I have a bridesmaid who is in college and does a lot of traveling and is always very busy. About 3 months ago me and the bridesmaids went and picked out their bridesmaids dresses but she didn't go. The dress is $100 and the wedding is about 4 months away now and she still has not purchased the dress. I know she works part time so I would have thought she would have saved up for it by now. She also is ignoring any of the other bridesmaids messages pertaining to the wedding and hasn't gone to any of our other outings. I know she's very busy but I feel that at the very least she should respond to their messages. I just don't know what to do or say to her about this. Should I even be upset about it and just wait until the wedding gets closer to say something??
Re: Bridesmaid won't buy her dress! Help!
Take the wedding out of this. If one of your friends was so busy they were disappearing, maybe it's time to text and say 'I miss you, I know you are super busy. But I would love to hear what's going on in your life. Free for a 15 min chat tonight or tomorrow?' Then don't talk about your wedding!
Later, after you have reestablished contact, Find out the last day she can order her dress. Send her an email and say 'FYI Tuesday is the last day you can order the dress and have it here on time.' Then leave it!
Fix your friendship first, and let her sort out the dress herself.
Her finances are none of your business, but you should have asked her what her budget was. Also, she doesn't have to go on any "outings". She's in college, she's probably busy. Maybe she isn't responding to messages because they're all about the wedding and she's a little tired of it.
Maybe talk to her about something non-wedding related and see if she responds. You could also try phoning her.
$100 is still a LOT. And you don't know what kind of things she has going on.
After you see how she's doing, you can bring it up. Like pps said if she doesn't buy the dress she can just be a guest. But if it's important to you that she do this, I think a nice gesture would be to offer to pay for half the dress.
Finances are rough. If that is an issue, she's probably not comfortable telling you, and it'd be insensitive to pry.
Also make sure you find out the last possible time she can order the dress and get in on time as pp said. 4 months is still a lot of time.
If she doesn't get the dress, then she has taken herself out of your WP.
I agree to take the wedding out of this and focus on the friendship first. But at the end of the day, don't pester her, and if she shows up on your wedding day, great! If not, you know where you both stand.
Again, not saying YOU are, but I've seen it posted a few times on these boards, "I've texted, called and FB messaged my BM but she never responds!!". What I am really saying is, don't text her more than once to say, "Dresses need to be bought by X date". Put the ball in her court, and leave it for her to bounce the ball back. Doing so takes any fault off of you.
I can see being really bewildered that she suddenly stopped talking to you and won't respond to messages. I agree that, even if she's busy, it's rude to just emit radio silence. She could respond and say something like "I've got a hell of a week this week, mind if I call you this weekend?" You even saw her in public and she pretended she didn't know you. That is bizarre behavior, especially if she was close enough to you to be in your wedding. This seems to go way deeper than a dress or your wedding. Take the wedding out of it and address it on a friend level.
I find it very, very strange that someone who is close enough to be a bridesmaid would avoid you in a store after not seeing you for a long time. This is something that would need to be addressed whether she was in your wedding party or not. I think you should call (not text) her and try to find out what's going on.
I say put the wedding aside and reach out to assess the friendship. Being busy happens, ignoring you in public means she may be trying to the relationship.
- inquiry about her dress budget
- invitation to go dress shopping
- notification that the dress was chosen
- invitations to various outings
- other wedding-related msgs from your bridesmaids
This also strikes me as way beyond typical "too busy" behaviour. Unless you've ONLY sent her wedding-related msgs these past five months (which would understandably annoy her), it sounds like she's iced you out altogether.
"Ignoring" you in the store may have been an honest mistake - I am constantly doing this because I have my head in the clouds - but even so, I second pps' suggestions to reach out to her and see if there is a deeper issue with your friendship (not an issue with buying a BM dress). Good luck.