Maid of Honor issues

indigo26

I'm getting married in 10 months and I have a matron of honor, a maid of honor, and a bridesmaid. I know I asked them kinda early but most of us have crazy work schedules so I wanted to make sure they had time to think about it and would have time to budget for a dress.

My outlook on the wedding and their "duties" is that I want them to show up the day of the wedding, sober, and in a blue knee-length dress with straps (all are very busty). I don't care how they do hair/makeup and whatever sandals (non-flip flops) they want are fine. I like making jewelry so I'll probably be making them stuff to wear at the wedding (with their input on what they're comfy with). I understand that all but one of us work and we all have lives of our own - I don't want to make demands on anyone's time and this far out there's not much to do for planning since I've got venue and caterer booked. 

So to the issue - my maid of honor is feeling left out and mopey. She lives two hours away while the other two live in town. My first trip dress shopping I had both my maid and matron meet up with me so we could do the whole group thingy (I hadn't asked my bridesmaid yet so that's why she wasn't there). It was such a pain to plan. Didn't find anything any of us liked but we had some fun trying on dresses. Two weekends ago my matron of honor and I had a rare Sunday off together so we decided last minute to do another trip to David's to check out the clearance rack. Long story short I found my dress and since it was on clearance I ended up ordering it that day so I wouldn't miss out on it. I called my maid of honor the next day to chat about non-wedding stuff and towards the end of the convo told her I had found my dress. She was bummed she wasn't there but I asked her if she wanted to set up a date to pick it up when it came in and she said that'd be cool. My dress was supposed to come in on the 21st - it came in two days ago instead. So now she's all "Oh I guess I'll get to miss THAT too" when I told her I'd wait until she could come up here before I picked it up. She doesn't work, lives at home with mom and dad (who pay for everything), and basically spends her days making cosplays and hanging out around the house. The other two, like me, have full time jobs in customer service so no set schedules and not much time off. I don't know what to do - yes I want to include her in stuff, but like I said there's not much to do right now and when I do have time to do some browsing I don't have two hours to wait for her to get here - and that's if she feels like making the trip. I've tried talking to her but she just gets whiney. I'm not going to kick her out because that's just rude but I don't know how to make her see that I just don't have that much to involve anyone in just yet, that its not just her.

JediElizabeth

indigo26 said:

I'm getting married in 10 months and I have a matron of honor, a maid of honor, and a bridesmaid. I know I asked them kinda early but most of us have crazy work schedules so I wanted to make sure they had time to think about it and would have time to budget for a dress.

My outlook on the wedding and their "duties" is that I want them to show up the day of the wedding, sober, and in a blue knee-length dress with straps (all are very busty). I don't care how they do hair/makeup and whatever sandals (non-flip flops) they want are fine. I like making jewelry so I'll probably be making them stuff to wear at the wedding (with their input on what they're comfy with). I understand that all but one of us work and we all have lives of our own - I don't want to make demands on anyone's time and this far out there's not much to do for planning since I've got venue and caterer booked. 

So to the issue - my maid of honor is feeling left out and mopey. She lives two hours away while the other two live in town. My first trip dress shopping I had both my maid and matron meet up with me so we could do the whole group thingy (I hadn't asked my bridesmaid yet so that's why she wasn't there). It was such a pain to plan. Didn't find anything any of us liked but we had some fun trying on dresses. Two weekends ago my matron of honor and I had a rare Sunday off together so we decided last minute to do another trip to David's to check out the clearance rack. Long story short I found my dress and since it was on clearance I ended up ordering it that day so I wouldn't miss out on it. I called my maid of honor the next day to chat about non-wedding stuff and towards the end of the convo told her I had found my dress. She was bummed she wasn't there but I asked her if she wanted to set up a date to pick it up when it came in and she said that'd be cool. My dress was supposed to come in on the 21st - it came in two days ago instead. So now she's all "Oh I guess I'll get to miss THAT too" when I told her I'd wait until she could come up here before I picked it up. She doesn't work, lives at home with mom and dad (who pay for everything), and basically spends her days making cosplays and hanging out around the house. The other two, like me, have full time jobs in customer service so no set schedules and not much time off. I don't know what to do - yes I want to include her in stuff, but like I said there's not much to do right now and when I do have time to do some browsing I don't have two hours to wait for her to get here - and that's if she feels like making the trip. I've tried talking to her but she just gets whiney. I'm not going to kick her out because that's just rude but I don't know how to make her see that I just don't have that much to involve anyone in just yet, that its not just her.

TBH, your MOH sounds rather immature. It's wonderful that she wants to be involved, but this is your wedding, not hers. It's actually really sweet of you to do things around her, but she has to understand when you can't. 

I have a pretty long engagement, and I set a schedule for myself (dress shopping 12-13 months out, menu tasting 4 months out, etc.). My bridal party (yes, I asked them in June, so 22ish months in advance) has asked to do things with me, too, and so far I've just told them around what time I'll be doing that task, and that we can make more concrete plans then. Would something like this help with your situation?

[Deleted User]

Let her have her feelings, for now. I don't know what your relationship with your matron and maid of honour is like, but she seems to be dealing with jealousy issues (is she jealous over sharing the role, was it always you three together and now she's feeling left behind?). It will hopefully resolve itself when she sees you're not holding a slew of showers, bachelorette parties, invite stuffings, crafting, etc etc etc without her. Honestly, she also seems a little bored with her own life so she's looking to fill her time with your wedding.

When I first got engaged I had a good friend who got a little over-obsessed with the details, I got a little bored talking about it with her, actually. I added her to my secret wedding pinterest board, and she pinned to it for about a week and a half before getting board and moving on. I think it made her happy to have something wedding related to do, and be in on a "secret."

indigo26

It could be jealousy issues. My matron and I have been friends since high school, my maid and I met halfway through college, and my BM became a good friend about two years ago. Honestly they are the only three chicks I'm close to so it made sense to include all three. As far as having a matron and maid of honor - I would have been fine just having the matron and two bridesmaids but I felt like the maid would have felt slighted. To me its just a title - like I said before I don't see them as having "responsibilities."

Of course my maid is also obsessed with David Tutera and I'm pretty sure she has her own wedding pinterest board so now I'm thinking I should have seen this obsession coming. 

As far as setting a timeline I guess right now my timeline is next year. I'm not worried about a baker, bridesmaid dresses, florist, or putting together centerpieces until next year. The two things I really want are already booked - caterer and venue. 

indigo26

So I ended up picking up my dress last week because my mom, matron, and I had a free day. I had asked my maid when it came in if she'd be able to come up anytime the following week since she wanted to pick up the dress with me - she said it would depend on how tired she was after coming back from a multi-day comic convention (with her parents doing the driving and paying). I told her no probs, told her which day I was planning on going and left it at that. The day before I picked it up I hadn't heard back from her yet so I sent her a message to see if she was coming or not - she had some family stuff to take care of so I said no probs, family comes first of course. I went and got the dress - was a quickie trip since I'm not getting it altered at David's. The next day she messages me asking if I picked up the dress and when I told her yes, got all pouty at me. I mean, was I wrong not to wait? I really don't want to leave my dress hanging out at the store for weeks because who knows what could happen to it. I'd rather have it safe in my closet. 

*sigh* I know I should let her have her feelings but when I get in touch with her about non-wedding things she steers it around to wedding stuff and then gets all pouty. Maybe I just needed to vent about it but it gets rather tiring to be whined at.

Pupatella

indigo26 said:

So I ended up picking up my dress last week because my mom, matron, and I had a free day. I had asked my maid when it came in if she'd be able to come up anytime the following week since she wanted to pick up the dress with me - she said it would depend on how tired she was after coming back from a multi-day comic convention (with her parents doing the driving and paying). I told her no probs, told her which day I was planning on going and left it at that. The day before I picked it up I hadn't heard back from her yet so I sent her a message to see if she was coming or not - she had some family stuff to take care of so I said no probs, family comes first of course. I went and got the dress - was a quickie trip since I'm not getting it altered at David's. The next day she messages me asking if I picked up the dress and when I told her yes, got all pouty at me. I mean, was I wrong not to wait? I really don't want to leave my dress hanging out at the store for weeks because who knows what could happen to it. I'd rather have it safe in my closet. 

*sigh* I know I should let her have her feelings but when I get in touch with her about non-wedding things she steers it around to wedding stuff and then gets all pouty. Maybe I just needed to vent about it but it gets rather tiring to be whined at.

You did nothing wrong. You invited her, and gave her a heads up about when you were picking up the dress. She had something come up and couldn't attend. It happens.

Maggie0829

indigo26 said:

So I ended up picking up my dress last week because my mom, matron, and I had a free day. I had asked my maid when it came in if she'd be able to come up anytime the following week since she wanted to pick up the dress with me - she said it would depend on how tired she was after coming back from a multi-day comic convention (with her parents doing the driving and paying). I told her no probs, told her which day I was planning on going and left it at that. The day before I picked it up I hadn't heard back from her yet so I sent her a message to see if she was coming or not - she had some family stuff to take care of so I said no probs, family comes first of course. I went and got the dress - was a quickie trip since I'm not getting it altered at David's. The next day she messages me asking if I picked up the dress and when I told her yes, got all pouty at me. I mean, was I wrong not to wait? I really don't want to leave my dress hanging out at the store for weeks because who knows what could happen to it. I'd rather have it safe in my closet. 

*sigh* I know I should let her have her feelings but when I get in touch with her about non-wedding things she steers it around to wedding stuff and then gets all pouty. Maybe I just needed to vent about it but it gets rather tiring to be whined at.

Not sure what the bolded had to do with anything.

But you did nothing wrong.  You told her when you were going to pick up your dress, she said she had some family stuff, so you went to pick it up without her.  From this point forward I would just ignore her poutiness.

Jen4948

I would ignore her pouting as much as you can, but if you ever reach the point that you can't do that anymore, I would tell her: "BM, I've noticed that whenever I get in touch with you you always have a complaint about my wedding.  Please believe that I did not schedule or plan my wedding or ask you to be one of my bridesmaids with any intention of inconveniencing you.  That said, I really would appreciate it if you'd stop complaining about my wedding on every occasion we get in contact.  It's gotten old, and I'm not willing to hear it anymore."