'AITA for not going to a friend’s 25th birthday celebration after she left my wedding TWICE?'
"AITA for not going to a friend’s 25th birthday celebration after she left my wedding TWICE?"
A week ago I (25f) married the love of my life (24f) and we had a small ceremony with our families and close friends. For a little perspective we had 8 guests plus the two brides the ceremony was max 45 minutes and we only had the photographer for 2 hours. Everything was perfect!
We had gone to a conservatory in the area and took pictures inside and out. Two of our friends (Bailey, 24 and Deb, 25), engaged themselves, started to have their own photo shoot literally in front of us. I decided to cheer “yasss goo Deb!” to which she stop posing and said “damn that’s so embarrassing.”
We finished couples shots and saw Bailey and Deb were no where to be seen. All of our families and other friends were very upset that the two of them left but we just played it off like it was okay and that is just how they are.
The bar after party was just our friends and we had rented an area for 2 hours but the catch was we needed to hit a $200 bar tab minimum. Deb and Bailey show up late to the after party but seem happy to be there; they are talking to our other friends and Bailey stated to play games with us (Deb finds games embarrassing) and they are both drinking, not a requirement for fun but they love drinking.
About a half hour into the after party Bailey asks us what we’d be doing Friday and to not make plans because it’s Deb’s birthday. We had been looking to go on a trip that weekend but it was not planned so we said that we should be able to go.
A few moments later, Deb comes back from the bar and is complaining about how drinks were soooo expensive. To be clear, a special cocktail was $12 and a draft beer was $10.
A while later my wife wanted to get food so we went to go look at a food truck, as she saw there was nothing she’d eat and decided to get Cane’s later, we see Bailey and Deb waving us down.
Thinking they want food too we tell them we aren’t getting stuff here and they tell us that a mutual friend was bartending 20 minutes away so they were going to see her but would meet us back at the house later.
Keep in mind we live in a major city and this friend is a bartender and has been for over a year. When we got back in the bar one of our other friends (K) asked were Deb and Bailey went because they told K that they’d be “right back” so of course being confused we checked the tab and they had closed their tab.
Everyone looked at it fine because we got to drink more and hangout longer with friends from out of town. We finished drinks around 11:30pm only to get a text from Deb saying they aren’t coming back to the house with everyone, they are going home.
Well my wife and I decided to go on our last minute little honeymoon weekend which so happened to overlap with Deb’s birthday celebration, so we weren’t able to make it.
After letting Deb and Bailey know we could go and why they have basically ignored both of us and our texts. So are we AHs from not going to Deb’s birthday after they left our wedding celebration not once but twice?
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
ESH they weren’t being good guests but you don’t sound like a great hosts. You should have covered the tab for the drinks after the wedding. You didn’t even feed your guests.
This needs to be higher. You had a wedding with 8 people! I've hosted bigger parties as a teenager and still covered the bill.
F no. A 45 minute ceremony and you’re making people buy their own drinks? You’re not providing food even? Worst wedding hosts ever. YTA.
Oh, and no food or plans for food. And the guests are supposed to stand around and watch the married couple get their wedding photos for god knows how long.
ESH they for getting engaged, you for not picking up a 200 dollar tab on your wedding, leaving your own party and blaming others for doing so, and the horrible lack of paragraphs.
Is it weird they took photos at the conservatory? No. They were basically just finding something to do while waiting to take photos with you. As long as they weren’t using your photographer then no issue.
Then they suddenly leave and don’t tell anyone. At a bigger wedding, it’s pretty common that people travel to the reception when their part in the photos is done. But this is 8 people, so not that many photos, and they didn’t inform anyone. So that’s just weird, but I could put it down as an oversight.
But they didn’t travel to the reception. They dipped and even showed up late. For a two hour reception. And they didn’t even stay for those “less than two hours”, before they dipped again.
I’m going with ESH. Them for constantly dipping and treating your wedding like a bar hop. You for having a wedding lasting 4h plus and not feeding your guests. Expecting people to go over 4 hours without food is just rude.
YTA. l think, but it is so hard to read these great paragraph-less walls of text. Sounds like you provided no food or drink and got cross when people made other arrangements. As for the ‘photo shoot’, were they using your photographer? Doing it in front of your own photographer?
If so, yes they are AH’s too. If they were merely doing selfie stuff, then less so. I personally find adults, even young adults, posturing and posing and pulling those stupid faces for photos really annoying, but l realize it’s become normal. So if it was that, not that big a deal.