My (F27) best friend (F27) is getting married in February. She has been planning her wedding for 2 years and I have been actively helping her the entire time as her maid of honor. I am extremely excited for her to get married, but she is slightly controlling. She's the kind of girl that has to have everything perfect or it's completely ruined. But her wedding, her rules.
Well, I found out I was pregnant at the beginning of October and am due toward the end of June. This is my first baby and I have struggled heavily with fertility issues so this is a literal miracle baby. My husband and I had literally just given up hope in trying for a little while this past summer. I will be in my second trimester during the time of her wedding.
Well, I told my best friend last week and she seemed... upset. She wasn't too happy that I was pregnant and her first question is if I would fit in my bridesmaid dress. The dress is extremely flowy and I told her that I should be just fine, and if not I'll cover the cost of any alternations/buying another dress (I bought my dress in the first place anyways). Like literally her first question, not even congratulations.
I tried to shrug it off and just assumed she was stressed. Her bachelorette party is next month (I've been exclusively planning it) so I just reached out with the final details to her to confirm everything.
During the phone call she tried to make me feel bad that I wouldn't be drinking with the rest of them and that it wouldn't be the 'be the party of her dreams' and I told her it would still be fun. That upset me even more, but I just tried to shrug it off once again.
Today she called and told me she had a 'hard decision' to make but she's been thinking about it and while she would like to keep me MOH she doesn't want me in her pictures. She said that my bump would be too distracting, she didn't want her pictures to turn into a 'maternity photoshoot' and that she just didn't feel comfortable with it.
However, she still wanted me to pay for the bachelorette party, help her plan the wedding, and wanted me to do almost everything MOH except be in pictures and she was debating if she still wanted me to give a speech. She then sent me a bunch of bag-like dresses to choose from as my new dress since I won't need my MOH dress.
We have been best friends since we were 10. I would have never in my wildest dreams expected her to act this way. WIBTA for dropping out of her wedding? I really don't feel like paying for, and being supportive of, a person who treats me like a disposable mooch after years of fertility issues.
But I also feel like I may be overreacting as some of my friends said that I would look odd in the pictures. Thoughts?
Notes from OP:
She grew up extremely spoiled and wealthy (and I did not) so I think some of our friendship has been me justifying her actions because her parents just 'never said no.'
When we went off to college our freshman year, she literally moved off campus for half a semester because her roommate in her dorm made a joke about her major. I remember at the time thinking 'that's extreme but that's just my bff!' and laughing, but that is very much her personality.
When she is great and everything is going perfectly, she is fantastic and the best person in the entire world. When things get a little dicey, she tends to be a little less great bordering on mean. However, her actions have never been toward me.
I am mostly so scared to lose our friendship. I have no siblings and she has been like a sister to me for nearly 18 years. I keep trying to justify her behavior or find a way out of this without wrecking the friendship and I don't know what to do.
In retrospect, I should have been more off-put about the drinking comment. Idk I just thought to myself that she was upset because we were known for our party days and I was going to allow her to mourn that, but to shame me for not drinking after trying for years for a baby was... weird. Like what response was I supposed to give? Sure because you're upset I will now drink! Too bad for my poor miracle baby!
Also, I'm still incredibly fun not drinking. She knows I can have a good time either way. Sorry, just thinking out loud in the comments haha.
'Turning it into a maternity photo shoot.' That was the absolute most hurtful comment to me. Her photographer is my friend (I'm the one who introduced them!) and I think she believes since the photographer knows me that they'll focus on me more than her.
I'm close enough to this photographer that if I wanted pictures she would take them for me on a random Tuesday night if I wanted. My friend is not going to risk her literal career over my pregnancy and I'm not going to ruin her photographs because I'll have a small little baby bump.
ALSO ALSO ALSO at my wedding, I DID have a photo shoot of just her and me replicating photos of our childhood (we are both only children so I thought it would be a sweet almost sister-like thing). She suggested it and I loved the idea so I paid extra to set up two separate scenarios of us to commemorate the moment.
I never felt like it took away from my day and I love those pictures, it took at most 15 minutes and my husband was our hype man in the background.
Comments:
thevibeisbad says:
My best friend was 8 months pregnant at my wedding and I would have paid extra money to my photographer to give us full on belly shots of her. Other than pics of me and my hubby, my favorite shot of the day is of me and my bff both holding her belly in tears.
To see how far we had both come in life. That baby is now my Goddaughter and means absolutely the world to me. She is not a friend to you, I don’t care how long you have known her. You are a privilege to know and deserve to be in loved ones pictures- regardless of your physical state.
Drop out of the wedding and drop out of her friendship. Congratulations and I wish you luck with finding your tribe 🖤 Edit: was so amazed by the audacity of the post I forgot my judgement. NTA.
SeaOkra shares this long but heartwarming story:
My mom was close to due at my aunt's wedding. She had never thought she could get pregnant and offered to step down as a bridesmaid. Aunt would not even let her finish before saying nuh uh, can't get out of it that easy and demanding that Mom tell her any way she could make the wedding easier on the heavily pregnant lady Mom was gonna be.
At the wedding, Mom says she looked like she was smuggling a beach ball and people kept asking her when she was gonna have that baby already. (which Mom says cursed me, her due date was late July/early August and I made my debut in mid June) My aunt was LOVING it and begging to feel her belly all night. Oh, and I kicked my uncle during a dance apparently.
Then I was born on the last day of their honeymoon. They didn't even drop off their stuff, they ran straight from the airport to see Mom and me. My aunt was utterly delighted and apparently told me several times. 'You are my very youngest wedding guest!'
She 'got me back' for stealing all her bride light though. (Very much a joke, she never even accused me or Mom of any such thing) For my sixth birthday I got a cousin. I was stoked and still remember thinking he was as least as great as the eight-color ballpoint pen my dad's bass player gave me.
(Much grumbling was done about how I got a lot of really nice gifts, but my favorite was that cheap pen. It was cool though, wrote in eight colors. xD)
In hindsight, they should've done more double birthdays for us. Mom and Aunt always helped each other with the parties anyway and they had two kids born on almost the same day (I made it out before midnight, he was a few minutes late) it would've been way easier.
We both loved the few double parties that were done so I'm not sure what stopped them. We honestly got along as well as any two kids with a six year age gap, I doted on him and he swayed between adoring/looking up to me and wanting to be MY protector. We're still in the second phase actually.)
Our Sweet 16/10th would've been epic! (Actually we did spend my 16th/his 10th together. No party though, we watched monster movies with a couple of my friends and his best friend, ate pizza and painted the boys' nails. he brought me a fancy cupcake for my candle and I stuck his into the cheesecake I made.)
thevibeisbad says:
I cannot accurately put into words how much I wish we had more relationships like your mom and aunt. In the case of OP’s friend, she clearly is so concerned about herself she can’t find an ounce of joy in OP’s newest adventure. There’s so much happiness to find when we share our lives with others.