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Bride confronts Best Man for not coming to the wedding, 'it's definitely not a financial problem.' AITA?

Bride confronts Best Man for not coming to the wedding, 'it's definitely not a financial problem.' AITA?

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"AITA: for confronting best man over not coming to our wedding?"

My fiancé (m27) and I (f25) are getting married in Germany this summer, due to me being born and raised in Germany and still having all my family in friends there, plus we’re moving there a month before the wedding. (We’re planning on having an American reception in the US in a couple years).

Anyway, my fiancé asked his cousin who he’s really close to, to be his best man and he happily accepted. He knew from day one that we would be getting married in Germany and had more than a year to plan for this.

Originally he had planned to travel to Germany with his wife and young kids but eventually decided that it would be too stressful with the kids and everything going on so his wife and kids would stay home. This was perfectly fine with us, as we understand a transatlantic flight is a lot with two young children.

After some time, said best man informed us that he too now won’t be traveling to Germany for the wedding because he has an agreement with his wife where he can leave her alone with the kid for 3 days max. After we asked him if he can’t just fly to Germany for the weekend of the wedding he said this wasn’t worth it and too long of a trip.

His wife would likely be ok with him flying to Germany for three days and hold the fort down. Now our friends who are getting married in the US just a month after us and are so busy, managed to book a stay in Germany just for the weekend to join the wedding. And not once did it cross their minds that this wasn’t worth it.

I’m just so incredibly disappointed in his best man for seemingly not even making an effort to be there and so heartbroken for my fiancé that he won’t have his best man at our wedding. It’s definitely not a financial problem as he has told us he will give us a big cash gift instead. I just wish he’d use that money to book a goddamn flight.

AITA to expect him to make this work and prioritize our wedding? And to hold him to his commitments as a best man, which includes being present at the wedding?

Later, OP edited the post to include:

I forgot to mention that his brother also got married early March in Mexico where he was also a best man. For this wedding he took 4 days off to go to the wedding and left his wife and kids behind with no issue.

Therefore his reasoning now seem a bit hypocritical as this wasn’t a problem 2 months for his brothers wedding on Mexico. His decision of not going to the Germany wedding was made long before that trip so his wife being alone while he was Mexico“ was likely not the reason for his decisions.

Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:

TreeHuggerHannah said:

YWBTA. Insisting that he needs to either do a major transatlantic trip in a weekend or leave his young children for longer than a weekend for your wedding are both really big asks. It's fine to have a destination wedding, but your choice means some people can't come; you can't have this one both ways by treating your choice as his obligation. It's fine to be (privately) disappointed, but unreasonable to express anything to him other than gracious acceptance of his decision.

TrainingDearest said:

YTA. A destination wedding is a huge burden for everyone. Your 'best man' mistakenly thought he could make it work, but truth of the matter is that his FIRST priority is to his own family, their finances and their logistical circumstances. That's exactly how it should be. He gets a smallish AH for accepting and backing out, but in reality, he would be the bigger AH for pushing forward for "you" or for "himself" if that was violating his responsibility to his family.

At this point, you're crossing over from being 'disappointed', to being '*selfish AH'*s' about this. The world does not revolve around YOU. Stop making assumptions about other people's finances. You don't know WHAT other private things they may have going on.

Stop making expectations about what someone should do just because another - separate, different - person is able to do it, that's just asinine. You're welcome to be as disappointed as you want, that's understandable. You have no business "confronting" anyone about anything, because he hasn't actually done anything wrong - he's just not able to manage your expectations. Take the high road, and be graceful, kind, and a decent human being.

Ingwall-Koldun said:

YTA. He can’t come to the wedding. He values his family and his wife’s wishes more than he does yours. Making a speech at his cousin’s wedding is not worth several days of jet lag now as he thinks of it. Be an adult and acknowledge the world doesn’t revolve around you and your big day.

NoPromotion964 said:

YTA I love the part where you want to force him to hold to his commitment as best man as though it was a summons from the King. Good lord, you are taking this wedding way too seriously.

HistoricalInaccurate said:

YTA - Long distance travel for a wedding can bring up complications for people, and things in their lives change. Confronting him will not do anything.

ImissBagels said:

YTA, my husband had to back out of being best man (he gave a year notice) because it was a destination wedding that we simply couldn't afford to make it to. When you have a wedding far away from certain people in your life you have to accept that not everyone will be able to make it.

It sucks he said yes, but through the planning process he raised it just wasn't feasible. His wording wasn't the best, but sometimes people just say things in a clumsy way. Accept his answer and move on.

ClockWeasel said:

YTA and your edit about a previous trip is a good explanation why he decided the solution is unacceptable: he did it once in the last few months and it WASN’T without issues. Don’t burn down your husband’s friendship by sounding like an entitled fool. Suggest he save his travel money for a visit when it will work better for his family to come see yours.

Absolutely no one was on OP's side for this one. What's your advice for this wedding drama?

Sources: Reddit
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