Talk about holding a grudge

GlamQueenBride

About 10 years ago, my best friend got married. She asked me to be a bridesmaid. Unfortunately, she set her wedding date for the date of a very important event in my life in a state 1200 miles away. Not only could I not be a bridesmaid, I couldn't even attend due to my conflict with her date.

Apparently, she never got over it because while we're not as close as we once were, she replied to my wedding news, saying she'd try to make it if she could, but that it isn't a priority for her since her wedding wasn't a priority for me. It's been TEN years. Am I wrong to think she shouldn't still be throwing that in my face?

By the way, in her wedding album, there's a note about at the end of the album saying "MIA: my best friend, GlamQueenBride, who was supposed to be a bridesmaid." I laughed it off right after the wedding when she jokingly (I thought) put it in there, but 10 years later, it's still there.

thefanciestbeckler

This is completely ridiculous. Everyone on TK will tell (general) you that you should check with your VIP's before setting a wedding date. She obviously did not do that. She has no right to hold this over your head.

ShesSoCold

I'm a pretty huge grudge-holder and I think this is ridiculous. I would try to sit her down and talk this out and move on.

GlamQueenBride

Thank you! That's what I thought too, but I thought maybe I was being obtuse or something. I was actually floored when she said it.

msuprincess04

That's kind of crazy. 10 years is a bit much, especially if you are still close enough to invite to your wedding.

banana468

I'd have a talk with a friend who did something like that.

I am slightly curious about what the commitment was but frankly it doesn't matter if you were up front that you weren't able to make it. 

pegasuskat

If it was my BFF and it was really a big event in her life I wouldn't stay mad, but if it was a silly reason I might still have ill feelings after 10 years.  I would keep them to myself though, she sounds a little dramatic.

thisismynickname2

She doesn't sound like a "best" friend at all. 

She shouldn't be throwing it in your face after all this time. 

I don't think there's anything you can do though, except say, "Well, hope you can come!" and leave it at that. 

ohmrs2014

I agree with PP, this is a little ridiculous and to hold a grudge over it, nuts.

She should have checked with her VIPs to make sure the date she chose was ok with everyone.  She was in the wrong, not you.

julieanne912

ohmrs2014 said:

I agree with PP, this is a little ridiculous and to hold a grudge over it, nuts.

She should have checked with her VIPs to make sure the date she chose was ok with everyone.  She was in the wrong, not you.

Side note... you had your baby??  Yay!  

anjemon

I'm echoing PP's, it's ridiculous that she's still holding a grudge 10 years later. She should have checked with you before booking her date if it was so important to her.

GlamQueenBride

pegasuskat said:

If it was my BFF and it was really a big event in her life I wouldn't stay mad, but if it was a silly reason I might still have ill feelings after 10 years.  I would keep them to myself though, she sounds a little dramatic.

She does consider it a silly reason, but does that matter? If it's important to me and I'm her best friend, then it shouldn't be silly to her.

simcal18

GlamQueenBride said:

pegasuskat said:

If it was my BFF and it was really a big event in her life I wouldn't stay mad, but if it was a silly reason I might still have ill feelings after 10 years.  I would keep them to myself though, she sounds a little dramatic.

She does consider it a silly reason, but does that matter? If it's important to me and I'm her best friend, then it shouldn't be silly to her.


Meh. Maybe that's how things worn in a perfect world, but in the real world people have human emotions and feelings, and those feelings can get hurt if they feel like their friendship is being cast aside for silly things. E.g. I may respect that my friend is a huge LSU fan, even if I think college football fandom is silly, but if she skips my wedding to go to a season opening game because football is REALLY IMPORTANT to her, I'm still going to be hurt.

Holding a grudge over something like this is just silly. But you still haven't said what the event that you skipped the wedding for was, which makes me wonder if you think that others will also feel that skipping the wedding for it was unjustified.

GlamQueenBride

I think "unjustified" is a bad term, frankly, because no one is required to attend a wedding and they shouldn't have to justify not attending. What's silly to one person may mean the world to someone else and I don't think it's fair to judge what someone finds important. I posted to see if I was being unreasonable in expecting that she wouldn't still be throwing it in my face after 10 years.

But if you want to know, I was a professional model and was booked at an event that served as a competition for signing with a major entertainment agency (and no, I won't name the agency). I ended up signing with the agency which led to amazing bookings and other career opportunities I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

CMGragain

She is not your friend.  She hasn't been for years.  Drop her.

themosthappy91

GlamQueenBride said:

I think "unjustified" is a bad term, frankly, because no one is required to attend a wedding and they shouldn't have to justify not attending. What's silly to one person may mean the world to someone else and I don't think it's fair to judge what someone finds important. I posted to see if I was being unreasonable in expecting that she wouldn't still be throwing it in my face after 10 years.

But if you want to know, I was a professional model and was booked at an event that served as a competition for signing with a major entertainment agency (and no, I won't name the agency). I ended up signing with the agency which led to amazing bookings and other career opportunities I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

Oh I think that's totally valid- you had a career opportunity and she should definitely have understood that.

That being said, I agree with bostonbride that there are definitely things I would get my feelings hurt over my best friend missing my wedding for. A career opportunity is definitely not one of them, but her example of someone going to a football game of a team they really love is good- I should hypothetically be able to be like "if it's important to her I understand her prioritizing it over my wedding," but in reality that's not happening. 

Of course bringing it up to you ten years later is crazy pants, no matter what the reason would have been.

drunkenwitch

If my best friend missed my wedding for a huge career opportunity, yes I would be sad. I would tell her i would miss her like crazy and then wish her luck, because that's what friends do.

Then I would go off, have private pity party about it and get over it. 10 years of harping on it would seriously make me rethink the friendship.

simcal18

GlamQueenBride said:

I think "unjustified" is a bad term, frankly, because no one is required to attend a wedding and they shouldn't have to justify not attending. What's silly to one person may mean the world to someone else and I don't think it's fair to judge what someone finds important. I posted to see if I was being unreasonable in expecting that she wouldn't still be throwing it in my face after 10 years.

But if you want to know, I was a professional model and was booked at an event that served as a competition for signing with a major entertainment agency (and no, I won't name the agency). I ended up signing with the agency which led to amazing bookings and other career opportunities I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

Yes, it's unreasonable for her to be holding a grudge over this for 10 years.  If it really bothered her that much, frankly, she should have just ended the friendship.  And if I were you and she were still being this catty, I'd consider ending the friendship on my end as well.

As to your point that no one is required to attend a wedding--that is true.  But as we tell people time and again on this board, actions have consequences.  One of the consequences of declining the wedding of someone very close to you is that they may be hurt and feel not as close to you as they once were.  That's a natural, unavoidable, human emotion.  It does sound like you had a good reason for declining this wedding, but for whatever reason, your friend was clearly hurt about it.

Logical or not, for some reason, weddings and other significant social events always seem to be fraught with hurt feelings.  Personally, I've learned to react one of two ways--either (1) forgive the person for the slight (whether perceived or actual), or (2) end the friendship.  I've done both, depending on the nature of the slight, the length and closeness of the friendship, and whether I think the relationship going forward is worth saving.  I don't get the point of holding a long-term grudge.

ohmrs2014

julieanne912 said:

ohmrs2014 said:

I agree with PP, this is a little ridiculous and to hold a grudge over it, nuts.

She should have checked with her VIPs to make sure the date she chose was ok with everyone.  She was in the wrong, not you.

Side note... you had your baby??  Yay!  

I did!  Went to my high risk appointment on Wednesday, BP was way too high and I was scheduled to be induced actually yesterday so the doctor showed my pressures to the OB in the office and they made the call to send me to L&D that night to be induced at 36 weeks and the urine catch I did a few days before tested positive for protein so it had turned from gestational hypertension to preeclampsia and the results came back Tuesday so for them it was a no brainer to get baby girl out.

ohmrs2014

If she knew about your career opportunity and didn't change the date even though she wanted you there, I guess you being there wasn't that important.  Maybe she thought you wouldn't go and that you would chose her wedding instead, but that's still not a fair assumption.

I personally, if my BFF couldn't make the date of my wedding and nothing was set in stone, I would personally change the date because chances are she would be a VIP and I would need/want her there.  I couldn't have imagined getting married without certain people there, my sister and BFF included.   If the date DH and I had chosen didn't work for either or both of them, or even some of his VIPs, you better believe we would have changed the date.

thefanciestbeckler

ohmrs2014 said:

If she knew about your career opportunity and didn't change the date even though she wanted you there, I guess you being there wasn't that important.  Maybe she thought you wouldn't go and that you would chose her wedding instead, but that's still not a fair assumption.

I personally, if my BFF couldn't make the date of my wedding and nothing was set in stone, I would personally change the date because chances are she would be a VIP and I would need/want her there.  I couldn't have imagined getting married without certain people there, my sister and BFF included.   If the date DH and I had chosen didn't work for either or both of them, or even some of his VIPs, you better believe we would have changed the date.

This exactly. I had a date in mind for our wedding, but when I talked to my best friend and found out that the date conflicted with something else on her schedule, I changed it.

simcal18

thefanciestbeckler said:

ohmrs2014 said:

If she knew about your career opportunity and didn't change the date even though she wanted you there, I guess you being there wasn't that important.  Maybe she thought you wouldn't go and that you would chose her wedding instead, but that's still not a fair assumption.

I personally, if my BFF couldn't make the date of my wedding and nothing was set in stone, I would personally change the date because chances are she would be a VIP and I would need/want her there.  I couldn't have imagined getting married without certain people there, my sister and BFF included.   If the date DH and I had chosen didn't work for either or both of them, or even some of his VIPs, you better believe we would have changed the date.

This exactly. I had a date in mind for our wedding, but when I talked to my best friend and found out that the date conflicted with something else on her schedule, I changed it.

I feel like this is a no-brainer in some cases, but harder to do in others depending on how many VIPs you have and what their schedules are like.  DH and I were set on having our wedding on a Saturday because literally all my family and many of our friends were OOT.  We wanted late spring/early summer.

We settled on our venue in May the year before we got married (so essentially a full year out), and started firming up dates with our VIPs.  My sister nixed April because that's by far her busiest work month.  A close cousin nixed May because her kids were high school uperclassmen who would have been tied up with prom/graduation.  Every Saturday in June our venue was already booked.  We were left with two Saturdays in July--one of which was 4th of July weekend.  We booked the other July Saturday, which luckily worked for all of our VIPs, but if that date hadn't worked for one of my BFFs .  .  . I don't know what we would have done.  Maybe looked at August, but I think there's a legitimate possibility that we would have just said "enough is enough" and booked a date knowing that one of our VIPs couldn't make it.

In any event, if we had done that, we wouldn't have faulted that VIP for not showing, and we certainly wouldn't have held a grudge about it for 10 years.

YogaSandy

themosthappy91 said:

GlamQueenBride said:

I think "unjustified" is a bad term, frankly, because no one is required to attend a wedding and they shouldn't have to justify not attending. What's silly to one person may mean the world to someone else and I don't think it's fair to judge what someone finds important. I posted to see if I was being unreasonable in expecting that she wouldn't still be throwing it in my face after 10 years.

But if you want to know, I was a professional model and was booked at an event that served as a competition for signing with a major entertainment agency (and no, I won't name the agency). I ended up signing with the agency which led to amazing bookings and other career opportunities I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

Oh I think that's totally valid- you had a career opportunity and she should definitely have understood that.

That being said, I agree with bostonbride that there are definitely things I would get my feelings hurt over my best friend missing my wedding for. A career opportunity is definitely not one of them, but her example of someone going to a football game of a team they really love is good- I should hypothetically be able to be like "if it's important to her I understand her prioritizing it over my wedding," but in reality that's not happening. 

Of course bringing it up to you ten years later is crazy pants, no matter what the reason would have been.

I agree. We had our date set. One of DH's closest friends was set to be a groomsman. But then he got a career opportunity that required him to move (awhile before the wedding). Because he was now low-man on seniority and someone else already had the weekend booked (it was a holiday weekend in Canada), he had to drop out of our wedding. Sure DH was bummed, but he understood. They're still great friends almost 12 years later.

PrettyGirlLost

GlamQueenBride said:

I think "unjustified" is a bad term, frankly, because no one is required to attend a wedding and they shouldn't have to justify not attending. What's silly to one person may mean the world to someone else and I don't think it's fair to judge what someone finds important. I posted to see if I was being unreasonable in expecting that she wouldn't still be throwing it in my face after 10 years.

But if you want to know, I was a professional model and was booked at an event that served as a competition for signing with a major entertainment agency (and no, I won't name the agency). I ended up signing with the agency which led to amazing bookings and other career opportunities I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

Why not?

What a lame teaser!