Well, Happy Monday TK!
edit: TL;DR: FI is down a groomsman, wants to violate etiquette, wedding is three weeks away, stressed!
I'm sorry if this is disjointed or hard to follow, but I need to get all this off my chest.
The wedding is September 13. We've been engaged for a year and a half and things have been fairly low stress and drama-free. People have actually called me a "low key bride". But, since the beginning of August, things are just hitting the fan.
First of all, I'm a very logical person and FI is an emotional person. This causes conflict everyone once in awhile but it's never anything we can't talk out. Well, the first drama is that our smallish (80 target) guest list is a lot smaller than we anticipated because local family we expected to come have been declining. We have a minimum to hit at our venue and we're not going to hit it, so we plan to add more food or booze. We over-invited too, because God forbid we do a B-list. (Invited 97 including single person +1s but maybe going to have 70-75.)
FI didn't name a Best Man. One of the three GMs is more of an older-brother figure than a friend, and over the weekend- which should have been FI's bachelor party- they had a huge argument and now this GM isn't coming to the wedding. For the 15 or so years they've been friends, this GM has always been a high maintence friend. FI is the give-give-give type, but GM is quite selfish and stubborn. I felt awful for FI when he told me about this drama, and I asked how he was feeling, and he said he was feeling relieved that this chapter in his life was over. I knew he was concerned about even sides from when we chose our bridal party a year or so ago.
So, now, FI wants to ask his best female friend to be a grooms-maid. Three weeks out. He asked my opinion, I gave my opinion as sensitively as I could (no!), and he proceeded to get upset about how he wants a stress-free wedding, but he's always the one disappointed, and our guest list is so much smaller, and we should have done a B-list, and why am I always so afraid to offend people because it never hurts to just ask (!!!!!).
I'm just like, you know, I'm sorry he's hurting over his family declining and the loss of his friendship with GM, but we're 3 weeks out and IT IS WHAT IT IS. He has two men standing instead of three (and heck, my BIL is the usher too), and we buy more food for the guests that are coming. I tried very hard to be sensitive while communicating that we need to just let the cards fall where they may, and now he's the one getting upset.
Stress-free wedding? HE wants a stress-free wedding? I want a stress-free wedding. Apparently this doesn't exist; I never dreamed I'd be a bride posting on this board about being down a GM, B-lists and bridal party replacements.
Oh, and I need to order the damn programs. I deleted the GM's name but I'm sitting here like, "Are you asking your female friend or not?" He's wavering, and letting his emotions (fewer people "supporting" him) override the sense that he'd seriously inconvenience this friend and her husband by doing this. I've even been thinking that perhaps the ex-GM will come around and they'll show up anyway. FI doesn't think so, and he doesn't want this man at the wedding at all anymore. I have a little faith that they'll come around and perhaps repair things last minute, but again, FI doesn't think so.
I'm going to let him cool off. I don't know what else to do. He said he was fine with the end of the friendship and clearly he's not fine; he's even apologized to me for throwing a wrench in the wedding plans and I'm like, there is no wrench! There's nothing to be sorry for, there's no inconvenience besides me deleting a name from the program. OMG.
end vent. Sept 13 can't come soon enough!
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