'AITA for telling people the real reason why I skipped my friend's wedding?'
"AITA for telling people the real reason why I skipped my friend's wedding?"
I (35F) am still friends with some of the people I went to college with. One of them, Debbie (fake name, 36F) got married this past January, after being engaged for two years.
Early in the planning process, Debbie had asked my 6-year-old daughter (who was 5 at the time) to be the flower girl. We agreed, and she had the dress sent to us right away. We barely spoke about the subject for a while.
Then the wedding was delayed by almost a year (the original date was in March ’24). I’m still not sure why, I’ve heard 3 or 4 different reasons. By the time the actual wedding date came around, the flower girl dress did not fit my daughter anymore.
We didn’t find out until roughly 10 days before the wedding (admittedly my fault), and I texted Debbie right away to ask what I should do about it. Her first reply was “Figure it out.” I tried to ask her where she’d bought the dress, where I could get a similar one or whether it would be okay for my daughter to wear a different dress.
I basically gave her a list of ways I could fix this and asked her what she preferred. Debbie responded with “I don’t have time for this. Stop making your whale daughter my problem.”
Obviously, I decided against attending the wedding after that. As far as I’m concerned, we’re no longer friends. And to be clear, I know that up until this point, I was not the AH.
I didn’t tell anyone about it at first, but our absence was obvious (my friends missed me, and my daughter was supposed to be the only flower girl). Whenever Debbie was asked about it, she apparently just said we’d had an argument, but it wasn’t a big deal.
When our mutual friends and acquaintances asked me, I told them the truth, without sugarcoating it or trying to defend Debbie. I even showed my friends the text messages that proved everything. Everyone took my side.
About a week ago, Debbie called me. She apologized for what she said about my daughter, but told me I have no idea how stressed she was at the time. She said it wasn’t fair for her to lose friends over a mistake she’d made when she was under so much pressure. Again, I don’t think I was in the wrong for skipping the wedding, but I’m wondering whether I took it too far by telling our mutuals why.
EDIT:
Yes, I know I should have made sure the dress still fit sooner. I already know that was my mistake, and I'm not blaming Debbie for it. That's not what I'm asking about.
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
YTA. Why did you wait until 10 days before a wedding to try on a child's dress that had been bought a year ago? Of course it wasn't going to fit! Why didn't you google the name of the label to see if you could find it on line?
You messed up and expected the bride to fix it 10 days before her freakin wedding, then left her short members of the wedding party, made her wedding all about your absences and then told everyone "boo boo poor me" to make yourself feel better and have potentially cost her her friends.
She shouldn't have spoken about a child like that but you shouldn't have dumped it on her to fix so close to her wedding.
1- There was no label;
2- I have already admitted I should have gotten my daughter to try the dress sooner, but that's not what this is about anymore;
3- I didn't expect her to fix it; I asked her how I should fix it;
4- I didn't "make her wedding all about our absences" - I told our mutual friends because they asked;
5- It would have taken her less time to give me a direction than it took for her to insult my kid.
alwayshungry47 said:
NTA, she had no reason to talk about your daughter that way.
Far-Juggernaut8880 said:
NTA - doesn’t matter how stressed and overwhelmed you are, you never talk about a child or adult in that way.
SockMaster9273 said:
NTA. She had to pick one of your solutions. It's easier to type "let's go with the first one" than “I don’t have time for this. Stop making your whale daughter my problem.” Also, it's just never okay to call a kid fat. I think the only people who can do that are doctors and even then, they don't call the kid a whale. There's no need for it.
Electronic_Ladder398 said:
NTA, you're a much better person than I am. I would have let everyone know what happened BEFORE the wedding.
watchtower5960 said:
NTA, there's no amnesty for being a bridezilla.
alv269 said:
NTA. It's not that difficult to not refer to a 6 yo child as a whale, even when stressed. Little kids can grow a lot in a year and her response was totally uncalled for. Stress is no excuse for that kind of nastiness and I think she does deserve to lose friends over it.