Is the wedding be all and end all?

I have noticed a lot of people (not just on here, in real life too as opposed to the fake life I lead here) will reference how close they are to someone by either saying they were in my wedding or at my wedding.

I rarely say this and think saying 'Jackie and I have been friends since were 5' tells a lot more about the person and our relationship as opposed to ' she was at my wedding'.

I had people at my wedding that are my parent's friends or co-workers. I know them well enough but I wouldn't group them with my friends.

Also a lot of people hold a lot of grudges and anger over weddings.
Friendships have ended, grudges are held and harsh words are said about people that don't attend, don't RSVP on time, don't give what is thought to be a proper gift.

Has this happened to you? Can you shed some light for me?

I really forgot all about who did and didn't RSVP on time. While planning it was annoying if they were late but I won't hold a grudge for the rest of my life.

I have friends that are no longer friends with each other because one girl did not attend the other girl's wedding. She sent her RSVP marked no she could not attend and the other girl felt her reason for not attending was not good enough. By not attending the bride felt the other girl was not a true friend and if she wanted to be there she would be there.

I know extreme cases come up but I don't understand how people can forget 10 years of friendship and have a huge falling out over 1 day. I

I was just wondering what some other opinions were on my truck loads of observations. Did you notice this too? Am I making sense? Did we ever find out who shot JR?

this is a great thread!!

i have not really have had any problems with friends, family, coworkers.

the only thing i can say that i complained about often was the RSVP's.. it was really bad.. we even got one of our RSVP's in the mail AFTER the wedding.. it was from my first cousin.. but i let it go and just laughed.. i will talk to her just as i would before this..

i was hurt by my fathers 1st cousins.. out of 10 of them.. none of them came!! it upset me as to why nobody came to share my day... but i let that go as well.


as for my close friends.. i had no problems at all!!
i am lucky and so happy to have them as my friends!! they are my family!

because my family is so friggan large (and so is DHs...) we hardly had any 'friends' at our wedding.

so I'll always be close to every that attended.

Hmmmm, I think this is one of those things that really is personal and will vary person to person.

For me, I had someone who I was VERY close to for MANY years and for whom I had helped so much for her wedding, but did NOT return the favor for me. She was MIA pretty much the entire year and when she did show up for something wedding related (like getting her dress (she was in the wedding) or whatever else) she would make comments etc. I decided early on that I wasn't going to lose a friendship over my wedding, and I didn't. The week of the wedding she was still driving me nutty, but on the day of the wedding, she was there for me. We are still friends today and that's because I really made a decision that my wedding was important to ME and DH and that if others didn't feel the same way, then there's nothing I could do about that. I understood that this person had a very crazy busy schedule, but I was still very hurt by basic things she couldn't do (return a phone call for example). Still, we are friends still and I love her.

There are some people on my DH's side that SWORE up and down that they wouldn't miss the wedding and of course didn't show up. I have less than nice feelings about them (obviously more goes into it than just them not coming to the wedding). Then I have many couples that showed up completely empty handed to my wedding. While I was/am hurt by this, I do know that people technically have up to a year to give a gift and hey, maybe they couldn't afford it etc. I invited some of these non-gift-givers to my birthday because in the end I consider them a friend, but am I still hurt that they didn't give even a congratulatory card, yeah.

I guess for me it really depends on the kind of relationship I had with them before the wedding. One guy that was in the wedding was always a flaky friend to my DH in my opinion. Well, he came with a date, didn't give a card or gift, and also returned his tux a month late so they charged my DH for the late fee! DH still talks to him, they are still good friends (he will supposedly pay him back for the late fee), and I support DH in whoever he is friends with, but quite honestly, I do not really LIKEEEEE this friend much anymore. He's still cool or whatever, but I feel like he does not value DH's friendship the way that DH values his friendship, you know?

So yeah, I think it can be a person by person thing. I think that if a close friend of mine had not come to my wedding with no good excuse, I too would feel hurt. In my case, other things happened, but it is what it is.

I threw temper tantrums about RSVPs etc. but never ended a friendship over it. I know al OLD friend of mine was pissed off that she wasnt invited...i hadnt talked to her in almost 6 years and she had made a comment about my relationship with DH at that point-this caused us to drift apart-so why would she be invited.

Otherwise I dont really think that I have held a grudge against anyone b/c they did or did not come. I know a friend of DHs got into a heated argument about why he wasnt in the BP with me and it to me was just stupid but he was adament that he was better friends with DH then any of the other guys

I think that sometimes its taken personally and a little far. I think that alot of brides feel that the world should come to halt b/c they are getting married and that is just not the case.

ETA: I agree with Yesenia, sometimes there is already a situation at hand that the wedding shines a light on that makes it blatantly obvious that a person is not a friend at all.

I unfortunately had isues...my MOH is no longer speaking to me. Dont know how it happened or even why, but to avoid the long story, I suspect a mutual friend of ours did a lot of gabbing. the type of friend to ALWAYS criticize my MOH behind ehr back but she was sucha sweet girl you never felt it was malicious. yet if you complained about something, she would put it out there for EVERYONE to know....

My MOH and I were best friends so honestly the way I see it, if she had ANY issue with me, she should ahve just come out with it and we could have discussed it, fought, yelled, whatever, then killed it because we loved one another. But she didn't even after I repetaedly called her several weeks after her silent treatments and she didn't call me back and the 2x she did acted like nothign was wrong. Its been 2 months since we've talked...

How FAWKED UP IS THAT! I know I can be a PITA but jesus...TALK TO ME if you have an issue. Call me a b*tch, puck it out, but let us TRY to fix it. Since she didnt despite my efforts, Im chalking it up to the friendship meant more to me than her...a sad lesson to learn.

I should also note I was a BM in her wedding which was 2 weeks after mine. After the planning, she seemed to have no use for me.

Other than that, the people who RSvped and didnt show, thsoe who didnt send a gift, or those who were CHEAp...its over, its done. They're the same people they were before the wedding; our day didnt change them so cant really be mad. wish i hadnt had to invite a few folks but thats about it.

I couldnt agree more what with youve said. If/when little things would come up, I continually kept in mind what this day was truly about- DH and I, and God. I know things get out of hand sometimes, but there were times when I literally I couldnt believe the stories I would read about..... Xing ppl out their life because they didn't do something you expected of them or how pisssed they were because one of their BMs got pregnant...and so on. I know that many of us have dreamed about that day for such a long time, and we want everything to go so smoothly, but I think at some point the EVENT can overshadow the MEANING of the day and ppl realllllly get carried away. JMO. And I know there are extreme cases, like you said. i dont want to be insensitive to other ppl who had had major issues with people during the wedding process...as Im sure many have.

Its hard, but true that your wedding will never be as impt to everyone else as it is to you...of course we get so wrapped up in it bc its our day but like someone else mentioned, its just a party to everyone else. Other ppl have their own lives and issues too so while it may seem like they should just drop it to be there for the wedding, it doesnt always work out that way.

i didn't take anything to heart, to be honest i was kind of selfish with it, It was about me and DH and no one was going to ruin that.

now that its all done and said, it didn't change me persay... but i did realize alot about my family, some good, some not so good, but I learned where I stand, and things have changed on that front, by my decision.

I'm glad I know what i do now. But as for cousins who never sent us a gift, or the people who rsvp'd and never showed, i'm so over it, i think i was before it even happened.

Lifes to short to be mad at crap like that!

I hope I made some sort of sense

I love this thread. I have encountered a lot of brides (though nearly all away from LIW) who think the sun shines out of their a$$es and that true friendship is judged based on who is there to fluff their dresses at that crucial moment. I have never understood that mentality.

For me, it's an issue of context. There were people who came to my wedding who didn't give us a gift because the travel and hotel costs were prohibitive. I was so happy and grateful for their presence that I could have cared less about any kind of monetary gift. There were friends who couldn't come for one reason or another and felt really bad about it (these are the ones bugging me for pictures lol). They were missed but we understood. For the 10 months we were planning, most of my friends didn't want to hear about it all the time, which was great because I didn't want to talk about it all the time either.

When you have cases where people spend nothing to come, eat all their food and drink their fill and don't give a gift or even a CARD, that's rude. I don't know that I'd end a friendship over it necessarily, but it would hurt. Likewise if there are friends who change overnight and act jealous or make snarky comments about your relationship, planning, etc, that's uncalled for. But back to the dress-fluffers; I really get concerned sometimes with some of the people I've encountered that there won't be anyone left in their lives to support them and be there for them AFTER the BIGGEST DAY OF THEIR LIVES because they've turned them all away.

I guess my feelings on the subject are partly based on my personality - I was really laid back for the whole process and was truly awed by everyone's kindness and generosity. It never occurred to me to think it was 'coming to me.'

ETA: I didn't mean to imply that any of you felt things were 'coming to you' either!

JMO!

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Posted by MrsQ-in2007

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Yesenia I think you brought up a good point and that it is pre existing issues that are brought to light when weddings are planned.

I like this I really made a decision that my wedding was important to ME and DH and that if others didn't feel the same way, then there's nothing I could do about that. That was a good point some to our guests our wedding is just another night out. It is not life changing to them. On the way home they probably talk about if the chicken was better than the beef.

Thanks for your input.

I would be mad at that guy too. He definitely owes your DH money for that tux. Your DH is too nice.

If someone's been a crappo friend/relative to me, then my expectations have already been lowered, i couldn't use my wedding as a 'deal or no deal' friendship test.
With that said, I'm REAAAALLLY lucky, I seriously have nothing but great memories from both the day and the planning. Small wedding, small BP, and an amazing family, as well as being one of the 'last' of my family to get hitched (we're OLD) really helped. And that's not because everyone behaved PERFECTLY by any stretch of the imagination. Its because I HAVE to let things go, anger for me is just toxic. My friend says its like drinking Drain-O, so i take great pains to just let gooooooooo. Even though I really want to give them a noogie.

These are definitely valid observations. For me, I went into it with the attitude that this was a special day for DH and I to celebrate our love and our relationship. To everyone else, it was just a party. I think that helped. DH took it personally if someone responded no, but I didn't. I don't remember who RSVPed late.

That said, we did have a falling out with soemone over the wedding...my MIL. And I won't go into the story again because everyone here has heard it a million times over. But I couldn't continue trying to make a relationship work with her after all she said after the wedding about me, my family, DH and our wedding.

ETA: I had one friend, my Matron of Honor, who I thought would be the central person of my bridal party bc she's in her 40's and cared about me. She knew how important the wedding was to me. However, she didn't do anything she said she was going to do. Didn't come to my bach party. And she had comments. But, I continually reminded myself that it was my wedding, and a party for her to attend. We're still friends.

Hmmm...for me NO...my friendships were not affected by my wedding...since i was 34 when i got married and all my closet friends had been married for years and all have kids i didn't have any of them in my BP...not because we aren't close, but because the poor girls barely have time to shower, let alone all the time & crap involved in being in a wedding...i think they were HAPPY they didn't have to be...haha...and these are girls i have been friends with since GRAMMAR school...yes i am a freak!

But i also think that is because the friends i have are just incredible....i consider myself lucky to have had these women in my life since i was like 5...and although we don't get to see each other and hang out as much as we'd like...when the chips are down..we are always there for each other.

I am sure we had certain situations during the planning of the wedding but we did not let it end our relationship with family and friends.

My husband did cut off a relationship with one of his former friends because he was supposed to be in our wedding party. Never went to order his tuxedo and said to him that he would but never did. So, we basically figured out what that was about since we also never recieved his RSVP. But, other than that we dealt with this and that. Our wedding day was beautiful and we all get along now.

~dancer and chef~
charlotte and michael

honestly if people rsvp'd no I didn't take it personally at all.........there were some people who couldn't come and I didn't even find out their reason, I just respected they couldn't come.....I know a lot of people have busy lives especially in DH's big family its easy for them to have other commitments.

The girls in my BP were awesome!! I feel so lucky that we really had no issues, they were all supportive of me, but I also didn't drag them everywhere either, so that helped lol (w/ the exception of Mimi who I dragged everyyyyyyyywhere, but we were both planning our weddings at the same time, in essence helping each other). If something would've happened during the course of planning w/ the girls I'd like to say that I wouldn't let it effect our friendship, but I wouldn't necessarily know for sure since I didn't have any drama.....and I feel bad for any girls that have had issues.

But I agree that sometimes when something happens there was already something brewing and the wedding just exposed it.

i think it was Kristin Shephard (Sue Ellen's sister)-who shot JR
as for some people, they are a mistery