Bride tells husband she'll have wedding on 'ONE CONDITION, NO GROOMSMEN.' AITA?
When this bride is annoyed with her fiance, she asks Reddit:
"AITAH for not letting my husband have groomsmen at our wedding?"
My fiancé (29M) and I (27F) are getting married in about a year, after almost 8 years together. All of the wedding planning has gone great so far, until a couple of weeks ago. We are both fairly frugal, so we planned to cut excess wedding expenses as much as possible.
About two weeks ago, my fiancé came downstairs after talking on the phone with his older sister and told me “how excited she was to be a bridesmaid.” I hadn’t asked her to be my bridesmaid, and I’m not planning on having any bridesmaids/MOH, so I assumed they were referring to another friend of hers or something.
Slowly, I realized that she had been talking about our wedding. I quickly corrected my fiancé, explaining that she wasn’t going to be my bridesmaid, since I wasn’t having any.
He got upset (which is out of character) and said I was being silly. He told me that it would be weird for me to not have any bridesmaids, mean to his sister to be left out of our ceremony, and unfair because he was planning on having nine groomsmen (the first I heard of this).
I countered with my reasoning, explaining that I am trying to save money by not having bridesmaids and more importantly, I don’t have enough friends to be bridesmaids. The only people I could think of would be my sister and his, and having two bridesmaids that were from our families would make me look sad.
We took a break on the argument for the rest of the evening, but it came back up the next morning. He argued that it’s his sister, and if he wants her in the wedding she should be in it. I agreed, and said she could be part of his wedding party if he wanted.
I don’t have any brothers, so it’s not like my sibling is one of his groomsmen. He then continued to point out that it would be weird for him to have groomsmen when I don’t have anyone on my side of the aisle. He said that to not make it look weird, he has to give up his groomsmen.
I was diagnosed with a form of high-functioning autism as a child, so I’ve never been the best at picking up on social cues and whenever I’ve started to make friends, they never stick around.
I also lived by myself in college and never joined sororities/clubs, I don’t have contact with anyone I knew from high school, I’m not close with my colleagues (who are much older than me), and my free time is spent volunteering at the dog shelter, going to the gym, or working on my online masters.
He knows my lack of friends is something I’m self conscious/sad about, so I don’t know why he’s trying to make it such a big deal about it for our wedding.
I spoke with my sister who agrees with me and gets where I’m coming from, and I know his sister would understand too. I don’t feel like I’m stopping him from having groomsmen if he wants, but he keeps saying that I am, and I either need to hire professional bridesmaids (which I can’t afford) or get over myself and finally go make friends. AITAH?
Let's see what readers thought.
kitchendismal writes:
NTA. You'd already discussed this. You don't want any bridesmaids. That should be end of story. It also wouldn't be sad if it was just your sister and SIL as your attendants. That's actually quite common. Why does he want 9. And yes his sister can be on his side.
He's trying to railroad you into doing what he and possibly his family want. You might need to have a closer look at your relationship and whether you are happy with what's happening.
At my wedding we each had one attendant. I had my stepsister, my husband had his mate. They were also our witnesses. It didn't look weird. I didn't need a lot of attendants.
artisticthought709 writes:
I think if this is the battle you pick at this stage, you need to re-examine your future. While seemingly important, the argument has no value in real life and yet you two don’t seem to be able to negotiate.
What will happen when you’ll have more serious decisions to make? Children? Big purchases? Changing careers? i tend to say NTA but be mindful of what this situations implies for your future together. Good luck.
kingauthor writes:
ESH. It doesn't seem like either of you are compromising at all. There are a lot of numbers in between 0 and 9. It isn't weird at all to have family in the wedding party. And if you are worried about the optics, then its gonna look way weirder if he has 9 and you have none.
Ask both sisters and maybe try to find one more, if not then cap his at 3-4 and it won't look too odd. I'd also take a look at your future and what you want it to look like. If you are ok with a small number or no friends, are you going to be ok with him keeping up what seems to be a very active social life?