I'm going to get reamed out for this one. I just know it. Regardless, I need to vent to someone that isn't my fiance, because I'm annoyed with him right now.
I have a BM that is from and lives in Germany (we'll call her GBM). She was my exchange student in high school. She came to visit me this year right after my FI and I got engaged, and she asked me several times if she could be a BM, because BMs don't exist in German tradition, apparently, and this was her one opportunity to partake in this tradition. I consulted you all and I was advised to just let her be a BM. So I said yes, she could be a bridesmaid, and she said "Oh, I was just joking, I'll have to give it some thought." I was a little shocked that she would ask me so many times if she was joking about it, but anyway, she emailed me to say yes, she would be a BM. I got GBM's budget for a dress (she said she would spend whatever, and later, I let her know the maximum the other girls gave me and she said okay, great).
I went dress shopping with my other four BMs and they all found a favorite dress. It was easy and I was really happy with their choice. I sent this choice to GBM and she said she did not like the back (the straps cross in the back and it requires a strapless bra). She sent me back a link to a J.Crew bridesmaid dress that was strapless and cost more. I sent the link around to my other BMs and they said they preferred the original dress.
When I told GBM about the consensus, she was upset. I told her she was welcome to buy any dress she wants in the BM color, navy blue, but she said she did not want to stand out from the other BMs by being the only one to wear this dress (and the other four all want to wear this original one). Yesterday, she said she would wear it if she could buy the floor-length version and hem the dress so that it came to just below the knee (the original comes to just about the knee). I said, no problem, whatever makes her happy. She asked what the shipping costs are - and international shipping not being cheap, now she's upset about what international shipping will cost her.
I know the right thing to do is just foot the international shipping costs, but I'm just really annoyed that she asked me to be a bridesmaid, I let her be one out of courtesy, and now I wish I hadn't. She's a friend, but I'm annoyed that a friend would put me in the position of guilting me into BM-ing her (even though it's because of the culture gap, I'm sure) and just make this a difficult ordeal. I really don't feel like doing her any favors. But because you all will encourage me to be a nice bride and because I'm a pushover in general, I will end up paying for her international shipping.
Flame away. I just needed to get this off my chest.