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Pre-wedding Parties
sweethrt06
member
How would you feel?
So I had a destination wedding in May. I didn't expect many of my friends to make it. I was lucky enough to have 2 come! However, before the wedding we had an engagement party, bridal shower, and bachelorette party. I figured all my girlfriends who couldn't make it to the wedding would at least show up to 1 of the pre wedding parties. Instead....90% of them didn't show up. Some of them didn't even let me know they weren't going to be able to make it. It makes me so mad because my one girlfriend just got married before me. I went to her shower and gave her a nice gift. I went to her wedding and gave her more cash. She did nothing for me. I didn't even get a card in the mail. One of the girls is now trying to invite me to her kids birthday party. Is she an idiot? There's no way I'm going. Do you think I have a right to be mad at my girlfriends? I feel like it's time to find new friends after this whole experience. People really showed their true colors! I don't know if I should just let it all out and tell them all how I feel or just ignore them.
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Re: How would you feel?
I understand being disappointed, but not everyone enjoys those parties. And these things are not tit for tat. Don't tell them how you feel; just let it go and either forgive or let the friendships fizzle.
Since you don't seem to be aware of it, here's a piece of reality for you: although it's not polite not to respond at all to an invitation, nobody was required to accept the invitation to either your wedding or the parties. And lots of people don't like to attend multiple parties for brides. And when they can't attend the actual wedding, all the party invitations for that wedding make them feel like you only want their gifts.
If having them be present for you was really important to you, you would have had a local wedding instead of of expecting them to make time-off and travel arrangements that they must have found unaffordable and/or weren't able to get the time off for. But your DW was more important. That was your right, but with rights come responsibilities-like growing up and getting over it. That you got all pissy about one of them issuing you an invitation "and there's no way you would go," and are now complaining that another one "did nothing for you" when she was not obligated to do anything regardless of what you did for her, shows that you need to get at those responsibilities.
You chose a destination wedding. With that tends to be low attendance rates for both pre-wedding parties and the wedding since the guest list for destination weddings on average tends to be much smaller than your typical local wedding and only people invited to the ceremony should be invited to any pre-wedding parties. That's sort of the trade-off of the DW.
I'm assuming when you say some of them didn't even communicate with you that they weren't attending the pre-wedding parties, you mean they also did not communicate with whoever was hosting those parties either since you wouldn't have been throwing them for yourself? If they didn't even respond to the hosts of those parties, then yeah, that's a little rude. Did the hosts confirm that the invitations were received or try to follow up with them once to get a final headcount before the party/ies?
Truthfully, and if you lurked here at all prior to your wedding you'd see lots of people respond that they wouldn't attend a DW unless it's for someone very close - I would only attend a DW for a very close family family member (sibling, parent, or maybe favorite cousin) and my BFF. It doesn't mean I don't like my other friends, but my limited time off work is precious to me and my financial obligations do not allow me a lot of fun vacation money right now. If I was invited to a DW and I know that my schedule and finances aren't going to allow me to attend it, I likely wouldn't attend any pre-wedding parties either. And even if I was going to wedding, there's only a 50/50 chance of my attending pre-wedding parties - I find engagement parties a bit pointless and AWish (celebratory drinks at Happy Hour? Sure. An actual party? Nope), showers bore me but I will attend for absolute closest friends if I'm also planning to attend the wedding, and if I don't find the planned bachelorette activities interesting or it's out of my budget, I'm not going to go just for the sake of it. I also don't send gifts if I'm not attending pre-wedding parties. The point is, invitations are not a summons. It's ok to feel a little bit disappointed that you weren't able to celebrate with everyone you wanted to, but being petty and bitter and refusing to attend their events is petulant.