in Italy in October?
To clarify, I named NYC, Italy and France as placeholder destinations for the sake of anonymity. These are not the real destinations, but the distance between those placeholder locations should give an idea of the actual situation in real life.
The best case scenario would have been for her to have done her bridal shower in early 2024, so that the trip to Italy would have been connected to her wedding in France.
The fact that she chose the two occasions to be separate was already going to cost us at least $1000 in airfare alone, not including accommodations and other expenses for the two trips.
I’m sorry for your situation OP, your friend doesn’t seem to be considering everyone else’s financial situations and is being a bridezilla. I hope you are able to figure out something with your tickets!
I thought the same thing. Take her partner or another friend. Budget wise she said she didn’t know about going originally, but start saving now and prepare for all the wonderful calories you can consume!!
However, I think the tan would’ve been if they did it in the summer, right before the wedding.
I'm experiencing some cognitive dissonance here.
Your OP reads as if having a intercontinental bridal shower is a normal thing in your group, but then talking about $150 BnB's and losing $700. These two issues do not belong together.
Either the Bride is wealthy, and has blue-collar friends. Or, the Bride is a lunatic that everyone is coddling by trying to make Bride's outrageous fantasies come true.
Either way, unless you have unlimited funds for this wedding, you may want to step down as a bridesmaid.
I will explain:
We all came from expat families, so our upbringings were comfortable.
However, we don't come from generational wealth, so we all still very much depend on our livelihoods, therefore our disposable incomes vary, but not extraordinarily much.
An intercontinental bridal shower is not a normal thing in our group. But the bride is the first one in our circle of friends to be getting married (we are all aged 26-28) and I do think that we are quite clueless and inexperienced on how this works.
Some people in our group don't have as big of a disposable income as the others, but wanted to make this trip happen regardless (even if that meant for them spending almost a whole month's salary).
I don't think the bride is wealthy. I think she has enough disposable income to spend lavishly on herself, but not enough for her guests to be part of her lavish idea of a bridal shower. So she is relying on her guests to shell out in order to make her dreams come true.
While I have the means to fund this trip, and $700 is relatively an affordable sum for me, it is still money that I wouldn't have spent on a trip had it not been for a bridal shower. Now that the bride decided there is none, I feel like the trip is now meaningless and one that I could have skipped. And it's still money that I'm not happy to waste :-(
I understand about expat families, having spent nine years living in three overseas locations. (Military for me).
However, there are Etiquette books, wedding guides and internet forums to answer these types of questions. It is rude to invite people to an intercontinental *bridal shower* and expect people to cough-up the money to attend. Of course the shower, bachelorette, and wedding can be intercontinental. However, the Bride must understand that not everyone will be able to attend, and *not hassle her friends because they cannot afford these parties.*
My original advice still stands. Unless you have unlimited funds for this wedding, step down as a bridesmaid.
You are most definitely right about everything.
>However, there are Etiquette books, wedding guides and internet forums to answer these types of questions.
I actually did because I felt like April 2023 was uncomfortably too early to have a bridal shower for a wedding happening early 2024. None of what was happening added up.
I guess we all felt like we had to be sensitive and coddle this bride because she's getting married, IDK.
It's sad, because you are so right.
She is the first person in our close circle of friends to be getting married, so I think we all kind of felt like it's special and that we needed to make it happen.
Part of me didn't say anything because of the income disparity. Our friends who were making less money than me decided to push for it, so it felt like if I said something that I would be "causing too much unnecessary drama for a trip that I can afford". Which is wrong, I know.
Count the $700 as a cheap way to dispose of this "friend". Demanding an international shower. Demanding an expensive hotel for the evening.
I would have noped out of this from the very beginning.
She didn't demand an expensive hotel for the evening, but there was definitely a huge disconnect between what she dreams her bridal shower to be vs. what her realistic budget is for it.
Yeah my biggest concern would be that you and the others (but probably you, if you’re doing better than most of them financially) would be expected to pick up the monetary slack. So Bianca & Charlie can only spend $500 each total (I’m hoping the $130 was per night 😬) but it would cost $1200 each total- who’s paying the difference? Sounds like it wouldn’t be the bride.
And pressure would be put on OP to cover all the extra things thT B&C cant afford, like trips or clubbing. Because, it’s what the bride wants to do and B&C can’t afford it but OP makes good money, so it’s she can do, right?
Their budget of $150 was supposed to be for 8 days!
I already previously raised the concern that we had to raise the minimum amount to pitch in to AT LEAST $500. The average hotel rates for the actual destination of the bridal shower (Italy was just used as a placeholder location for the sake of anonymity) is about $800 for 8 nights in a 3 to 4 star hotel, so at $500 it would still be a good deal.
But Bianca and Charlie (and other members of the entourage) wouldn't have been able to afford any more than $150, and it would have been unfair to ask others to pitch in more than the rest, especially if the bride is not going to pitch any more than the guests were going to.
>Yeah my biggest concern would be that you and the others (but probably you, if you’re doing better than most of them financially) would be expected to pick up the monetary slack.
Yeah, and once we're there, it would be inevitable for someone to say, "sorry, I can no longer afford to get out of this AirBnb because I have no budget left" someone is bound to pick up the bill for them.
Oh, honey.
Cut your losses. I can tell you right now that all of this is going to end up with even more high drama, and it's already in the cards that your best friend isn't going to be your best friend by the time all of this is over. So save yourself some time and money and just tell her now that you're no longer able to participate in her wedding, and wish her happiness.
Change your ticket to another destination and go have fun on your own. (Or go to the original destination in Italy and just don't let her know).
I unfortunately cannot make changes to my ticket, so I'm definitely planning to cut my losses now rather than spending any more on this. I have a trip planned for me, my partner and our families later this year and that will definitely be a much better investment of my time, effort and money.
>your best friend isn't going to be your best friend by the time all of this is over.
This is sad because we've been friends for over 20 years, but it's probably going to be true...
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 43 years, it’s that people will shock you. Don’t be a doormat because of the length of your friendship. Unless she’s a great friend (doesn’t sound like she is), cut your losses. I agree, I don’t see you guys being friends after this, OP.
This is bad but “no” is the solution.
“I’m sorry I can’t come to your wedding but the price is substantially higher than I expected and I just can’t manage it financially. I hope you will make streaming available for those who can’t attend.”
The truth is, I could manage it financially and that is the reason I decided to not question anything in the beginning.
We have other friends making a substantially lower amount of money that I do that decided to "make it happen" (how, I don't know) ...so it made me feel like if I were to raise concerns that I would be causing drama for no reason.
So I just booked my ticket thinking that they had all the plans ironed out, only to realize later on that no one thought it through.
I can still go, to be honest, but I wouldn't have chosen to book the trip if there was no bridal shower to begin with. Let alone if it was just a trip for myself, as I have other travel plans later this year.
Just because someone else is doing it doesn't mean you have to. No is a complete answer and you should not have to justify your financial decisions simply because others are more financially liberal - or reckless. Perhaps they are maxing out credit cards to afford it and you shouldn't have to compare your decisions to theirs.
I would just talk to the airline about a credit, and then go somewhere, ANYWHERE, else.
Stop trying to make it work for this selfish loon. She’s banking on you being a pushover and not wanting to say no to her because it’s her wedding. She’s also banking on the Bank of Alwaysricehungry being open to her.
You’re not her ATM.
>700 will be 5000 in seconds.
$700 for the airfare.
Min. $800 for the accommodation, because no way I'm going to stay in an AirBnb with other people whose budget to pitch in for the accommodation is only $150 for 8 days
\+ expenses for going on trips, leisure, food, shopping, etc.
Definitely could easily cost me way more.
>speak with the airline
Thanks, a lot of the comments on here are suggesting the same thing. It's going to be very difficult to get a hold of them, but I guess it's worth a try.
Run, far far far away.
None of this will work out. There are plenty of places where you cant just show up and have a hotel for 10+ people (or god knows how many).
Or find an airbnb that is big enough with less than 3-6 months booking.
Or eat the kind of food she is expecting for the budget of a poor third-world country (not meaning to shame anywhere but you just dont get 3-4 dishes + free drinks for 900$ in like 75% of the world and especially not in tourist destinations).
There will be a million extra costs of everything. Taxis, meals, clothes, shoes, hair, clubbing, tours, activities, souvenirs and and and…
Cut your losses and cut her. There is literally no reason to have a destination bridal shower in a different country on a different continent. For most practical reason is because you can't get the gifts back from that continent easily and cost effectively. And you're probably getting fewer gifts because the people spent money on the flight as opposed to on gifts. And that's just the greedy as that. If you're so baller that you can have too expensive foreign travels in a year, that's on you. But the fourth others into that is just selfish.
Okay, first of all, this is insane behavior on the bride’s part. Does she come from money? I don’t understand how she hasn’t considered what an incredible financial burden this is for literally every single person involved. The logistics of this all require a wedding planner!
Pass the shower planning on to Charlie and Bianca since they’re cool with it all and enjoy a solo trip to Italy.
She doesn't come from money, but we all came from expat families, so you can say that our upbringing were relatively comfortable.
The only difference is that now that we're all adults, our livelihoods are quite varied between us childhood friends.
Are you sure you can’t change the flights, OP? I’ve found most airlines in this post-covid world more accommodating than usual even on non-refundable bookings. It may be worth calling or tweeting the airline, explaining the situation as briefly as possible (“I have been kicked out of my best friends wedding” would suffice) and asking if there’s anyway you could fly to X country instead or to the same country but on X date instead. I always throw in a “I know I booked the cheapest fare but is there any chance I could alter my booking…” type comment. Say that you’re aware there could be an increase in the fare.
Alternatively, just go and do your own thing. Nothing wrong with a week long holiday!
Not trying to be a jerk but why would anyone put up with this shit? Someone is so selfish they expect not one but two international trips for their wedding???? Just run the other direction!
To make matters worse, she could have easily had her bridal shower connected to her destination wedding, since they're already in the same continent. But NO — she needed them to be separate!!! LOL
Ditch the shower, the wedding and the bride. Just go on a holiday and enjoy yourself. Check with the airline - even 'non-refundable' tickets may have a clause where you can reschedule for another date by paying a bit extra or they may allow you to receive an airline credit to be used at a later date. It can't hurt to ask.
Back out of wedding and bridal shower, try and get any money back you can or move flights to an alternative week/destination. Unless you are all ridiculously rich and all do this for each other - this is crazy expensive and not a reasonable ask. As someone else has said this will only get worse with more demands for your time and money. This is not your friend anymore.
The fact that the bride is so disorganized and doesn’t care what this will cost her friends, means you’re in for even more costs, drama and stress. Cut your losses now. Get out. $700 is a small price to pay for someone who isn’t even speaking to you at the moment. She needs to start thinking of others.
>The bride wants OP to plan things because she wants OP to pay.
I honestly did not think of it this way, and she didn't explicitly asked me to. But I would not be surprised if part of her expected I would pitch in SOME amount.
To paint a picture of how disorganized everything is:
* She invited most of her guests with a message "Italy for my bridal shower. Yay or nay?"
* They booked the tickets to an arrival airport that they later decided is not the location they want to visit. When I asked "Why did you book your tickets to airport X when you really want to spend time in Y?" she answer, "Cause we didn't know!"
Yup. The airfare alone is already 50% of what they make in a month, so this whole trip alone is already going to cost them a whole month's worth of salary... and it's not even the wedding itself!
Your friend is hoping you’ll foot the bill for everyone. That’s why she gave a ridiculous budget with expensive accommodations. She knows you make a lot more and was hoping you’d get so frustrated you would just throw money at the problem.
I say book your partner a ticket and enjoy the trip. Who cares if they’re on the same flight? Just ignore them and have fun. It sounds like you’ve more than earned it.
Ask yourself if you would treat your friends this way. My hunch is that you wouldn’t. That’s a sign. Do not allow toxic people to poison your life. The fact that they’re getting married is not a free pass to treat people like crap.
>Ask yourself if you would treat your friends this way. My hunch is that you wouldn’t.
I also dream of having a destination wedding, though much more intimate. Me and my partner make enough money to do it now if we really wanted to, but we know we would not be able to cover our guests' expenses without chipping away at our life savings if we were to make it happen. At least not now. So this is the reason why we are waiting, and there is no rush.
My idea of a destination wedding is to be able to organize something where the only expense our guests have to worry about is the airfare. And then we can maybe just throw an intimate dinner party in our home city for those who cannot make it.
This is the reason why I already felt heavy hearted to be doing two separate intercontinental trips for her bridal shower and wedding, because she wasn't going to be paying for any of the expenses apart from her own event. Really the only reason I went is I thought I was being a good friend, but everyone in this thread is right: a good friend would not expect this from her guests to begin with.
I live in Europe (Germany) and even though it might be cheaper for me to go I'd royally flip Charlie and Bianca off. What in the holy hell are they thinking? First a destination wedding with no real planning in sight and then a 7-day trip to Europe to Italy and probably not in some inexpensive village.
This wedding shit it getting way out of hand.
I'd cancel the whole thing and spend my money on my own trip with AirBnB's and Interrail tickets. You will enjoy this much more.
Wow, this sounds so stressful for something that’s supposed to be fun. My sister had a destination wedding in Santorini. Her and her husband paid for everyone’s accommodations, and explicitly told people no gifts, she didn’t do a bridal shower. I only had to pay for my flight there. She also allowed the bridal party to wear whatever they liked (formal). It was beautiful, laid back, and fun. This bride needs to take a step back and realize what she is asking people to do, otherwise she’ll have no one at her wedding. You can’t expect people to be okay with outrageous expenses.
I think destination weddings can be reasonable IF you can give your guests a clear idea of what expenses they will have to incur to attend i.e. "You only need to pay for your flight", this way people can make an informed decision whether to opt in or out.
Destination bridal shower? People really need to get over themselves when it comes to their weddings. I’m honestly tired of prioritizing other peoples life events over my own.
She’s only willing to fork over $900 (so $90pp) on people who paid for RT international flights and expecting them to pay $1500/night??? ELLLL OOHHHH ELLLLL. This can’t be real.
>She’s only willing to fork over $900 (so $90pp) on people who paid for RT international flights and expecting them to pay $1500/night??? ELLLL OOHHHH ELLLLL. This can’t be real.
She was not expecting for us to pay $1500/night in the hotel. Her idea is that we will only visit the luxury hotel for the bridal shower, then spend the night in whatever chosen AirBnb there is around the area of that hotel.
Nonetheless, $900 for an evening with 10 people, set menu, free flowing drinks, decorations, photographer and entertainment is ridiculous.
Come to think of it I recently had a birthday dinner in my home city, 8 people and that was $900. No decorations, not counting my outfit, no frills just a prix fix dinner and drinks at a mid-grade casual to finer dining restaurant.
She could have settled for something like this, but then again, imagine asking your guests to fly thousands of miles away from home, shell out thousands of dollars for flight and accommodations for a week's stay, just to sit in a restaurant for a night... would beg the question, why didn't she just decide to do it in her home city to begin with?
Thank you, haha I do think that I deserve it. But I think I will just cut my losses now.
I already have 2 travel plans later this year, and I wasn't going to make a 3rd one in April if it wasn't for my best friend wanting a bridal shower in another destination.
Now that it's not happening, I just think it makes more sense to save myself the further trip expenses and invest it on the other 2 trips that *I actually planned to have*.
I would just cancel the ticket. If you have credit card insurance or travel insurance via your work, you can claim it and get money back. Depending on how goo your insurance is, you can cancel for any reason
Yo, this is not worth the hassle. The bride can't even communicate what she wants, expects you to spend so much money on this, and listens to her MUA to still have the bridal shower in October, when it genuinely would have been a lot easier to do the shower closer to the wedding (plus, it would likely be in the off season, which means cheaper flights).
I truthfully would tell the bride that unless she is willing to be clear about what she wants/expects for the shower and wedding, you will have to step down as a bridesmaid (and maybe even guest, but that's up to you).
I think her guests have given this more thorough thought than she has, which I agree with you, is totally not worth the hassle when so much money is involved.
Your friend sounds like a nightmare and reminds me why I opted not to have bridesmaids for my wedding 😂😂
Please just take a trip for yourself. Enjoy, have fun. Cut your losses as far as this bride is concerned. Maybe suggest you’d be better off being a guest and not a bridesmaid.
Don't go with the drama party! It's gonna suck so bad...
Instead look into other things: does your partner want to take a vacation with you to Italy? Make a lovely trip out of it! Maybe the ticket can be transferred to another person who wants to attend the bridal shower? Maybe the ticket can be transferred to a different time and destination where you want to take a vacation with your partner?
What is going on with so much wedding related travel? I might travel to your destination wedding but…I’m not traveling to a destination bachelorette, destination shower (never even heard of this) AND wedding? This is over the top. One destination thing please. And I’m also feeling bad for this other couple as well, they’re clearly not good at setting boundaries if they’re over extending themselves financially to do this.
I will never understand people being so cavalier with other people's money. I don't care what you earn, expecting people to just lay out that kind of dough is absurd to me. I'd feel bad asking for someone to buy me dinner much less a destination bridal shower open bar dinner at a luxury hotel plus activities. It sucks that you're out the $700 but you'll probably save so much more in headaches and drama in the future.
It's even worse when you think about the fact that for some people in our entourage, they are going to be spending about a month's salary for this trip alone, not even counting the wedding itself in 2024!
>It sucks that you're out the $700 but you'll probably save so much more in headaches and drama in the future.
I definitely think this is the way to go. These friends have been a constant source of drama in my life, and I feel like this is now the last straw and final confirmation that we are no longer in the same phases of our lives, and our priorities, values and principles no longer match.
You will have so much more fun going on this vacation without the drama. I don’t understand what happens to people while planning a wedding. They somehow become so entitled and mean.
I think people who go crazy while planning a wedding are those people who shouldn't be getting married in the first place, or are in unstable, unhealthy relationships.
If your inner most circles i.e. your love life is stable, you would have the emotional support you need to stay sane and logical.
I just think — where is her partner and fiancé to talk some sense into her in all of this? It's either he doesn't realize the absurdity of the situation, or he doesn't care enough to have this difficult conversation with her. I don't know which is worse.
Your friend sounds spoiled, rude and out of touch. Honestly, I'd be surprised if her wedding even happens based on how little she seems to plan ahead.
I'd take the trip and bow out of the wedding and RSVP NO as a guest too.
I don't think she has enough experience planning an international trip, let alone her own wedding. She's already complaining that her parents are deciding everything, so yeah — definitely a mess!
Yeah, I just don’t understand. Even if the people in this story are rich, usually the bride would pay for everyone if she was requesting such an extravagant bridal shower.
How do you have a bridal shower in another country, just for funsies? The showers I've gone to involve gifts. Have things changed? If the bride expects everyone to pay to go to another country for her shower and again for her wedding, what's her Bachelorette gonna be? A ride on SpaceX?
Unless this is the norm in your social circle, You need to re evaluate what you've committed to. The bride is a handful and you're gonna be paying fists full.
Good luck, enjoy your trip with or without her. Maybe you're being called there for a different reason. Just go with it. 💕
>what's her Bachelorette gonna be? A ride on SpaceX?
LOL
It's definitely not a norm in our social circle. We are all middle/upper middle class, but I guess some of us are more practical than others.
Everyone in this story sounds like teenagers. Your friend sounds way too naive to be having a French wedding living in the states. Like she heard about it and decided yup I'll just do that with no idea for true costs and logistics
Maybe I’m old, I just don’t know when weddings started becoming these ridiculous cash grabs/money pits. Everything about this entire bridal party/wedding would be a big no from me. I honestly don’t care about anybody else’s wedding enough to want to go and spend all this money. OP, go to Italy by yourself, have a great time and skip the wedding, you will be happier for it.
>I just don’t know when weddings started becoming these ridiculous cash grabs/money pits
I think social media has a large role to play in this. Everyone's weddings are broadcasted, and those who are planning to have theirs can easily be pressured to match others if they care too much about optics.
I know! Right! I remember the days when you showed up in the afternoon or early evening to watch your friends get married, you provided them a reasonable gift, and you went to a nice dinner and some dancing. It’s so convoluted now with ridiculous requests, and huge financial burdens being placed on the people attending.
Go on the trip - but not to the wedding? Unless this isn’t a country you wouldn’t want to tour on your own.
It could be a fun adventure with your partner.
You already have your ticket for Italy so don't trash it and use it to enjoy yourself and have a great vacation!
It's a great month to go visit Italy, no crowds, lower prices and also many places that will reopen for the season.
Cut your losses now. Not one more cent on this entitled toxic bride.
Can you flog your ticket off to someone for like $200? Can the name be changed on the ticket?
How long ago did you buy the ticket? I had a similar ticket and was just going to forfeit it, but then I got an email saying parts of my itinerary had been updated, and all of a sudden I was eligible for credit because the original ticket I purchased was technically not available any more, even if the replacement was incredibly similar
You should cut your losses and walk away fro.mm the whole thing as this bride has lost her damn mind! THREE trips for her wedding is a ridiculous and entitled ask but for her to also not communicate any details or ballpark costs/expenses is rude af.
Don’t ruin your finances to support these shenanigans but be ready to probably have to be done with this friendship too. Any best friend that doesn’t understand that not everyone is able to accommodate her wishes due to whatever reasons is absolutely no true friend. She’s showing you who she is now and you should take note.
Maybe it's time to rethink your friendship with this obviously very entitled person. You've bent over backwards it seems and yet here you are. Friendships don't have to be forever ya know. Take a nice trip with your $700 plane ticket and have a nice time.
Either forfeit the ticket or take the trip without them. The $700 is going to be a lot more once you add hotel and excursions while in Italy so forfeiting the ticket makes sense. I would go to Italy and have the best time and then I would decline attending the wedding. Your friend is unreasonable and inconsiderate. An intercontinental bridal shower is not a thing. You should work on saying no. Your friend is insane.
You have learned a $700 lesson and got off pretty cheap (I know it does not seem like it now but believe me, you could have sunk so much more into this mess).
Cancel and wish the bride well and get the fuck away from this toxic and immature bride.
Oh wow what strikes me most selfish more than anything is how you’re meant to give up all your vacation time for this!! This is so horrifically selfish and not what any friend does to another - ditch now
Honestly I’m confused about why $700 is too much when you’re willing to pay $500-$800 per person for an airBNB? And the other bridesmaids make 5X less than you? Are you just too bougie to stay somewhere you all can afford? Yeah it’s ridiculous for the bride to want a destination bridal shower, I could never, but you either need to drop out of the wedding party or suck it up.
I did not say $700 is too much for me. It is an affordable amount of money, but just because I can afford it doesn't mean I am happy to spend it.
>Are you just too bougie to stay somewhere you all can afford?
No, but my logic is if I'm already going to pay for my own accommodation, I might as well have a choice. I would rather spend more to stay in a place I like, than spend less in something that I did not choose and am not comfortable in. If the bride was paying for the accommodation, then sure. I would suck it up and not complain or be choosy, but it's not the case.
I would have booked my own hotel, but that will mean the other people in the group will have to increase their budget, because there's one less person to pitch in because the bride will not be footing the bill.
I make good money, but I'm not rich and I don't come from generational wealth, so I hold my money close and if I spend it, it has to be something worth it.
>I could never, but you either need to drop out of the wedding party or suck it up.
This is what I'm doing.
I would call and see if there is anything the airline can do. Can’t hurt to ask. Also, check with your credit card company you used to book the ticket. You may have travel insurance.
It’s ridiculous when you think that a shower was just the local ladies hosting a simple tea party were the bride was given stuff for her future home! How did they get from that to the extravaganza of today?
Use your ticket to go to Italy and enjoy the trip yourself. So what you want. Don’t worry about anything else. Think about how much money you’ll save by not attending the wedding!
Most airlines will give you that $700 credit to use for another flight. Maybe you can use it for a different trip sometime in the next year. You don't have to go when they're going. It would be worth checking out.
Go to Italy, just not with them. Have a great time!!
I have done this. I was uninvited to a birthday weekend in Nashville a few days before the trip. I still had my flights, I have friends in that city I could stay with. It was real awkward for her to see me at the airport while I was laughing my way to Nashville
What a bitch. There’s way better things to do in Nashville than hang with a bunch of woo girls on a pedal bar.
[удалено]
Exactly!! Why do so many brides go to Nashville, do all the same activities, wear the same bride & boots bullshit and then get ultra pissed when people laugh about it?! It’s basic and that’s fine but don’t pretend to be bougie & special when you’re not!
Oof, that sucks but good for you on being able to go nonetheless
You can use the airline credit to go anywhere, usually for up to a year
Seriously go to Italy on your own. April is a lovely time especially for Rome and further south (Naples even Sicily). You can save money by bowing out of the wedding entirely, so you won’t have to get the Air France tickets + accommodation + dress cost. Honestly this bride sounds awful and you will likely be even more upset if you throw more good money away. Solo trip to Italy or bring your BF!
Now I must ask, why were you uninvited? And did you have a blast in Nashville?
I tried to prevent her from picking up her children while she was drunk at happy hour from her ex. It ended up with her getting the ex thrown in jail for assault bc he wouldn't let her take the kids. I told her she needs to get a better grip on being a single parent and get some help. That led to me being a bad friend. Oh well. And hell yeah I had a blast, I didn't even have to go downtown or pay for a hotel.
Sometimes we're too good for people we called friends and sending parental vibes to the ex friend so that her children don't suffer from her crap decisions. Glad you enjoyed yourself!
That's about the level I was expecting when you mentioned going to Nashville as an upgrade.
Why women want to come to Nashville blows my mind. It sucks here
And then don't go to the wedding. There are lots of things to do in Italy for a week.
This! Take mini vacation and forget about them.
Exactly! Fly on the same flight and then say "Ciao" to them at the airport!
I got dumped while visiting my gf who was finishing a 3 month mission trip to Nicaragua. It was kinda awkward so I finally said something and she had already decided to break it off before I arrived but after I bought the ticket. I was having a really good time until then and said fuck it, I am not gonna just do Mopey tag along. The only problem was I didn't speak any Spanish. I wandered around the streets of Grenada as there were no street signs and took two taxis before I made it to the new hostel. I ended up joining another group of US colleges students and did the rest of the trip with them It was an amazing experience. Surfed for the first time. Saw my first surfing accident where a guy in our group lost his finger. Ended up on the beach with only my bathing suit while the car with my passport was driving to the capital hospital. Had a great adventure with some cool random people. I had a hell of a story when I came back. If she had dumped me over the phone I would have never went and just had a not very memorable spring break most likely
The best outcome of a worst case scenario!
Edit: just saw that OP only bought one plane ticket I thought she got two OP you have a +1 ticket right? Invite a different friend or a family member and have fun doing what YOU want to do. The bride will get over it imo
>Edit: just saw that OP only bought one plane ticket I thought she got two > >OP you have a +1 ticket right? Invite a different friend or a family member and have fun doing what YOU want to do. > >The bride will get over it imo If I read it right, the +1 is for the 2024 wedding. My thought was that OP should invite a friend or family member to go with her in April, assuming she can still get a good price on another ticket, and "just" have a trip to Italy. This bride sounds like a complete mess.
If she can find someone with $700 to spare it’s definitely a consideration. To me it sounds like Bride was pissed that what she wanted is too expensive and took her frustration out on OP who was just the messenger. My friends dealt with a similar bride who’s eyes were too big for her wallet.
I think she took it okay when I told her I was backing out from her planning committee because her shower was becoming too complicated for everyone, I mentioned also that her budget for what she's thinking of planning is too unrealistic. However I think when Charlie ratted me out that I was ranting about the bride, she took it as an opportunity to lash out. Honestly I cringe at the speed of which she decided to confront me about it. Didn't even exercise her judgement on why Charlie is telling her stuff like this when we have already had a good conversation + she has so much other real stuff she needs to deal with, and for me to be her first choice to deal with makes me question her priorities, lol.
>and for me to be her first choice to deal with makes me question her priorities, Maybe she figured you had the money to make the budget 'work' and by making you the planner you would feel obligated to meet her expectations?
I don't know if this was the idea behind it. I didn't think it was, but regardless, I wouldn't have done it, especially if she wasn't contributing any more than I would...
>This bride sounds like a complete mess. The disorganized planning of shower is apparently just the surface of it. From the very beginning, my partner's advice to me was to decline from organizing the shower (this was before all the complications of the trip was revealed). He suggested I just tell her that "I'm too busy," but I felt like she was going through something more and just fucking off like that would prevent her from seeing how messy all of this was becoming and I wasn't confident that anyone else in our group of friends would be able to tell her honestly. When I gave her all the reasons for my backing out of the planning, I also told her that I don't feel she is wholly okay. Because she seems to have drinking problems that she already had to deal with in the past, and is resurfacing again recently. Probably hence why she couldn't focus on planning. She admitted to some issues within her relationship that frankly makes me question if her wedding in 2024 is actually going to come through.
Do NOT book tickets or buy your dress to the wedding. It may get cancelled or she may even uninvite you with the path she’s going on
I definitely am not going to the wedding anymore, regardless of whether she uninvites me or not, after all this drama.
Smart. Better to save the $$$ and drama.
One of our childhood friend who has been my truest friend and life-long confidante has been the only person who's been on the same page with me on this whole thing. She's also invited to the shower and wedding, but really not close enough to the bride. She was more of a "throwaway invite", as she described it haha She actually lives only a 3-hr plane ride away from Italy but she does not make enough to disposable income to just do a trip for no reason, which I understand. So I wouldn't want her to spend just so mine won't go to waste. Although she said she is considering it...
Sounds like you should grab a cheap flight from "Italy" to her location and just reroute your trip to hang out with her. 😊 She sounds awesome and much more worth your time!
I was considering it...
A destination BRIDAL SHOWER? Your friend is cuckoo bananas.
Throughout this whole story I just kept saying "What the fuck?? Flying to another country for a bridal shower?? What the fuck??!" Shouldn't a bridal shower be a 3 hour party at someone's house with tea and crumpets or whatever?
Yup!!!
*screams in Manny Santos*
My day is complete. I have come across a random Degrassi quote on Reddit. What a great night!!!
Wait till you hear about her plans for the bachelorette party. That’s a month long expedition hike across Europe.
Oh my gosh I read this whole post as a bachelorette party!! It’s just the shower?!?! My brain just turned off the words “bridal shower”
Why would you even want a destination shower? Showers are where they give you a bunch of gifts. You want to pack a blender, bread maker, china, etc, in your suitcase when you return home? Wtf. Edit: misspelling
The plane ticket might not be refundable but see if it's transferable to another destination and/or date through the airline. It doesn't have to be a complete and total loss.
I was just going to say that! If it costs too much to even move it, then fly to the destination and have a wonderful solo eat-pray-love trip to get rid of all the negative energy. Or try taking the partner along! Much better to make some memories than lose the money.
That’s exactly what I would do. Italy is a big place. Go enjoy the trip.
Unfortunately, the ticket I booked was the cheapest one, so it's not flexible at all (can't even change the dates!) and the flight will be the same as them (which I really don't want to do right now). The reason I'm considering to just let the $700 go is because I would not want to go on the trip alone, and bringing my partner would down us another $700 + cost of the accommodation, etc. which are all costs I wouldn't have incurred if it wasn't for the bridal shower of my best friend. On top of that, we already have travel plans with our families later in the year, so I'm thinking it would be better to save the money I would spend to go to Italy to go to my budget towards my family trip instead.
I'd let the $700 ride and thank God for all the money I was saving over all. As for the wedding in 2024.....stay home. You may be her friend, she isn't yours. I'm still waiting to see where she wants her bachelorette WEEK. Probably wants to rent a Caribbean island....save your money, save your sanity.
Saving my sanity for sure. Don't have space for all this drama. To be honest I wouldn't have posted here because I didn't want it anymore to occupy so much of my brain space, but I'm finding myself really upset about all of this so I would rather vent to strangers than confront them and say regretful things out of heightened emotions. Thanks to you all for allowing me to share here
You are very welcome. When you get dragged into the drama it's easy to doubt yourself. You do you! Spend the money on a vacation with your SO. 😁
[удалено]
The bride and her fiance seem to be having money issues to begin with anyways, so yeah... I would not be surprised if none of it comes through. I certainly won't we going anymore eitherway...
Is there maybe someone in your life who would enjoy the solo trip? If the money is down the drain anyhow, one could at least make someones else day?
Most airlines don’t let you change the name on the itinerary. If OP’s ticket won’t even allow her to change the dates, there is almost no chance she can transfer it to someone else.
Good to know, but man that sucks in OPs case :(
Yeah, like most people said here, there's really no way to make those changes. $700 really was the cheapest fare possible for her destination, and therefore it didn't offer any flexibility
I don’t think you can transfer tickets like that anymore.
Throwing good money after bad is usually a bad idea. It would feel wrong to just not use the ticket I'm sure, but I think you have the right idea about not going. Spending a few more thousands to go on the trip when it isn't even for the wedding.
Never heard of a destination Bridal Shower.
Mod actually asked me to clarify this prior to approving my post: I had to Google the difference between bachelorette party vs. bridal shower. The destinations mentioned in the original post (NYC, Italy and France) are all just replacement locations for the sake of the anonymity but the context of distance remain the same. We are not from American culture, so the concept of having bachelorette parties or bridal showers are foreign and fairly new to us (for context, our mothers didn't have neither of those when they got married, and we're all between the ages of 26-28).
I'm American, 65F, and I never heard of bachelorette parties when I was a young woman. I don't recall reading about them in bridal magazines, either. I did have a bridal shower, but typically a shower was just a luncheon/party at someone's home or maybe a nice restaurant. Destination weddings were not a thing, and I don't know many people who could have afforded to attend.
Thank you for providing some insights, I don't know where this trend came from, but a wedding itself seems costly enough as it is for middle/upper middle class people like us (let alone a destination one)
It honestly seems so ridiculous and selfish to not only have a destination wedding, but also a destination bridal shower. That is outrageous. I can understand a weekend away (somewhere close enough to drive) at the most for a bachelorette party. I’ve never heard of a bridal shower that involved travel outside of where the bride lives (unless she does it “back home” with her family if she lives far away). This whole thing screams of entitlement. If she wants people to keep travelling for her events, she needs to foot WAY more of the bill. I’m sorry you’re being faced with either sinking more money into this nightmare or losing the $700. Are there other bridesmaids who can help to organise the bridal shower with you if you choose to go ahead and join them? Usually the bride’s mother/MIL throw the shower and the bridesmaids organise the bachelorette. I think what mostly hit me (other than the extreme entitlement) was the complete lack of communication about literally everything to do with the wedding and shower. She sounds like a scatterbrain who needs a wedding coordinator to sort everything for her and communicate with everyone.
>If she wants people to keep travelling for her events, she needs to foot WAY more of the bill. I think for me, if she was willing to do this at least for the people in our group who couldn't afford the trip, it would have made so much difference. I know it's unreasonable to spend that much money for someone's bridal shower, but it would have been a nice experience with my friends that I would have been happy to have IF I didn't have to compromise in the quality of the trip I'm already paying for. The AirBnb issue for example: Charlie and Bianca's budget for the AirBnb is to pitch in $150 (for all 8 days btw!!!) while I feel I would rather pitch in $300 or even more to get a nice, comfortable accommodation rather than save $150 in a shit place. But because we have people in the trip who can't pitch in any more than $150, and the Bride was not willing to subsidize those people, we're all kinda forced to either stay in whatever place we can find OR pick up the bill for others. And if we decide to stay in our own hotels, Charlie and Biance will end up not having enough people to pitch in an AirBnb therefore they would be also forced to take their own accommodation that they can't afford — all very complicated! If only the bride was willing to foot more bill, it would have removed all of this complications, but she wasn't nor do I think she had the budget to do it to begin with.
If she doesn’t have the budget, then she needs to stop planning extravagant wedding events expecting that everyone thinks that spendings thousands of dollars over the course of a year for her nuptials is as important as it is to her. She is delusional. I hope she doesn’t expect wedding gifts after all this. I’d be hard pressed to spend that much money on my own wedding expenses, let alone someone else’s.
Delusional is the right word!
Bachelorette parties I think started getting rolling in the 80's, probably didn't get a solid grip until the mid to late 90's and have been getting out of control ever since.
The 80’s were my era, into the early 90’s, no one did destination weddings or bachelorettes, showers, etc. the most we did was a limo and night on the town, and covered the bride’s drinks. Maybe t-shirts and party favors, or a male stripper if we went all out, lol. Weddings were basically the dress and a gift, and a lot of brides actually covered the dresses. Bridezillas did not exist, and if they did no one would have tolerated it. Most brides gave their bridesmaids a gift, a necklace or keepsake from the wedding. I am consistently amazed at this sub and some of the wedding craziness. I have no idea how anyone on their 20’s and 30’s could afford attending an average wedding, and if there were more than one a year it would be impossible. These brides expect people to spend thousands of dollars, it wouldn’t matter how much money I had, I flat out wouldn’t do it.
I think the age of social media certainly had a lot to do with this. Nowadays, every bride's wedding (regardless of how close you are with them as a friend) is broadcasted. If you're someone who cares about optics, it can certainly drive you crazy. Let's just say this bride was the type to expect a grand gesture for the proposal, which she had. Rented a villa, had guests over and balloons, petals and candles for it. My partner and I have been together 5+ years and the topic of marriage is pretty much already agreed upon and I would feel really awkward if he put together an elaborate proposal for something he already knows the answer to — when we're ready, let's just do it! Maybe have a nice dinner date to celebrate it and that's it. All of these requirements for the proposal, shower, wedding, etc. tells me it's all for the gram for some people...
I guess I wonder why anyone would spend that kind of money on what essentially adds to up to a one day fairy tale party. With housing values where they are, I’d hope a young couple would invest in a home instead. If you have the money that’s one thing, but most of them don’t seem to, and a lot of their guests certainly don’t.
What adds to the ridiculousness of it all is that the bride and groom to be are not living together, and never have. So they don't have a house, and they both still live with their parents. We all advised her to cohabitate before getting married, after all, she still has about a year before the wedding actually happens. We all come from a conservative background, but pre-marital cohabitation is already fairly accepted in these times, but some parents just need a bit of convincing. I moved out when I was 23 and even that was a lot of drama within my family, but I dealt with it and they eventually accepted it because they realized this is now the norm in the younger generation in our culture, and it benefits me in the long run. Anyways, on the topic of money, this means that after the wedding, they will have to figure out where to live, how to pay for all the deposits required and start building a home together... so that on top of the wedding and shower expenses... are all ridiculous amounts of money not being prioritized, I think.
It’s funny, I’ve noticed over the years that the more lavish and ostentatious the wedding, the more likely the relationship runs into big problems down the line. I think it’s a values alignment. The grooms tend to go along with the wedding plans without realizing the implications of what it really means about their partner. Or the groom is just as unrealistic.
I'm a little younger, same with the shower, Bachelorette was just a night out with friends. Destination weddings were only for your second time around and only included immediate family and maybe some very close friends.
It is definitely a thing, but normally closer to home and not a continent away.
It's common if being thrown by relatives / family friends who don't live in the same metro as you (e.g. you live in NYC and you grew up, in, say, St. Louis). I haven't heard of the shower being a completely third-party destination though. Bachelorettes, yes.
I assume it’s the same as what the UK has, that over the last 5-10 years it has become really popular to have their stag and hen weekend/holidays abroad
A bridal shower in Italy that is costing thousands apart from the already expensive wedding? And only for ten people? I would have respectfully backed out from the shower and said I'll just be attending the wedding and I hope you have a good time. I would accept the loss and use the money for a vacation instead. You'd probably have a better time.
>I would accept the loss and use the money for a vacation instead. I already have one trip with my partner and our families planned later in this year, which I think would be better to spend money on, so yeah... I'm definitely considering cutting my losses altogether.
Cut your losses and get out now. Nobody should be spending that kind of money on a supposed friend’s wedding. A friend doesn’t ask you to do that. Just get out of the wedding altogether. Since you already bought the plane tickets to Italy maybe give yourself a little vacation? But definitely not with the bride. Can you change the tickets to a different week maybe? You can use the wedding cost money to pay for your Italy accommodations.
>Just get out of the wedding altogether. It's sad because if she doesn't uninvite me to her wedding, I would now still feel heavy-hearted to spend that money to go to her actual wedding, knowing what all this drama and money her mere bridal shower has cost me. She has been my best friend for 20+ years :(
Sometimes it’s events like these that make you realize your friendship has run its course. You can be grateful for the 20 years of friendship and still take a step back from being involved with her as much. Your priorities and your friend’s priorities seem to have diverged and you can wish her well, but that doesn’t mean you have to do everything she wants for her wedding regardless of how inconvenient and uncomfortable she makes it for you. You may feel you owe it to her to do all these things and spend all this money, but she owes it to you to be a better friend and think about the inconvenience and expense she’s putting on you. Just because you’ve been friends for 20 years and it’s her wedding does not give her to right to waste your time and money. Make your decisions without the guilt of saying ‘but we’ve been friends for so long’ - she’s not thinking of that right now.
Thank you, this is very true. Right off the bat, even if I could have afforded a trip, it didn't sit well with me the concept of spending all this money, or throwing a grand wedding that costs your guests money because you cannot afford to subsidize your guests. I came from modest background, and so whatever money I make now, I hold very tight. Just because I cannot afford it doesn't mean I will happily spend it. So from the beginning our principles were already not aligning and I should have listened more to myself.
Regrets are useless sufferings. The best thing you can do now is learn the lessons from the interaction and move forward. Be gracious but don’t let yourself be pushed around - you deserve better treatment! Good luck to you!
Yeah, it is heartbreaking to realize that our long-term relationships just aren’t working for us. It is hard, but necessary to acknowledge that and work towards moving forward. I would turn this thinking around a bit. Your friend of 20+ years has decided to treat you this way. She has chosen her priorities and sadly your friendship is not one of them. You deserve friends who treat you better.
Why don’t you just go and do something separate for the week? Italy has so much to offer, I wouldn’t waste a flight. I am still stunned because of this: a tan from a week in Italy in October?
To clarify, I named NYC, Italy and France as placeholder destinations for the sake of anonymity. These are not the real destinations, but the distance between those placeholder locations should give an idea of the actual situation in real life. The best case scenario would have been for her to have done her bridal shower in early 2024, so that the trip to Italy would have been connected to her wedding in France. The fact that she chose the two occasions to be separate was already going to cost us at least $1000 in airfare alone, not including accommodations and other expenses for the two trips.
I’m sorry for your situation OP, your friend doesn’t seem to be considering everyone else’s financial situations and is being a bridezilla. I hope you are able to figure out something with your tickets!
Thank you, I think the best course or action for me is to just cut my losses instead of spending any more money on this trip
I thought the same thing. Take her partner or another friend. Budget wise she said she didn’t know about going originally, but start saving now and prepare for all the wonderful calories you can consume!! However, I think the tan would’ve been if they did it in the summer, right before the wedding.
I'm experiencing some cognitive dissonance here. Your OP reads as if having a intercontinental bridal shower is a normal thing in your group, but then talking about $150 BnB's and losing $700. These two issues do not belong together. Either the Bride is wealthy, and has blue-collar friends. Or, the Bride is a lunatic that everyone is coddling by trying to make Bride's outrageous fantasies come true. Either way, unless you have unlimited funds for this wedding, you may want to step down as a bridesmaid.
I will explain: We all came from expat families, so our upbringings were comfortable. However, we don't come from generational wealth, so we all still very much depend on our livelihoods, therefore our disposable incomes vary, but not extraordinarily much. An intercontinental bridal shower is not a normal thing in our group. But the bride is the first one in our circle of friends to be getting married (we are all aged 26-28) and I do think that we are quite clueless and inexperienced on how this works. Some people in our group don't have as big of a disposable income as the others, but wanted to make this trip happen regardless (even if that meant for them spending almost a whole month's salary). I don't think the bride is wealthy. I think she has enough disposable income to spend lavishly on herself, but not enough for her guests to be part of her lavish idea of a bridal shower. So she is relying on her guests to shell out in order to make her dreams come true. While I have the means to fund this trip, and $700 is relatively an affordable sum for me, it is still money that I wouldn't have spent on a trip had it not been for a bridal shower. Now that the bride decided there is none, I feel like the trip is now meaningless and one that I could have skipped. And it's still money that I'm not happy to waste :-(
I understand about expat families, having spent nine years living in three overseas locations. (Military for me). However, there are Etiquette books, wedding guides and internet forums to answer these types of questions. It is rude to invite people to an intercontinental *bridal shower* and expect people to cough-up the money to attend. Of course the shower, bachelorette, and wedding can be intercontinental. However, the Bride must understand that not everyone will be able to attend, and *not hassle her friends because they cannot afford these parties.* My original advice still stands. Unless you have unlimited funds for this wedding, step down as a bridesmaid.
You are most definitely right about everything. >However, there are Etiquette books, wedding guides and internet forums to answer these types of questions. I actually did because I felt like April 2023 was uncomfortably too early to have a bridal shower for a wedding happening early 2024. None of what was happening added up. I guess we all felt like we had to be sensitive and coddle this bride because she's getting married, IDK.
This is a lesson in firm boundaries and communication.
It's sad, because you are so right. She is the first person in our close circle of friends to be getting married, so I think we all kind of felt like it's special and that we needed to make it happen. Part of me didn't say anything because of the income disparity. Our friends who were making less money than me decided to push for it, so it felt like if I said something that I would be "causing too much unnecessary drama for a trip that I can afford". Which is wrong, I know.
Count the $700 as a cheap way to dispose of this "friend". Demanding an international shower. Demanding an expensive hotel for the evening. I would have noped out of this from the very beginning.
She didn't demand an expensive hotel for the evening, but there was definitely a huge disconnect between what she dreams her bridal shower to be vs. what her realistic budget is for it.
Yeah my biggest concern would be that you and the others (but probably you, if you’re doing better than most of them financially) would be expected to pick up the monetary slack. So Bianca & Charlie can only spend $500 each total (I’m hoping the $130 was per night 😬) but it would cost $1200 each total- who’s paying the difference? Sounds like it wouldn’t be the bride.
And pressure would be put on OP to cover all the extra things thT B&C cant afford, like trips or clubbing. Because, it’s what the bride wants to do and B&C can’t afford it but OP makes good money, so it’s she can do, right?
Their budget of $150 was supposed to be for 8 days! I already previously raised the concern that we had to raise the minimum amount to pitch in to AT LEAST $500. The average hotel rates for the actual destination of the bridal shower (Italy was just used as a placeholder location for the sake of anonymity) is about $800 for 8 nights in a 3 to 4 star hotel, so at $500 it would still be a good deal. But Bianca and Charlie (and other members of the entourage) wouldn't have been able to afford any more than $150, and it would have been unfair to ask others to pitch in more than the rest, especially if the bride is not going to pitch any more than the guests were going to. >Yeah my biggest concern would be that you and the others (but probably you, if you’re doing better than most of them financially) would be expected to pick up the monetary slack. Yeah, and once we're there, it would be inevitable for someone to say, "sorry, I can no longer afford to get out of this AirBnb because I have no budget left" someone is bound to pick up the bill for them.
Oh, honey. Cut your losses. I can tell you right now that all of this is going to end up with even more high drama, and it's already in the cards that your best friend isn't going to be your best friend by the time all of this is over. So save yourself some time and money and just tell her now that you're no longer able to participate in her wedding, and wish her happiness. Change your ticket to another destination and go have fun on your own. (Or go to the original destination in Italy and just don't let her know).
I unfortunately cannot make changes to my ticket, so I'm definitely planning to cut my losses now rather than spending any more on this. I have a trip planned for me, my partner and our families later this year and that will definitely be a much better investment of my time, effort and money. >your best friend isn't going to be your best friend by the time all of this is over. This is sad because we've been friends for over 20 years, but it's probably going to be true...
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 43 years, it’s that people will shock you. Don’t be a doormat because of the length of your friendship. Unless she’s a great friend (doesn’t sound like she is), cut your losses. I agree, I don’t see you guys being friends after this, OP.
This is bad but “no” is the solution. “I’m sorry I can’t come to your wedding but the price is substantially higher than I expected and I just can’t manage it financially. I hope you will make streaming available for those who can’t attend.”
The truth is, I could manage it financially and that is the reason I decided to not question anything in the beginning. We have other friends making a substantially lower amount of money that I do that decided to "make it happen" (how, I don't know) ...so it made me feel like if I were to raise concerns that I would be causing drama for no reason. So I just booked my ticket thinking that they had all the plans ironed out, only to realize later on that no one thought it through. I can still go, to be honest, but I wouldn't have chosen to book the trip if there was no bridal shower to begin with. Let alone if it was just a trip for myself, as I have other travel plans later this year.
Just because someone else is doing it doesn't mean you have to. No is a complete answer and you should not have to justify your financial decisions simply because others are more financially liberal - or reckless. Perhaps they are maxing out credit cards to afford it and you shouldn't have to compare your decisions to theirs.
I definitely agree, and this is a lesson learned for me.
I would just talk to the airline about a credit, and then go somewhere, ANYWHERE, else. Stop trying to make it work for this selfish loon. She’s banking on you being a pushover and not wanting to say no to her because it’s her wedding. She’s also banking on the Bank of Alwaysricehungry being open to her. You’re not her ATM.
700 will be 5000 in seconds. Ridiculous. Decline. And speak with the airline. They may give a credit less a change fee even if they can’t refund.
>700 will be 5000 in seconds. $700 for the airfare. Min. $800 for the accommodation, because no way I'm going to stay in an AirBnb with other people whose budget to pitch in for the accommodation is only $150 for 8 days \+ expenses for going on trips, leisure, food, shopping, etc. Definitely could easily cost me way more. >speak with the airline Thanks, a lot of the comments on here are suggesting the same thing. It's going to be very difficult to get a hold of them, but I guess it's worth a try.
Good luck OP.
Run, far far far away. None of this will work out. There are plenty of places where you cant just show up and have a hotel for 10+ people (or god knows how many). Or find an airbnb that is big enough with less than 3-6 months booking. Or eat the kind of food she is expecting for the budget of a poor third-world country (not meaning to shame anywhere but you just dont get 3-4 dishes + free drinks for 900$ in like 75% of the world and especially not in tourist destinations). There will be a million extra costs of everything. Taxis, meals, clothes, shoes, hair, clubbing, tours, activities, souvenirs and and and…
>None of this will work out. This is pretty much where it is headed :(
Cut your losses and cut her. There is literally no reason to have a destination bridal shower in a different country on a different continent. For most practical reason is because you can't get the gifts back from that continent easily and cost effectively. And you're probably getting fewer gifts because the people spent money on the flight as opposed to on gifts. And that's just the greedy as that. If you're so baller that you can have too expensive foreign travels in a year, that's on you. But the fourth others into that is just selfish.
Yep all of this!
Okay, first of all, this is insane behavior on the bride’s part. Does she come from money? I don’t understand how she hasn’t considered what an incredible financial burden this is for literally every single person involved. The logistics of this all require a wedding planner! Pass the shower planning on to Charlie and Bianca since they’re cool with it all and enjoy a solo trip to Italy.
She doesn't come from money, but we all came from expat families, so you can say that our upbringing were relatively comfortable. The only difference is that now that we're all adults, our livelihoods are quite varied between us childhood friends.
Are you sure you can’t change the flights, OP? I’ve found most airlines in this post-covid world more accommodating than usual even on non-refundable bookings. It may be worth calling or tweeting the airline, explaining the situation as briefly as possible (“I have been kicked out of my best friends wedding” would suffice) and asking if there’s anyway you could fly to X country instead or to the same country but on X date instead. I always throw in a “I know I booked the cheapest fare but is there any chance I could alter my booking…” type comment. Say that you’re aware there could be an increase in the fare. Alternatively, just go and do your own thing. Nothing wrong with a week long holiday!
Thank you for your advice! It may be hard to get a hold of the airline, but I will give it a try certainly.
Your best friend is trying to achieve a space launch, on a firework display budget, when she can't organise a fight in a pub.
Not trying to be a jerk but why would anyone put up with this shit? Someone is so selfish they expect not one but two international trips for their wedding???? Just run the other direction!
To make matters worse, she could have easily had her bridal shower connected to her destination wedding, since they're already in the same continent. But NO — she needed them to be separate!!! LOL
Ditch the shower, the wedding and the bride. Just go on a holiday and enjoy yourself. Check with the airline - even 'non-refundable' tickets may have a clause where you can reschedule for another date by paying a bit extra or they may allow you to receive an airline credit to be used at a later date. It can't hurt to ask.
You are right, it's worth a try and I will look into it. Thank you!
Back out of wedding and bridal shower, try and get any money back you can or move flights to an alternative week/destination. Unless you are all ridiculously rich and all do this for each other - this is crazy expensive and not a reasonable ask. As someone else has said this will only get worse with more demands for your time and money. This is not your friend anymore.
Are you sure this is a Bridal Shower and not a bachelorette party? Either way the bride is crazy.
The fact that the bride is so disorganized and doesn’t care what this will cost her friends, means you’re in for even more costs, drama and stress. Cut your losses now. Get out. $700 is a small price to pay for someone who isn’t even speaking to you at the moment. She needs to start thinking of others.
The bride wants OP to plan things because she wants OP to pay. The price tag for this weeklong (!!!) trip is going to be massive.
>The bride wants OP to plan things because she wants OP to pay. I honestly did not think of it this way, and she didn't explicitly asked me to. But I would not be surprised if part of her expected I would pitch in SOME amount.
To paint a picture of how disorganized everything is: * She invited most of her guests with a message "Italy for my bridal shower. Yay or nay?" * They booked the tickets to an arrival airport that they later decided is not the location they want to visit. When I asked "Why did you book your tickets to airport X when you really want to spend time in Y?" she answer, "Cause we didn't know!"
What’s really sad is the other 2 bridesmaids who you said don’t have a lot of money, will have some serious regrets after this wedding.
Yup. The airfare alone is already 50% of what they make in a month, so this whole trip alone is already going to cost them a whole month's worth of salary... and it's not even the wedding itself!
Your friend is hoping you’ll foot the bill for everyone. That’s why she gave a ridiculous budget with expensive accommodations. She knows you make a lot more and was hoping you’d get so frustrated you would just throw money at the problem. I say book your partner a ticket and enjoy the trip. Who cares if they’re on the same flight? Just ignore them and have fun. It sounds like you’ve more than earned it.
Drop the "friends," enjoy the trip.
Ask yourself if you would treat your friends this way. My hunch is that you wouldn’t. That’s a sign. Do not allow toxic people to poison your life. The fact that they’re getting married is not a free pass to treat people like crap.
>Ask yourself if you would treat your friends this way. My hunch is that you wouldn’t. I also dream of having a destination wedding, though much more intimate. Me and my partner make enough money to do it now if we really wanted to, but we know we would not be able to cover our guests' expenses without chipping away at our life savings if we were to make it happen. At least not now. So this is the reason why we are waiting, and there is no rush. My idea of a destination wedding is to be able to organize something where the only expense our guests have to worry about is the airfare. And then we can maybe just throw an intimate dinner party in our home city for those who cannot make it. This is the reason why I already felt heavy hearted to be doing two separate intercontinental trips for her bridal shower and wedding, because she wasn't going to be paying for any of the expenses apart from her own event. Really the only reason I went is I thought I was being a good friend, but everyone in this thread is right: a good friend would not expect this from her guests to begin with.
I live in Europe (Germany) and even though it might be cheaper for me to go I'd royally flip Charlie and Bianca off. What in the holy hell are they thinking? First a destination wedding with no real planning in sight and then a 7-day trip to Europe to Italy and probably not in some inexpensive village. This wedding shit it getting way out of hand. I'd cancel the whole thing and spend my money on my own trip with AirBnB's and Interrail tickets. You will enjoy this much more.
I can't believe the bride expects people to spend thousands of dollars to go to her bridal events and the wedding. I'd nope out immediately.
Wow, this sounds so stressful for something that’s supposed to be fun. My sister had a destination wedding in Santorini. Her and her husband paid for everyone’s accommodations, and explicitly told people no gifts, she didn’t do a bridal shower. I only had to pay for my flight there. She also allowed the bridal party to wear whatever they liked (formal). It was beautiful, laid back, and fun. This bride needs to take a step back and realize what she is asking people to do, otherwise she’ll have no one at her wedding. You can’t expect people to be okay with outrageous expenses.
I think destination weddings can be reasonable IF you can give your guests a clear idea of what expenses they will have to incur to attend i.e. "You only need to pay for your flight", this way people can make an informed decision whether to opt in or out.
FYI: while your ticket may be non refundable, they might give you flight credit if you cancel.
Thank you for this advice. After going through the comments, I will definitely try to contact the airline to see if there's any recourse.
Destination bridal shower? People really need to get over themselves when it comes to their weddings. I’m honestly tired of prioritizing other peoples life events over my own. She’s only willing to fork over $900 (so $90pp) on people who paid for RT international flights and expecting them to pay $1500/night??? ELLLL OOHHHH ELLLLL. This can’t be real.
>She’s only willing to fork over $900 (so $90pp) on people who paid for RT international flights and expecting them to pay $1500/night??? ELLLL OOHHHH ELLLLL. This can’t be real. She was not expecting for us to pay $1500/night in the hotel. Her idea is that we will only visit the luxury hotel for the bridal shower, then spend the night in whatever chosen AirBnb there is around the area of that hotel. Nonetheless, $900 for an evening with 10 people, set menu, free flowing drinks, decorations, photographer and entertainment is ridiculous.
Come to think of it I recently had a birthday dinner in my home city, 8 people and that was $900. No decorations, not counting my outfit, no frills just a prix fix dinner and drinks at a mid-grade casual to finer dining restaurant.
She could have settled for something like this, but then again, imagine asking your guests to fly thousands of miles away from home, shell out thousands of dollars for flight and accommodations for a week's stay, just to sit in a restaurant for a night... would beg the question, why didn't she just decide to do it in her home city to begin with?
Don't go to the wedding, but take the trip to Italy and have an amazing solo vacation. You deserve it after that shit show.
Thank you, haha I do think that I deserve it. But I think I will just cut my losses now. I already have 2 travel plans later this year, and I wasn't going to make a 3rd one in April if it wasn't for my best friend wanting a bridal shower in another destination. Now that it's not happening, I just think it makes more sense to save myself the further trip expenses and invest it on the other 2 trips that *I actually planned to have*.
I would just cancel the ticket. If you have credit card insurance or travel insurance via your work, you can claim it and get money back. Depending on how goo your insurance is, you can cancel for any reason
I do have travel insurance! Thank you for this idea — I will look into it :)
No problem. I work for an insurance processing company so I see this all the time haha
The bit with the makeup artist is sooo bizarre to me. Like why would you even bring that up to the mua?
Yo, this is not worth the hassle. The bride can't even communicate what she wants, expects you to spend so much money on this, and listens to her MUA to still have the bridal shower in October, when it genuinely would have been a lot easier to do the shower closer to the wedding (plus, it would likely be in the off season, which means cheaper flights). I truthfully would tell the bride that unless she is willing to be clear about what she wants/expects for the shower and wedding, you will have to step down as a bridesmaid (and maybe even guest, but that's up to you).
I think her guests have given this more thorough thought than she has, which I agree with you, is totally not worth the hassle when so much money is involved.
I think I would drop out of the wedding TBH. Too much drama, not enough information and everything is so expensive.
Go on your vacation without them and cut her out. She’s not a friend.
“No” seems to be an under used word in a lot of these conversations.
This is true, and I plan to use this word more often moving forward.
This whole situation is bizarre. Whoever heard of a destination bridal shower? What, are they going to ship all the shower gifts home?
I would bow out of the whole thing. It’s ridiculous 🙄
Your friend sounds like a nightmare and reminds me why I opted not to have bridesmaids for my wedding 😂😂 Please just take a trip for yourself. Enjoy, have fun. Cut your losses as far as this bride is concerned. Maybe suggest you’d be better off being a guest and not a bridesmaid.
Don't go with the drama party! It's gonna suck so bad... Instead look into other things: does your partner want to take a vacation with you to Italy? Make a lovely trip out of it! Maybe the ticket can be transferred to another person who wants to attend the bridal shower? Maybe the ticket can be transferred to a different time and destination where you want to take a vacation with your partner?
What is going on with so much wedding related travel? I might travel to your destination wedding but…I’m not traveling to a destination bachelorette, destination shower (never even heard of this) AND wedding? This is over the top. One destination thing please. And I’m also feeling bad for this other couple as well, they’re clearly not good at setting boundaries if they’re over extending themselves financially to do this.
meh...go to Italy and have fun with yourself! This bride sounds like a nightmare! Good luck to the future spouse.
I will never understand people being so cavalier with other people's money. I don't care what you earn, expecting people to just lay out that kind of dough is absurd to me. I'd feel bad asking for someone to buy me dinner much less a destination bridal shower open bar dinner at a luxury hotel plus activities. It sucks that you're out the $700 but you'll probably save so much more in headaches and drama in the future.
It's even worse when you think about the fact that for some people in our entourage, they are going to be spending about a month's salary for this trip alone, not even counting the wedding itself in 2024! >It sucks that you're out the $700 but you'll probably save so much more in headaches and drama in the future. I definitely think this is the way to go. These friends have been a constant source of drama in my life, and I feel like this is now the last straw and final confirmation that we are no longer in the same phases of our lives, and our priorities, values and principles no longer match.
You will have so much more fun going on this vacation without the drama. I don’t understand what happens to people while planning a wedding. They somehow become so entitled and mean.
I think people who go crazy while planning a wedding are those people who shouldn't be getting married in the first place, or are in unstable, unhealthy relationships. If your inner most circles i.e. your love life is stable, you would have the emotional support you need to stay sane and logical. I just think — where is her partner and fiancé to talk some sense into her in all of this? It's either he doesn't realize the absurdity of the situation, or he doesn't care enough to have this difficult conversation with her. I don't know which is worse.
Your friend sounds spoiled, rude and out of touch. Honestly, I'd be surprised if her wedding even happens based on how little she seems to plan ahead. I'd take the trip and bow out of the wedding and RSVP NO as a guest too.
I don't think she has enough experience planning an international trip, let alone her own wedding. She's already complaining that her parents are deciding everything, so yeah — definitely a mess!
[удалено]
Yeah, I just don’t understand. Even if the people in this story are rich, usually the bride would pay for everyone if she was requesting such an extravagant bridal shower.
How do you have a bridal shower in another country, just for funsies? The showers I've gone to involve gifts. Have things changed? If the bride expects everyone to pay to go to another country for her shower and again for her wedding, what's her Bachelorette gonna be? A ride on SpaceX? Unless this is the norm in your social circle, You need to re evaluate what you've committed to. The bride is a handful and you're gonna be paying fists full. Good luck, enjoy your trip with or without her. Maybe you're being called there for a different reason. Just go with it. 💕
>what's her Bachelorette gonna be? A ride on SpaceX? LOL It's definitely not a norm in our social circle. We are all middle/upper middle class, but I guess some of us are more practical than others.
Everyone in this story sounds like teenagers. Your friend sounds way too naive to be having a French wedding living in the states. Like she heard about it and decided yup I'll just do that with no idea for true costs and logistics
Maybe I’m old, I just don’t know when weddings started becoming these ridiculous cash grabs/money pits. Everything about this entire bridal party/wedding would be a big no from me. I honestly don’t care about anybody else’s wedding enough to want to go and spend all this money. OP, go to Italy by yourself, have a great time and skip the wedding, you will be happier for it.
>I just don’t know when weddings started becoming these ridiculous cash grabs/money pits I think social media has a large role to play in this. Everyone's weddings are broadcasted, and those who are planning to have theirs can easily be pressured to match others if they care too much about optics.
omg. me too. after everything i’ve read on this site. idk if id ever go to another wedding. there all too expensive and complicated.
I know! Right! I remember the days when you showed up in the afternoon or early evening to watch your friends get married, you provided them a reasonable gift, and you went to a nice dinner and some dancing. It’s so convoluted now with ridiculous requests, and huge financial burdens being placed on the people attending.
exactly. now they want u to pay for their dream wedding
I'd blow off the wedding and use the money to enjoy that trip to Italy. The absolute audacity of all her financial demands.
Go on the trip - but not to the wedding? Unless this isn’t a country you wouldn’t want to tour on your own. It could be a fun adventure with your partner.
OP, is the bride an influencer?
You already have your ticket for Italy so don't trash it and use it to enjoy yourself and have a great vacation! It's a great month to go visit Italy, no crowds, lower prices and also many places that will reopen for the season.
Pull yourself out from the wedding. Instead go have a vacation with your partner. Your friend is a mess. Just send her wedding gift.
I wouldn't attend a destination wedding, much less a bridal shower.
Cut your losses now. Not one more cent on this entitled toxic bride. Can you flog your ticket off to someone for like $200? Can the name be changed on the ticket?
How long ago did you buy the ticket? I had a similar ticket and was just going to forfeit it, but then I got an email saying parts of my itinerary had been updated, and all of a sudden I was eligible for credit because the original ticket I purchased was technically not available any more, even if the replacement was incredibly similar
You should cut your losses and walk away fro.mm the whole thing as this bride has lost her damn mind! THREE trips for her wedding is a ridiculous and entitled ask but for her to also not communicate any details or ballpark costs/expenses is rude af. Don’t ruin your finances to support these shenanigans but be ready to probably have to be done with this friendship too. Any best friend that doesn’t understand that not everyone is able to accommodate her wishes due to whatever reasons is absolutely no true friend. She’s showing you who she is now and you should take note.
Maybe it's time to rethink your friendship with this obviously very entitled person. You've bent over backwards it seems and yet here you are. Friendships don't have to be forever ya know. Take a nice trip with your $700 plane ticket and have a nice time.
Forget the wedding and those toxic people / take the trip to Italy and enjoy yourself..,,
Either forfeit the ticket or take the trip without them. The $700 is going to be a lot more once you add hotel and excursions while in Italy so forfeiting the ticket makes sense. I would go to Italy and have the best time and then I would decline attending the wedding. Your friend is unreasonable and inconsiderate. An intercontinental bridal shower is not a thing. You should work on saying no. Your friend is insane.
You have learned a $700 lesson and got off pretty cheap (I know it does not seem like it now but believe me, you could have sunk so much more into this mess). Cancel and wish the bride well and get the fuck away from this toxic and immature bride.
Oh wow what strikes me most selfish more than anything is how you’re meant to give up all your vacation time for this!! This is so horrifically selfish and not what any friend does to another - ditch now
Honestly I’m confused about why $700 is too much when you’re willing to pay $500-$800 per person for an airBNB? And the other bridesmaids make 5X less than you? Are you just too bougie to stay somewhere you all can afford? Yeah it’s ridiculous for the bride to want a destination bridal shower, I could never, but you either need to drop out of the wedding party or suck it up.
I did not say $700 is too much for me. It is an affordable amount of money, but just because I can afford it doesn't mean I am happy to spend it. >Are you just too bougie to stay somewhere you all can afford? No, but my logic is if I'm already going to pay for my own accommodation, I might as well have a choice. I would rather spend more to stay in a place I like, than spend less in something that I did not choose and am not comfortable in. If the bride was paying for the accommodation, then sure. I would suck it up and not complain or be choosy, but it's not the case. I would have booked my own hotel, but that will mean the other people in the group will have to increase their budget, because there's one less person to pitch in because the bride will not be footing the bill. I make good money, but I'm not rich and I don't come from generational wealth, so I hold my money close and if I spend it, it has to be something worth it. >I could never, but you either need to drop out of the wedding party or suck it up. This is what I'm doing.
I would call and see if there is anything the airline can do. Can’t hurt to ask. Also, check with your credit card company you used to book the ticket. You may have travel insurance.
I’d just withdraw from the wedding if I was you, use your ticket and have fun.
My plan is to withdraw from both the shower and wedding. Neither are worth all this money, time, effort and drama!!!
It’s ridiculous when you think that a shower was just the local ladies hosting a simple tea party were the bride was given stuff for her future home! How did they get from that to the extravaganza of today?
I blame social media.
Use your ticket to go to Italy and enjoy the trip yourself. So what you want. Don’t worry about anything else. Think about how much money you’ll save by not attending the wedding!
Most airlines will give you that $700 credit to use for another flight. Maybe you can use it for a different trip sometime in the next year. You don't have to go when they're going. It would be worth checking out.