Maid of Honor, you are a cheapskate lameass!

The BBQ Pit
101

I’ll attend whatever is decided, though I don’t think anyone is going to buy sex toys at that party. Everyone is either broke, not into it, or would be too embarrassed, if I know that crowd.

I think bar hopping and honeymoon-related gift giving is what’s going to happen. The bride seemed surprised when I told her that people might give her gifts at this-- she really has no idea. The MOH has offered to be the designated driver, which was cool of her, I have to say (though I have a feeling it’s because she didn’t want to chip in a limo…) In any case, it was a nice offer, and I’m sure it’ll be fun regardless-- no decorations to steal this time.

102

My - wedding threads are always so much fun!

So, a couple of points:

  1. I’m unfamiliar with the MOH must host bridal shower/bachlorette party deal.

I just hosted a shower this past weekend for my best girlfriend - I’m not in the wedding party at all. She’s my friend and I wanted her to have a nice shower, end of story.

  1. It seems that MOH did want to host a shower and started to make some arrangements to have it at her home and was told that wasn’t convenient. If you criticize how someone is planning on holding an event, you shouldn’t really be surprised when they say “Fine - you don’t like how I’m doing it, do it yourself.” Which appears to be what happened.

  2. The thing with the decorations is odd. However, the fact that anyone would get het up about pirate decorations and paper palm trees strikes me as…odd.

  3. It sort of seems like the OP is looking for a pat on the back for hosting the shower. Um - the bride is your friend, right? Doing something nice for your friend doesn’t really deserve a pat on the back, IMHO. You’re supposed to do nice things for your friends, regardless of what position you hold, if any, in the bridal party (see point one). Acting as though you’ve gone above and beyond the call of basic friendship again seems…odd.

I suppose I don’t understand why the OP is getting all bent out of shape. The bride has selected a MOH that’s a flake. OK - these things happen. So you decide to do something nice by hosting the shower and bachlorette party and - what? You deserve a prize for being the bestest friend ever? The MOH should be fired and you get her spot? You get to sucker punch the MOH for being such a tool?

It all strikes me as very odd. I mean, the bride is your friend. You did something nice for her. Good for you. Who gives a crap if some of her other friends dropped the ball - that really has nothing to do with you being nice to your friend and doing nice things for her, IMHO.

Feel free to call me a smug, self-righteous bitch now.

Also, if I’ve missed some key element of the story, please point that out as well.

103

That’s usually how it goes. She certainly didn’t have to do it alone, nor even volunteer to do it. Everyone wanted to help, and did, but she really did NOTHING, including the things she said she would do.

You are making this up. She wants to have the bachelorette party at her house, and she still might. It’s up in the air. She wanted to do a dish to pass for the shower, but that was overruled by consensus, not by me, because the bride’s mother thought the party should be located closer to where her relatives lived, and in a bigger place than someone’s living room.

That’s not what happened. Are you looking for a fight here? I don’t get it. This thread is three pages long and all this has been covered.

If you spent $60 on decorations only to have them summarily swiped, you’d be het up too. Or not, because you’re a better person than I am, so good for you, polish your halo. I didn’t mind spending the money, but I did mind her taking all the stuff.

Um, where did I say I hosted the shower? We had it at a restaurant that was located conveniently near the bride’s family’s home. I did my part-- I bought the decorations. The bride’s sister got the cake and did the invites. The groom’s sister chipped in and helped decorate (she’s only 18). The MOH did… very little.

And I definitely don’t want a pat on the back from you. Is it so hard to understand that I might want to vent about this?

What the fuck? I don’t think my friendship with or love of the bride is in question. I’d say it’s the MOH’s friendship with the bride that’s in question here.

The only part of the above paragraph that is remotely true or accurate is the bit about the sucker punch.

Has nothing to do with my friend whatsoever, nor my friendship with her, no. What strikes me as… odd is you coming in on page 3 of this thread to stir up shit.

I didn’t say it, but if the shoe fits. :smiley:

104

I’m not stiring up anything. Just offering a different opinion, which, when you post here, you’re bound to get.

Obviously you want to be outraged at the MOH for not handling things the way you think she should. Great - have at her.

It just seems like a lot of bile for what’s supposed to be a happy occasion.

What-EVAR.

105

Hey, I’m with Ruby, personally. WTF? The MOH was a thieving skank and probably she and everyone else knows it, but what good could have come of having a confrontation (in front of the other guests, no less) over it? None. The point I think she’s trying to make is that she’s a piss poor planner, irrresponsible, and a moocher to boot. It’s called venting- not everyone is looking for a solution to their gripe.

Can’t anyone just bitch any more without people jumping on their shit with the “It’s all your fault!” line? I think she took the high road by letting it go at the time and just venting here. It’s not about the decorations, it’s about the MOH’s crazy assed thinking that it’s OK to just take shit. Lucky for Rubystreak she won’t have to deal with her much longer.

For future reference for Ruby, though, I’ll say this. You need a Livejournal or other blog. When you post here- no matter what the issue is, you’ll always have idiots like Otto that post just to be contrary bitches and suck you into an argument. There is no point at all in ever just venting here, because someone will always throw the blame back at you. Always. Now you know.

Oh, but I will say this, Ruby- I would call that bitch up and ask how the party went. When she says “Oh, great!” let her know that you’ll be by next week to pick up the decorations. That you didn’t want to make a scene at the time, but you already had plans for them and you need them back. Or if she would like to keep them, she can Pay Pal you $75. Either one, no other option. Now that might at least show her that you can’t just take shit without consequence and that someone else had claim to the decorations. Just a thought. Even if you don’t get the money or the stuff, at least she’ll know that she did wrong on the off chance she’s just a clueless moron.

106

Might want to say that to the person who started the hijack, but whatever.

Wow, good thing someone mentioned the online poker so you could have something to say and think you’re being insulting, isn’t it.

Anyway, to drag the thread back to the topic, I find it next to impossible to believe that there was absolutely no way for you to say “please give me back my decorations” without having it degenerate into a fight. But hey, you were there, I wasn’t and I suppose it is possible that your people skills are really so bad that you can’t make a simple request without causing everyone in the vicinity to spontaneously erupt, so I’ll take your word for it.

Still can’t figure out why, if the point of being stolen from was not to upset the bride, you’d go gripe to the bride about it afterward.

107

Gah. Of course the quote I attributed to myself was actually said by Rubystreak. Damn my unconscious narcissism!

108

Good lord, why did I ever stop coming here? You can’t buy this kind of entertainment.

Well, except for $14.95/year, but it’s worth it.

109

I think you misspelled uncontrollable."

110

Now, be fair – perhaps he meant “unconscionable”.

111

Yeah, but I like him.

I don’t follow your lame rants, so it’s useful that someone helped me realize just how awesome your life is, to explain the unprovoked hostility you seem so good at displaying. I don’t even know you and I have no idea what I did to you to warrant the level of nastiness you’ve exhbited towards me in this thread. But now I realize, it’s just that you have a crappy job and lose money at online poker, so it’s not me or my petty little rant that did it. That makes me feel better, so yeah, good thing. Thanks, Excalibre. You rock.

Then you have a very, very limited range of thought, and that’s really just your problem. You can only picture things in a way that supports and rationalizes your uncontrollable bitchiness. That’s truly… shocking. :rolleyes:

Not a fight, but definitely confrontational. I don’t think she would have graciously handed them over, do you? I already got pre-emptive schtick from her about the kid’s birthday, blah blah. She outmaneuvered me-- I was not prepared for such brazen-faced bitchery (and still am not, obviously, based on this thread). Was I going to call bullshit on her kid’s party? Better to just… let it go, vent in the Pit. I thought that was the more adult way to handle it. Wrangling over paper palm trees in parking lots is not my idea of a great way to end a bridal shower.

Wow, your world is black and white, ain’t it? It would just be completely simple for you. You are a goddess of perfect social skills. I wish I were you. Only, with a life.

You don’t read to well either, apparently, and feel the need to distort something I’ve already wasted precious seconds of my life explaining to you. What-evar, as some very clever, witty person just said.

112

That makes more sense, but it might be different in different areas.

Like I’ve said I’ve been in 7 wedding (large family and 3 sisters), had two weddings of my own and the MoH always did the shower and I have yet to attend a shower held at someone’s home unfortunately.
In fact the last couple showers I’ve gone to had an open bar and men attended. They’ve almost become mini-weddings.

Maybe it’s a regional thing? I definitely think having it in someone’s home is nicer if it can be done because things have gotten so over the top.

But Wow! I’m blown away by some of the comments.

113

Rubystreak, you might want to let it go. You found yourself in a position that ultimately wound up causing you annoyance and chagrin. You came to the Pit and vented about the situation and the person you saw as being the instigator of the problem. That’s good. That’s healthy; well, it’s healthier than allowing your resentment over the situation to gnaw at your psyche and eat your stomach lining, anyway.

You’ve gotten mostly supportive feedback here. I couldn’t see anyone coming out and saying the MOH was blameless, responsible, and perfectly justified in everything she did, and you were the whole problem all along. But you’ve also gotten some responses that have offered a different perspective from which you could, if you were so inclined, view the occurrence. That’s fairly common around here, as I’m sure you know; especially when the Pit thread is about someone’s personal travails.

Now what you do with that offer of a different perspective is entirely up to you. Some people review the incident through the different lens and use the experience to modify their take on it. Some people review it, and decide that the new perspective doesn’t alter their opinion in the slightest.

Some people aren’t in the mood at the time of posting to try out any fresh perspectives. When this is the case, they can either ignore the offer and let it lie, or they can take umbrage at the fact of its existence; manifesting in a range of responses from dismissively calling the perspective a pile of crap to accusing the other poster of denying the slightest validity to their rant.

My point is this: you’re not going to achieve 100% agreement with your side in this, or any other rant. If you wear yourself down trying to get that last ten, or five, or two or one percent, you’re risking all the healthy benefits that posting the rant in the first place was supposed to get you.

I think, based on your posts thus far, that you handled a difficult and stressful incident with a reasonable amount of grace, if not aplomb, and I hope that if I’m ever in a similar situation (and I don’t have the presence of mind to remember all of the cool suggestions that have been offered here), I can at least manage your level of not making a scene. And I hope I will be grateful for having a friend to dish with during a private moment later on. Some people, however, look at the fact that not only did you not get everything you wanted and deserved, but you chose to place a higher priority on maintaining decorum, as a sign of weakness and passivity. From their point of view, that may be correct (after all, as someone posted above, “there are no victims, only volunteers”).

But you aren’t under any obligation to accept that strength and assertiveness are in all cases the only worthwhile characteristics to display. Because another smart saying to remember is “pick your battles.”

Which brings us to the salient point on which you might rest a decision to let it go: there are some people in the Pit who absolutely refuse to not have the last word in a discussion (at least that’s the impression I get. I get that impression A LOT). It is the wise poster who recognizes when he is engaged with one of these, and acts accordingly.

114

Jesus FUCKING Christ, somebody drag Otto, Excal and Ruby to Utah and get them a polygamous gay marriage, because otherwise there could be as many as SIX people getting seriously FUCKED UP if each member of this triumvirate of FUCKED-UPITUDE seeks out life-partners of their own.

Just in the interest of minimizing the damage, you understand.

115

Rubystreak nails it with this:

Sorry to the master armchair conflict-resolvers, but sometimes you just lose and want to rant. The fact that Rubystreak didn’t come up with the perfect way to put the bitch in her place was because she was being cautious about causing a scene at a happy affair. And this is not inconsistent with the fact that after having more time to consider it, she decided it was ok to mention to the bride. Maybe she could have done it better if she had Otto’s flawless ability to manage any social situation (so long as said situations are conducted via message board), but she didn’t, and that’s … pretty much it. That doesn’t mean she loses the right to gripe about it. MOH was a bitch.

116

Yes, it’s true. I couldn’t bring myself to confront the MOH in front of the bride and her family. Even if I took her aside, going into her car while everyone was standing in the parking lot, getting the box, and then KNOWING she’d fucking complain that I ruined her kid’s birthday party… not worth it. But I did want to vent.

The bride brought up the attempted pinata stealing. That was when I mentioned the other stuff. The bride sighed, and said her sister had the same complaint about the MOH taking the leftover food. So it wasn’t like I unloaded on the bride, and I didn’t press the issue. But I did tell her what I thought. She is my friend, after all, though at her shower was not the time to discuss it.

Thanks for that.

117

Haven’t you ever handled a situation in the best way you could, the way that would cause the least discomfort to someone you care about…and still been ticked off about the situation itself? Because I sure have. And people have come up with some very good ideas about what Rubystreak COULD have said and done that would have gotten her what she wanted while still not causing stress to her friend the bride. But let’s face it…we ALL come up with stuff we could have said and done. For me, it is usually “after the fact.” It isn’t all that easy to come up with it “in the moment.” Especially when you are dumbfounded by the situation to begin with, which I think she was. I would have been, too. My perception is that if it hadn’t been for the stealing the decorations thing, she’d have let the rest of it go…but that appears to have been the last straw. For which I, personally, sure cannot blame her.

She did the best thing she could think of, but she is ticked off that the whole thing happened and she HAD to deal with it. And probably, the more she thought about it, the more it ticked her off. So she came here to vent. I don’t find anything odd about that.

118

Yikes, Rubystreak, I always see these threads late in the game, but, after reading the whole thing, want to offer my sympathy for dealing with that crap. Scotti sums it up well: you were trying to be kind to the bride, and not ruin her event. That’s most admirable. Hope you can get through the rest of the wedding.

Just gotta say this, though; if the toy party happens, I’d be so tempted to say, after the sales pitch: “Ummm, do you have one that’s shaped like a palm tree???” I know ya won’t, but maybe this’ll make you laugh.

I think it would be totally justified in asking the MOH, after the wedding, if she still has the decorations, and that you need them for an upcoming event. By then, you may be just ready to not ever deal with her again, but, consider it.

119

I think you have the perfect opportunity here. When the party is announced for the MoH’s house, and you call to RSVP, just mention that you’d like to be able to pick up the decorations she “borrowed” at that time. If she hems and haws, tell her that you spent a lot of money on them, and really need them back for your classroom, and that if she’s disposed of them, then you’ll accept a check (or sex toys!!!) in exchange. Be as sweet as can be, and act little dumb (like you can’t imagine she’d ever actually “steal” them) and see how she responds.