'AITA for asking a guest to not crochet at my bachelorette party?'
"AITA for asking a guest to not crochet at my bachelorette party?"
I'm (28F) getting married this year (yay!) and went on my bachelorette party trip last weekend. The trip was to a cabin-type setting where we all stayed in the same house. I have three bridesmaids, but also invited some friends to come along.
Part of the group is my brother's girlfriend (36F, brother is 38M) of five months who isn't in the wedding party. She wasn't initially invited because I don't know her well and they live in another state, but my brother asked me to invite her as a favor to him.
He said that she's never been invited to a bachelorette and likely never would be (I have no idea why, this is just what he told me), and hoped she could have this experience.
Since people would be paying their own way and the group wasn't large, I figured why not. She seemed nice enough. The problem is that during the weekend, she would insist on crocheting all the time, even during our events and games.
When I asked her to participate with us, she said that she took time off for the trip, and wanted to make the most of her "vacation" by catching up on her crochet projects. And that playing games and hanging out with my friends wasn't "fun" and she didn't want to "waste" her days off (all her words, not mine).
To be clear, I don't care that she wants to crochet in general. Most of our activities ended after dinner anyways and we'd just hang out in the living room. I just asked her to saving the crocheting for at night after the activities.
My issue is that she was taking her crocheting with us to places like wine tasting, brunch, a museum tour, etc. It was super disrespectful in my eyes because she'd insist on coming yet wouldn't participate in the activity. Honestly, I was bothered that she was crocheting when we were playing bridal games, but at least that was in our living room!
The trips over now, but apparently she was super peeved that I asked to limit her crocheting time, and my brother's been pestering me to apologize to her for ruining her trip.
I personally don't feel like I should, because she shouldn't have come to a bachelorette party if she didn't want to do bachelorette-y things! But I also love brother very much and I don't want this to come between us. I'm starting to doubt myself because his girlfriend sounds really annoyed with me. Please help!
Edit: I wanted to add some details in case it helps, because I think some people think I'm being a bridezilla:
• She was crocheting a throw blanket about the width of my entire arm span. That's what she was carrying with her to dinner, museums, wineries, etc.
• It wasn't some small thing the size of my palm. She also had the materials for the blanket with her: about five balls of yarn? I'm not sure what you'd call it, but each ball was about the size of a cantaloupe.
• We gave her the option to stay home. I told her I wouldn't be offended if this trip wasn't her style and she wanted to spend it crocheting. But she insisted on coming out with us to every single event. Even though my brother asked me to bring her, she admitted to me that she wanted to come and that she had asked my brother to ask me.
• She's doesn't have social anxiety. She just thought our activities were boring and a waste of her time. I mentioned this in another comment, but I overheard her calling my party a "basic b-word bachelorette", but I didn't want to confront her because I didn't want to cause drama.
• My biggest issue isn't that she wasn't giving me attention. Please! I'm a grown adult and already thankful for the friends giving me love and joy during the weekend. I just thought it was super rude to crochet such a big project during group activities. She literally brought her blanket to a museum and crocheted during a private tour!
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP’s post:
So... do we maybe see why brother's GF would never be invited to a bachelorette party? The worst part is that if she had done one or two things, maybe the wine-tastings or the games, without the crochet, and had just told you she was shy or quiet or an introvert with a limited social battery, this would have been fine.
Plane-Presence9361 (OP)
She was actually the one who wanted to come! After the invite, she did reach out and say that she thankful that I invited her because she never had this life experience before. But I think part of her behavior came from the trip not meeting her expectations when she got there.
I didn't put this in the post because I didn't want to color people, but she made fun of all of our activities, and I overheard her on the phone with someone (I don't think it was my brother) making fun of my party and calling it a "basic b-word bachelorette". I didn't confront her because I didn't want to start a fight and as the bride I knew my friends would freak out over it.
I came off as feeling like she thought she was better than me and my friends. She made quite a few comments about how we were so "young and naive" and even said that she didn't think we'd all be friends in 10 years!
Edit: Oh, and we also gave the her option to stay home! We didn't force her to come out with us! But she'd insist on going to everything we planned, but just complained and crocheted the whole time ?
Share all of this with your brother, if you haven't already. And do not apologize. NTA.
If anyone needs to apologize, it's your brother, for asking that his gf come along AND the girlfriend. She's just RUDE. NTA.
Who does crocheting when they're wine tasting or on a museum tour anyhow, bachelorette party or not? NTA.
In the comments OP said this:
It sucks that a lot of the commenters think that my issue is with her participating in her hobby. I think it's cool that she loves to crochet! I just didn't think the time and place she chose to do so was cool
I didn't mind that she wanted to work on her project at the cabin when we were just chilling around the couch. I just thought it was rude that she did so outside during activities. Our museum tour guide even pulled me aside after the tour and privately apologized thinking that she was the problem/wasn't a good tour guide because my brother's GF was crocheting in the middle of her tour!
That being said, I think I'm just going to let this go and won't engage with anybody about it anymore. I didn't ask this question to feel any validation to do something about it (if that makes sense). I just felt bad about the situation, and then felt worse when I found out that my brother's GF was annoyed at me for feeling bad!
They haven't been dating long, so if they don't last then I'll chalk it up to a funny story. And if they make it long term, I'll just be mindful of her habits when organizing activities and trips with the family.