Tricky situation with a friend. Please advise
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Anonymous
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One of my high school best friends is getting married during the fall in a foreign country. She asked me to be her maid of honor a few months ago. I knew it was going to be a big challenge because I have very demanding family obligations. I felt and still feel very privileged to be asked to fill this role. However, I have started to feel that though my friend choose me over other friends, I am not the right person for this role. A few weeks after she set up the wedding date, I initiated a conversation about plans for the big day such as the venue, her gown etc. She said she had mapped out plenty of the details already and she was in the process of figuring out about her gown. I asked her if she had bridal stores in mind that she wanted to try out but she didn't give me a definite answer... She was very vague which I interpreted to mean she didn't want to involve me. Anyhow, a few weeks ago I asked her how the plans were coming along, turns out she had not even gone to any bridal store to look at the gowns, she had not booked "the venue" ... basically four months to the wedding there is nothing that had been done. I sent her a wedding planning check list along with a few gown shops suggestions. It took her almost another month to visit the bridal stores... At first she wanted her gown to be custom made by this "designer," then that designer wasn't good enough so she opted to go back to the bridal stores... To cut the story short I redirected her like 50 times and finally early last week I told her we needed to select and order her gown by the end of the week. I was paying for her gown for upto X amount. Due to time constraints, the only option at that point was buying a sample wedding gown online since none of the stores would have the custom/ordered gown by wedding day. She is still going back and forth about the venue, she is in charge of bridesmaids dresses which she hasn't decided the design she wants and she doesn't want input from anyone. The reason why she has not booked the venue is because apparently the venues are "overpriced." I suggested she cuts the guest list by half to reduce the catering fees and put the money to the venue and other things but she laughed it off and said the bigger the wedding the merrier it's going to be... It's the first wedding in her and her husband's to be family etc. She has 500+ guest and I bet they don't know half of these people. With the above and other things I won't mention not unless they come up in later posts, I feel like my friend is coming out as very indecisive, control freak(it's her wedding ... I get it) and it's making it very hard to feel useful. Anyhow, I would like to politely tell her I can't be her maid of honor. I would like to do so without bruising her feelings since I know how sensitive this is especially being just a few months to the wedding. I am not sure if there is a good and bad timing for breaking the news... I thought that maybe I wait for her to receive the gown which should be in the next two weeks, help her during the next two weeks to find a venue, caterer, order bridesmaids gown etc by using any tactic available. All advice will be greatly appreciated!! |
Anonymous
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It's not your job to plan her wedding. Your only duty as a maid of honor is to stand up for her at the wedding, and perhaps assist her with tasks that she ASKS for help with. That's it.
Ask her if she needs you to do anything. If she doesn't give you anything to do, then don't worry about it. Does she have any family helping her? It's really not ok to back out of this now, with only a few months to go. |
Anonymous
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None of this makes any sense. Why are you paying for her wedding gown? And it seems like you told her right when she asked that you couldn't be her maid of honor so why are you doing all this stuff? Where is her fiance in all this? Just have her hire a wedding planner in the country the wedding will be in.
It would be the shittiest thing ever for you to back out of being her maid of honor if you didn't tell her at the start you couldn't do it, now that the wedding is so close. You're basically saying "Shit's getting hard, so I'm going to bail on you now." |
Anonymous
| Uhhhh.....you don't have to plan the wedding. You sound oddly controlling. |
Anonymous
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I think you may come from a cultural background that puts different expectations on a maid of honor than is typical in the US. Paying for the bride's dress and being involved in the venue selection is not really the custom here.
I planned my wedding in 5 months, so I'd say it can be done, but it definitely requires a level of decisiveness that she's not really displaying. I get why you're uncomfortable, but I'm not sure bailing now is the right thing, unless it makes some kind of sense given your cultural background. |
Anonymous
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OP here, My sister in-law who happened to be my maid of honor paid for my wedding gown. I went for a fitting with her and she just surprised me... I felt so humbled by the gesture. I wanted to pass that same gesture to a friend.
You are right it's not my place to plan her wedding. I think I am just panicking on her behalf... Considering it's like 12 weeks to her wedding, I think you can see where I am coming from. |
Anonymous
| No offense intended, but I think a MOH paying for the wedding dress would be weird. At this point, you'd both be better served if you put that money towards a wedding planner who can help her get her @)&%^*# together. |
Anonymous
OP here, other than the fact that my MOH paid for my gown, I know a few people who have done the same. My BIL's wife who is 101 percent American took her friend for a fitting and she ended up surprising her by paying for the gown as well. I already paid for my friend's gown... PP you are right though I should have considered helping her hire a wedding planner... I feel lost already! |
Anonymous
| I wouldn't pay for the wedding gown. You're already too involved. Just butt out and let her figure it out. There's no way they are going to set up a 500 person wedding on a budget for 4 months from now. She obviously won't listen to your prodding so let someone else (her mom, fiance, etc) do it. |
Anonymous
| Yet another reason why I hate destination weddings and won't go to them! |
Anonymous
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Stop planning her wedding.
Start using paragraphs. |
Anonymous
^^ Grow up |
Anonymous
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I have been involved in enough weddings and not one time have I heard the MOH pay for the dress.
In addition, if this person hasn't found a venue, then more than likely, a date really has not been set. |
Anonymous
+1 I think you need to detach from this whole situation. You'll pay for the dress when she chooses one (presumably you've had some kind of budget discussion on that by now?), but don't micromanage the process for her. Let her deal with all of the wedding stuff. If she's dragging her heels this badly on planning it I think PP is right that there's something else going on (not necessarily that a date hasn't been set, could also be some serious misgivings about the marriage). Stop pressuring her to move forward with everything, and just be there to support her when she needs it. Ultimately, that's your job as MOH, not all of this silliness. |
Anonymous
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This doesn't make sense.
She thinks she is going to find a venue for 500 people in 4 months? And catering, hotels for people to stay at, booking plane tickets, etc. Has she sent save the date cards? In any event, you say nothing and plan the bridal shower which is really the only thing you should be concerned about and didn't mention once |