Brides

<p>So your best friend is getting married?! Congrats, sweetie, you&#39;re about to go broke! Being &quot;always a bridesmaid, never the bride!&quot; is not only a sad rom com plot that many of us have experienced firsthand&mdash;it can also get really, really expensive.</p><h2>It&#39;s pretty commonplace for a bride to expect her closest friends to fork over loads of cash for a dress, shoes, hair and makeup&mdash;<em>and</em> gifts. But one bride took things a step too far by actually sending her bridesmaid an invoice of $1000 for her wedding shower.</h2><p>IN WHAT WORLD is this acceptable?!!!???? Sadly, this one, kind of. To top things off, the bride called the bridesmaid a &quot;horrible friend&quot; when she said she couldn&#39;t afford this added expense.</p><p>This was her first time being in a wedding and she wasn&#39;t sure if this was typical behavior, so the bridesmaid went to Reddit to<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/bridezillas/comments/eocqnu/bridezilla_demands_bridesmaid_fork_out_over_1k_to/" target="_blank"> ask for advice</a> after her bride &quot;friend&quot; tried to milk her for everything she&#39;s worth.</p><p>She wrote:</p><blockquote> <p>Hi everyone, I&#39;m 30F and my best friend that I&#39;ve known since high school (29F) is having a wedding in September. She&#39;s asked me to be a bridesmaid. I&#39;m excited to be included, but I don&#39;t know what to do about recent events. Any advice is appreciated.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>The bridesmaid explained that, as a grad student, she&#39;s already having trouble making ends meet and simply couldn&#39;t afford the bride&#39;s demands. Despite this, she said she was willing to spend $350 on an &quot;ugly AF&quot; bridesmaid dress, $450 on makeup, hair and nails, and over $500 on a gift.</h2><blockquote> <p>Lately, she has asked way too much of me for this wedding financially. I don&#39;t mind spending a lot of time planning and working to make things special for her, but I am a graduate student paying my own tuition on top of my rent/bills etc. and I cannot afford all of her demands.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I spent $350 on the bridesmaid dress (which is ugly AF) and have been asked to spend $450 for makeup, hair, and nails. Fine. She also has stated to me explicitly that she expects a gift to be $500 or more. That&#39;s a lot, but doesn&#39;t push me over the edge just yet.</p> </blockquote><p>This already adds up to over $1,000, which is a lot for a grad student&mdash;and even most fully employed non-students. But wait, there&#39;s more.</p><h2>Without consulting her, the bride booked a country club for her wedding shower and sent her an invoice for over $1000 for her &quot;share,&quot; which doesn&#39;t even cover her room rental and other costs. When the bridesmaid explained to her friend that she can&#39;t afford this, the bride sent her a &quot;very nasty reply&quot; calling her a &quot;terrible friend.&quot;</h2><p>Yeeeesh.</p><blockquote> <p>But here is what does. In addition to what I just discussed, my friend also wants us to throw her a wedding shower and a bachelorette party, and she has a list of incredibly expensive demands for them. Without asking me, she booked a country club for the wedding shower and then sent me an invoice for over $1000 for my share, which just covers the food and not the room rental, tips, decorations, prizes for games, and other costs.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>I cannot afford that in addition to the dress/hair, makeup, nails/expensive gifts/bachelorette party and told her as such. I got a very nasty reply about being a terrible friend, and I am very upset and sad.</p> </blockquote><h2>The bridesmaid said that her friend, who has celiac disease, is using her gluten allergy as an &quot;excuse&quot; for the exorbitant costs of the food&mdash;even though she chose to have her party at a country club instead of at someone&#39;s home, or even a gluten-free restaurant.</h2><blockquote> <p>She has celiac disease and needs a gluten free menu, which I am happy to go above and beyond to accommodate, but I also feel like she&#39;s using her celiac as an excuse for me to pay for something more expensive. I have suggested catering and a cake from an all gluten free restaurant and having a nice party at someone&#39;s house. My mom has offered to host, and so have two other people.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>She refuses a wedding shower at someone&#39;s house because it&#39;s &quot;not enough for her special day.&quot; Same with having it at a restaurant that has a specifically gluten free kitchen or at an all gluten free restaurant. It has to be at a country club. She says the &quot;risk of celiac contamination is too much&quot; but I don&#39;t understand how it&#39;s more risky at an all gluten free restaurant than at a country club that also makes non-gluten free food.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>The bridesmaid said she &quot;doesn&#39;t know what to do&quot; because even though she wants to &quot;make things special&quot; for her friend, money is &quot;really tight&quot; for her right now. So she asked Reddit if she&#39;s being &quot;unreasonable.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>Overall I really just don&#39;t know what to do. I have tried telling her that money is really tight for me right now and that I love her and am so happy to go above and beyond to make things special for her, but that I can&#39;t do it for that amount of money. Am I being unreasonable?</p> </blockquote><h2>She added that she wants to &quot;preserve the friendship&quot; while also not putting herself into &quot;financial ruin.&quot; Also, she said this is her first time being in a wedding, so she&#39;s &quot;unfamiliar&quot; with wedding customs.</h2><blockquote> <p>I am beyond sad and am getting angry at this point. How do I act rationally and try to preserve the friendship while also setting a clear boundary and not put myself into financial ruin to be a bridesmaid? I don&#39;t want to threaten to drop out of the wedding, but I am honestly there at this point. I am also unfamiliar with wedding customs, as this is my first wedding I&#39;m in, so any advice on that would be appreciated.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Potentially I am just unfamiliar with being in weddings and should have just had thousands put aside for it, but I didn&#39;t know. Anyway. Thanks Reddit.</p> <p>Tl;dr Bride sent me an invoice for a country club booking for her wedding shower food without asking me. I can&#39;t afford that in addition to everything else and told her as such, and she got angry with me. What do I do?&rdquo;</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p>IMHO the only thing unreasonable is how generous she&#39;s being with her unreasonably bratty friend. And it would appear Reddit, strongly, agrees.</p><h2>Commenters are making their feelings loud and clear: this bride&#39;s expenses and sense of entitlement are off-the-charts. And even if it&#39;s not uncommon to extort bridesmaids like this, it&#39;s not the bridesmaid&#39;s fault she can&#39;t afford it. So no, she is not being unreasonable.</h2><p> </p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/imnewhere19/">imnewhere19</a> writes:</p><blockquote> <p>a wedding shower at a country club?!? $1000</p> <p>A gift at least $500?</p> <p>ON TOP OF $800 for the dress, hair, and makeup?</p> <p>I live in an expensive part of the US, and $1000 + $500 + $800 is more than my rent...That bridezilla is insane! Who wants people to cough up $2300 to be in someone&#39;s wedding.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>As I&#39;m typing this, I know that sadly this isn&#39;t that uncommon. I too have been in a wedding of a bridezilla, with very particular demands, including her telling us how long we have to get in shape for her wedding...I begrudgingly stayed in the wedding, and have barely spoken to the bride since. So, sadly, I know this is not uncommon...</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>But that OP seriously needs to recognize that she shouldn&#39;t have thousands put aside for <em>someone else&#39;s</em> wedding. And if that person is giving her a guilt trip for not coughing up this $, she&#39;s not much of a friend, and the friendship will likely not survive post wedding...which is a good thing.<button></button></p> </blockquote><p> </p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/sparksfIy/">sparksfIy</a> writes:</p><blockquote> <p>That&rsquo;s half the cost of my entire wedding. And we fed 135 people.</p> </blockquote><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/tphatmcgee/">tphatmcgee</a> writes:</p><blockquote> <p>When did it become normal for brides to expect bridesmaids to fund their weddings? It was bad enough when the expectation was for a gift to at minimum pay for your plate(s). But $500 for a gift? And having to put hundreds, thousands into the brides parties? I really, really wish that this was a work of fiction..............................</p> <p>You had to be a certain shape! Recently someone&#39;s sister was insisting that she cut her hair! Demands that people not get pregnant! My head, she explodes.............................<button></button></p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>Many commenters are pointing out that this bride is not the kind of &quot;friend&quot; anyone should want to fight to hold on to.</h2><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/lemetellyousomething/">lemetellyousomething</a> writes:</p><blockquote> <p>Why would OP want to preserve this friendship?? The audacity of this bride is beyond outrageous.</p> </blockquote><p>And <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/AFVet05/">AFVet05</a> says:</p><blockquote> <p>You have already told her this is a financial burden on you because of school, rent etc. If she cannot understand this and expects you to go in debt for her &quot;special day&quot; then she is not a friend worth keeping. Time to tell her you can no longer afford to be in her wedding and send her a gift card to Walmart for $50.</p> </blockquote><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/BibbityBobby/">BibbityBobby</a> did not hold back:</p><blockquote> <p>Sadly, you are being used by an entitled, shallow and greedy person to fulfill her pathetic dream of being a princess for a day. I would quietly back out, say you cannot afford it, return the ugly bridesmaid&#39;s dress and not spend one more dime for this ridiculous person. Maybe she&#39;s in the grips of some kind of bridal psychosis but I doubt it. Good luck. And with the money you save go on a mini-holiday the weekend of her wedding.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p>Hopefully this poor emotionally abused bridesmaid takes BibbityBobby&#39;s advice and treats herself to a $1,000 spa weekend instead. Clearly, she&#39;s earned it.</p><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

Bridesmaid who can't afford wedding asks for advice on dealing with angry bride.

So your best friend is getting married?! Congrats, sweetie, you&#39;re about to go broke! Being &quot;always a bridesmaid, never the bride!&quot; is not only a sad rom com plot that many of us have experienced firsthand&mdash;it can also get really, really expensive.It&#39;s pretty commonplace for a bride to expect her closest friends to fork over loads of cash for a dress, shoes, hair and makeup&mdash;and gifts. But one bride took things a step too far by actually sending her bridesmaid an invoice of $1000 for her wedding shower.IN WHAT WORLD is this acceptable?!!!???? Sadly, this one, kind of. To top things off, the bride called the bridesmaid a &quot;horrible friend&quot; when she said she couldn&#39;t afford this added expense.This was her first time being in a wedding and she wasn&#39;t sure if this was typical behavior, so the bridesmaid went to Reddit to ask for advice after her bride &quot;friend&quot; tried to milk her for everything she&#39;s worth.She wrote: Hi everyone, I&#39;m 30F and my best friend that I&#39;ve known since high school (29F) is having a wedding in September. She&#39;s asked me to be a bridesmaid. I&#39;m excited to be included, but I don&#39;t know what to do about recent events. Any advice is appreciated. The bridesmaid explained that, as a grad student, she&#39;s already having trouble making ends meet and simply couldn&#39;t afford the bride&#39;s demands. Despite this, she said she was willing to spend $350 on an &quot;ugly AF&quot; bridesmaid dress, $450 on makeup, hair and nails, and over $500 on a gift. Lately, she has asked way too much of me for this wedding financially. I don&#39;t mind spending a lot of time planning and working to make things special for her, but I am a graduate student paying my own tuition on top of my rent/bills etc. and I cannot afford all of her demands.  I spent $350 on the bridesmaid dress (which is ugly AF) and have been asked to spend $450 for makeup, hair, and nails. Fine. She also has stated to me explicitly that she expects a gift to be $500 or more. That&#39;s a lot, but doesn&#39;t push me over the edge just yet. This already adds up to over $1,000, which is a lot for a grad student&mdash;and even most fully employed non-students. But wait, there&#39;s more.Without consulting her, the bride booked a country club for her wedding shower and sent her an invoice for over $1000 for her &quot;share,&quot; which doesn&#39;t even cover her room rental and other costs. When the bridesmaid explained to her friend that she can&#39;t afford this, the bride sent her a &quot;very nasty reply&quot; calling her a &quot;terrible friend.&quot;Yeeeesh. But here is what does. In addition to what I just discussed, my friend also wants us to throw her a wedding shower and a bachelorette party, and she has a list of incredibly expensive demands for them. Without asking me, she booked a country club for the wedding shower and then sent me an invoice for over $1000 for my share, which just covers the food and not the room rental, tips, decorations, prizes for games, and other costs.  I cannot afford that in addition to the dress/hair, makeup, nails/expensive gifts/bachelorette party and told her as such. I got a very nasty reply about being a terrible friend, and I am very upset and sad. The bridesmaid said that her friend, who has celiac disease, is using her gluten allergy as an &quot;excuse&quot; for the exorbitant costs of the food&mdash;even though she chose to have her party at a country club instead of at someone&#39;s home, or even a gluten-free restaurant. She has celiac disease and needs a gluten free menu, which I am happy to go above and beyond to accommodate, but I also feel like she&#39;s using her celiac as an excuse for me to pay for something more expensive. I have suggested catering and a cake from an all gluten free restaurant and having a nice party at someone&#39;s house. My mom has offered to host, and so have two other people.  She refuses a wedding shower at someone&#39;s house because it&#39;s &quot;not enough for her special day.&quot; Same with having it at a restaurant that has a specifically gluten free kitchen or at an all gluten free restaurant. It has to be at a country club. She says the &quot;risk of celiac contamination is too much&quot; but I don&#39;t understand how it&#39;s more risky at an all gluten free restaurant than at a country club that also makes non-gluten free food. The bridesmaid said she &quot;doesn&#39;t know what to do&quot; because even though she wants to &quot;make things special&quot; for her friend, money is &quot;really tight&quot; for her right now. So she asked Reddit if she&#39;s being &quot;unreasonable.&quot; Overall I really just don&#39;t know what to do. I have tried telling her that money is really tight for me right now and that I love her and am so happy to go above and beyond to make things special for her, but that I can&#39;t do it for that amount of money. Am I being unreasonable? She added that she wants to &quot;preserve the friendship&quot; while also not putting herself into &quot;financial ruin.&quot; Also, she said this is her first time being in a wedding, so she&#39;s &quot;unfamiliar&quot; with wedding customs. I am beyond sad and am getting angry at this point. How do I act rationally and try to preserve the friendship while also setting a clear boundary and not put myself into financial ruin to be a bridesmaid? I don&#39;t want to threaten to drop out of the wedding, but I am honestly there at this point. I am also unfamiliar with wedding customs, as this is my first wedding I&#39;m in, so any advice on that would be appreciated.  Potentially I am just unfamiliar with being in weddings and should have just had thousands put aside for it, but I didn&#39;t know. Anyway. Thanks Reddit. Tl;dr Bride sent me an invoice for a country club booking for her wedding shower food without asking me. I can&#39;t afford that in addition to everything else and told her as such, and she got angry with me. What do I do?&rdquo; IMHO the only thing unreasonable is how generous she&#39;s being with her unreasonably bratty friend. And it would appear Reddit, strongly, agrees.Commenters are making their feelings loud and clear: this bride&#39;s expenses and sense of entitlement are off-the-charts. And even if it&#39;s not uncommon to extort bridesmaids like this, it&#39;s not the bridesmaid&#39;s fault she can&#39;t afford it. So no, she is not being unreasonable. imnewhere19 writes: a wedding shower at a country club?!? $1000 A gift at least $500? ON TOP OF $800 for the dress, hair, and makeup? I live in an expensive part of the US, and $1000 + $500 + $800 is more than my rent...That bridezilla is insane! Who wants people to cough up $2300 to be in someone&#39;s wedding.  As I&#39;m typing this, I know that sadly this isn&#39;t that uncommon. I too have been in a wedding of a bridezilla, with very particular demands, including her telling us how long we have to get in shape for her wedding...I begrudgingly stayed in the wedding, and have barely spoken to the bride since. So, sadly, I know this is not uncommon...  But that OP seriously needs to recognize that she shouldn&#39;t have thousands put aside for someone else&#39;s wedding. And if that person is giving her a guilt trip for not coughing up this $, she&#39;s not much of a friend, and the friendship will likely not survive post wedding...which is a good thing.  sparksfIy writes: That&rsquo;s half the cost of my entire wedding. And we fed 135 people. tphatmcgee writes: When did it become normal for brides to expect bridesmaids to fund their weddings? It was bad enough when the expectation was for a gift to at minimum pay for your plate(s). But $500 for a gift? And having to put hundreds, thousands into the brides parties? I really, really wish that this was a work of fiction.............................. You had to be a certain shape! Recently someone&#39;s sister was insisting that she cut her hair! Demands that people not get pregnant! My head, she explodes............................. Many commenters are pointing out that this bride is not the kind of &quot;friend&quot; anyone should want to fight to hold on to.lemetellyousomething writes: Why would OP want to preserve this friendship?? The audacity of this bride is beyond outrageous. And AFVet05 says: You have already told her this is a financial burden on you because of school, rent etc. If she cannot understand this and expects you to go in debt for her &quot;special day&quot; then she is not a friend worth keeping. Time to tell her you can no longer afford to be in her wedding and send her a gift card to Walmart for $50. BibbityBobby did not hold back: Sadly, you are being used by an entitled, shallow and greedy person to fulfill her pathetic dream of being a princess for a day. I would quietly back out, say you cannot afford it, return the ugly bridesmaid&#39;s dress and not spend one more dime for this ridiculous person. Maybe she&#39;s in the grips of some kind of bridal psychosis but I doubt it. Good luck. And with the money you save go on a mini-holiday the weekend of her wedding. Hopefully this poor emotionally abused bridesmaid takes BibbityBobby&#39;s advice and treats herself to a $1,000 spa weekend instead. Clearly, she&#39;s earned it.

So your best friend is getting married?! Congrats, sweetie, you&#39;re about to go broke! Being &quot;always a bridesmaid, never the bride!&quot; is not only a sad rom com plot that many of us have experienced firsthand&mdash;it can also...