Yeah, I can see that. I can see her being more thoughtless about your life situation than actually a selfish person… I don’t think I was really a bridezilla exactly, but I certainly see now that my wedding was not as important as I thought it was at the time; it’s easy to get sucked in. (The marriage, of course, was and is way more important than I even knew at the time, but that’s a different story.)
This made me laugh, as my mom is the same way. I took off almost a week for my sister’s wedding (fortunately I had more vacation at that point and was more senior in my company than when my best friend got married) but much of that was because I wanted my mom and sister to be without me as buffer for as little time as possible (mom came a week before). My sister was actively trying to get all of us to show up two days before for that reason, too…
I don’t think your saying that is zilla, it’s just sneaky and underhanded and I highly approve, because obviously she doesn’t get it otherwise
I’m trying to understand what this means. Is “shy” some sort of synonym for “stabs strangers in the eyeball with a fork”? Because then I could see the issue with babysitting.
Or does it just mean “keeps to herself”? Because if it’s the latter, I really don’t see what the problem is with plopping her down with a book, kissing her forehead and saying to the sitter “make sure she doesn’t stay up too late. Have a great time you two!”
“Shy” was me being ashamed of telling strangers that my child has pretty serious anxiety issues. (Although the “stabs strangers…” bit made me lol.) Enough RL people have been pretty hurtful, my instinct is to protect. And I didn’t realize until I read your post that “shy” doesn’t explain properly, so sorry for being misleading.
Kid is being treated for this, and we have some better coping strategies, but some of them will be unusable so far from home. Like I said, leaving her with a sitter is not a deal-breaker, just a challenge we have to work on.
Groom cares. I thought it was really creepy when they first started talking about it, because I have never encountered a groom before who was so into details, but he is. This couple is very earnest and eager to start off their marriage on the right foot, and for Groom, this includes forcing himself to care more about flowers beyond “yellow.”
Gotcha. I understand. I guess my point is that you deserve a night out now and then just like everyone else. So if things actually sort themselves out in this clusterfuck of a wedding situation and you end up going (guest or otherwise) for a day or two, you should enjoy the Bachlorette party. Easier said than done, I guess, but it’s over a year away, right? Time enough to work on those issues.
I’m writing this before even reading the other posts…
tell her you love her & can attend the wedding (wouldn’t miss it for the world!) but you can’t fullfil the obligations of Matron of Honor because of:
Time! you’re looking for a job & if you find one they’re sure not going to let you off for two weeks
child care logistics. she doesn’t have a clue what’s she’s asking of you. Even if she doesn’t speak to you for a few years I’ll bet you that, at some point when she’s spent half the evening at a night game for one kid & later she’s sitting on the edge of the tub with the other one because they have the croup & she’s trying steam…she’s gonna call you in the middle of the night & tell you that NOW she understands…
and you won’t even have to try to explain how the costs will be a hardship for you, because numbers 1 & 2 trump everything else.
Show up with a gift YOU CAN AFFORD but it’s wrapped really nifty & smile smile smile even thru the passive/aggressive allusions toward your turning down being Matron of Honor…old age lasts longer than youth & we all eventually come around.
(and, you sound like a good friend because I would have gone off lol then…but not now)
Your friend is nuts, but the phrase above jumps out at me to suggest that, in a much smaller way than the bride, you may also need to gain some perspective.
A nine-year-old, unless she has diagnosed special needs that require a special care-giver, should be able to handle an evening with a new babysitter.
It kinda sounds like that is exactly the case. And the babysitting will not even happen in her own home, but during travel which is hard enough by itself.
I haven’t been to wedding in a while. What exactly is a “reading”?
I think you’re handling this well, Kika. Two weeks is ridonkulous. I have plenty of vacation leave stored up, but if someone wanted me to do anything like this for two weeks straight, I’d tell them HELLS TO THE NAW. Being matron of honor does not mean you have to become a slave to the bride. It’s enough that you’ve agreed to be matron of honor. I bet they’re expecting a gift from you as well, and for you to pay for your own lodging. A couple of days of that would be fine, but two weeks?
I don’t think you should bow out of this thing altogether, as your therapist recommended. Sometimes my therapist recommends things like this (like not going to a family reunion when I express to her that I don’t want to go). It’s easy for them to tell you to bow out because they don’t have to deal with the ramifications. But it keeps you from actually negotiating the situation rather than doing the easy thing and avoiding it completely.
If the bride comes at you again, don’t wuss out. Tell her that two weeks is really a long time, for both you and your daughter, to be out of town, especially with you having a new job. You still want to support her, but you just can’t commit to a two-week long affair. If she can’t understand that, she’s not really a nice person and you need a better best friend than that.
The wedding can have someone come up and read a poem or something written by the bride and groom at one or more points in the wedding, in a similar manner that a church service can have someone other than the minister read portions of the bible, or some other religious based poem or text at various points. Last wedding I went to was some sort of protestant variant, and they had one person come up during the communion portion and read something out of the bible, and during the wedding part read some sort of poem about love and sharing that sounded sort of 1960sish. It was out of a bound book so it wasn’t written by the bride or groom. I have also seen someone read a letter with a sort of blessing written by a grandparent that was too old and fragile to travel to get to the wedding.
So the reading could be anything from a poem to a letter to a section of the bible or some other text. It is sort of a nice way to get someone involved in the wedding other than as a member of the party.
I would have loved to do a reading instead of being a bridesmaid in several of the weddings I was in. I hate standing around in an uncomfortable dress in stupid uncomfortable shoes doing pretty much nothing except looking decorative.
It just occurred to me - how does a very shy nine year old feel about standing up in front of everyone and doing a reading? That doesn’t sound like much fun to me.
Your daughter comes first. Period. If she has anxiety issues, don’t make her do the reading. Don’t put her into horrible, painful situations because of some friend. If leaving her with a stranger for the bachelorette party is too hard for her, don’t do it.
I can understand that you don’t want to discuss your daughter’s problems. But listen to me carefully. If you say, “I can’t do that because of my daughter,” that should be it. I don’t have kids, I don’t really like kids. But if you tell me you can’t do something because of your kid, that’s that. The kid comes first.
IMHO, you’re not being selfish at all, SHE is. 2 weeks for a wedding? Jeez.
Don’t get me started on the whole “women have gone wedding crazy” rant. The way weddings are viewed in today’s society is insane (the TV shows, the expense, and so on and so forth). It’s just crazy. People are putting WAY too much emphasis on the wedding, and not nearly enough on the MARRIAGE.
Sorry, I thought I had read the thread, but I missed that somehow. Well, I still believe what I wrote earlier is true, but it is entirely irrelevant in this situation, inasmuch as it does not apply to the child at hand, who DOES have diagnosed anxiety issues.
Bride asked Kid to do it, and Kid said she would. However, I’ve been having my doubts about this one. When Kid is at school, she has had no issue when she was chosen to do the announcements on the PA, but that is different.
Tomorrow is family therapy, where we sit down with both our therapists and talk about things. I plan on bringing the wedding up then, and see if she agreed because she loves Bride, but is now regretting it, or if she really wants to do it. This way, her therapist can be aware of the situation if they haven’t already talked about it.
No apology necessary. I’ve been guilty of the same as well.
And I agree with you - even with my kid, sometimes she has to do things she’d rather not. She’s getting a lot better with coping with the smaller hiccups life brings about, because she needs to learn how to cope with the real world before adulthood.
Kika, I’m with the others who believe you should beg off being the Matron of Honor, but for a different reason. There are a gazillion wedding sites online that detail the duties of a MOH and the vast majority of them take place long before the wedding. I think that the bride needs an MOH nearby who actually performs those duties. What exactly were you going to do as MOH? Just show up on the day in the dress-of-choice? (Two weeks is unreasonable, I agree, but most of the MOH things should have been accomplished way before that!)
So I think your friend needs a more local MOH and that you should be an honored guest who arranges to show up to support your friend maybe a couple days prior to the wedding and to help with last-minute things. Whether or not your daughter does a reading does not hinge on your being MOH, does it?
Good plan. If she does go ahead with it, it might help her to have an “out” - it takes a lot of stress out of things for people with anxiety (I’m just about to go to my anxiety support group, so I’ve got a bit of experience with this ).
