'WIBTA if I go to my childhood friend’s private elopement without my fiancée?'

"WIBTA if I go to my childhood friend’s private elopement without my fiancée?"

So it’s a bit more convoluted than the title, but I (30m) didn’t want to make it too long. My friend, Sam (30m) and his fiancée Dee (28f) have decided to get married at a local courthouse after a brief engagement.

Initially, Sam invited me and two other of our childhood friends with our partners, but then were told a couple weeks later that it was going to be family only. My fiancee Nancy (29f) was upset but understood.

Yesterday, Sam text our boys only group chat (him, I, and the 2 other guys initially invited) that we are once again in, but no +1s. The +1s would be welcome to join the post elopement dinner and festivities, just not the actual ceremony.

Nancy is PISSED. So much so to the point where she doesn’t want to invite Dee to our planned elopement next year as a sort of get-back. She’s so angry at being excluded that she’s saying that they aren’t her friends, apparently just mine.

While I understand that this stings, I guess I just don’t put that emphasis on being there. Nancy has thrown around words like classless, tactless, rude, unkind, offensive, and a litany of other things. I privately text another one of the guy’s invited to gauge how his girlfriend is taking it, and she just said “well that’s weird but whatever."

Now I’m getting passive messages from Nancy saying “ congratulations for the invite, happy for you that you get to go” and I feel like it just really isn’t worth this level of response. I’ve had to talk her down from texting Sam telling him how offended she is.

To me, this isn’t a decision that Sam and Dee made easily and is coming from a ton of compromises. It’s only 3 of his boys, his parents, 3 of Dee’s girls, and her parents. He’s got a large middle eastern family so that’s not an easy decision to make.

The amount of anger I’m seeing from this is at the point where it’s taken any fun out of going to celebrate a friend of over 20 years on his big day. Truly to me if the roles were reversed I’d shrug and say “see you at the restaurant!” WIBTA if I did end up going?

Here's what people had to say to OP:

CreativeMusic5121 said:

ESH. They shouldn't have invited, then uninvited, then re- invited only you. It's horribly rude. Nancy is over the top in her anger---of course they are YOUR friends, but she IS right to be pissed at how they did this. If you go it will probably be the end of your relationship.

They have shown her great disrespect, and how YOU respond is telling her how you feel about her. I will never understand "planned" elopements and inviting people to them. It's only an elopement if the couple runs off on their own to do it, with maybe one or two witnesses. Planning months ahead of time and inviting guests simply means you are having a small/micro wedding.

Secunda92 said:

ESH except for your fiancee. I’m sure I’ll get downvoted to hell for this, but as a woman with an ounce of self respect, I’d be outta there like a rat out of an aqueduct if you pulled this on me.

The point of an engagement is that the two of you are shortly to become a nuclear family; if you spat on that by going to a wedding I wasn’t invited to that was "family only," then yeah, you’d better believe I’d start rethinking committing to a man who wasn’t committed to me.

OkCelery6356 said:

YTA. As a good partner, why would you want to go to an event that excludes her? I would not be comfortable going to an event my wife was excluded from.

Starcr3r said:

NTA. Yes, it sucks not being invited but it’s not like Nancy is being excluded on purpose. The whole thing stinks of her feeling entitled to going to the ceremony when most other guests won’t be able to go.

Also did you also decide to do a small ceremony or is she saying she won’t invite Dee only? Because that’s just petty and would be the actual A thing to do.

BlondDee1970 said:

NTA - Courthouses have limits on attendees. The fact that your fiancee can't handle this is her problem. She is still being invited to all of the celebrations. Go support your friend.

FamiliarFamiliar said:

ESH. Hopefully Nancy truly has come around. But, I can see why she's hurt, b/c being uninvited to something hurts.

Later, OP edited the post to include a mini update:

Talked to Nancy after some time to cooldown. She said she didn’t mean for her comments to me to come off as passive and didn’t mean for me to get caught in the crossfire. She is hurt by the way they went about un-inviting her.

She had no intention to keep me from going to celebrate my friend, but it has changed the way she has viewed them. I love my fiancée and don’t see this as a relationship shaking moment as some of you make it seem. We are strong, and I am incredibly lucky to have her by my side.

I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t making the wrong decision. Also I am aware it is not an elopement now, I was just using the term as it was framed to me!