I have 3 bridesmaids for my wedding that is happening 4 weeks from tomorrow. Seeing as the wedding is less than a month away, I have recently started communicating more frequently with my bridal party. One bridesmaid, whom I communicate with very regularly about things unrelated to the wedding, has been ignoring me for 2 weeks now. In an effort to engage her in conversation, I sent out a group message to the bridal party asking if they had their dresses and shoes and to give them a run down of the day-of schedule. So far, all but one has responded.
The bridesmaid in question and I are very close friends. I happened to move 1,000+ miles away from our hometown (where she still lives) a few years ago, but it has not effected how often we communicate, even if we don't see one another as frequently. For the record, the wedding is in my hometown, where she and everybody else involved in the wedding live.
I picked out the bridesmaids dresses last March. They are online, readily available, and I sent the link to all of the maids and let them know that they were free to order them at their convenience. Before I decided on the final dress, I consulted with each of them individually about the cost of the dress, to make sure that I wasn't going to cause any unnecessary financial hardship for anybody. All 3 told me that the dress was great, that the cost was absolutely manageable (about $100), and that, given the amount of time they had to order them, it wouldn't be an issue.
The flaky bridesmaid still does not, to my knowledge, have her dress. She indicated to me that she had worked something out about the dresses with another bridesmaid, but the other bridesmaid has no knowledge of what the flaky bridesmaid is talking about.
I have offered, on several occasions, to ALL of the bridal party, to pay for the dresses if it comes down to it. I am happy to do it if it means that my friends are there with me on such an important day.
As far as my communication with the flaky maid in question goes, she and I text about the wedding every once in a while, but it certainly doesn't dominate our conversations. She helped plan and throw a bridal shower for me back in the fall, and afterwards I mailed her a gift and a thank you card for doing so. The shower was great and she seemed really excited to be doing these things.
For what it's worth, I do not expect my bridal party to go out of their way to make things happen for me. The shower came about organically, and I was not the one who instigated it or asked for it. I do not think that bridesmaids have an innate obligation to answer to a bride's every woe. Nobody should have to shoulder the burden of somebody else's issues like that.
Usually, when I talk to her, we talk about life in general, her new developments (job, romance, etc.) and also sometimes wedding related things. I try not to weave wedding talk into life talk, for fear of sounding self-absorbed. I keep the conversations separate. The last several times we have texted (Jan. 3 & 4) we spoke about general things, not about the wedding. I have even reached out to mutual friends to make sure that she is okay and that I'm not just out of the loop about something awful that has happened to her. Our mutual friends say that she is fine and speaking to them with the same regularity. I have not divulged my issue to mutual friends because I do not want her to feel like I've got everybody attacking her or coming after her. I did, however, have one of my maids text her to see if she would respond to her. Also no response.
The flaky maid is active on social media, so I'm certain that she is ignoring me.
The big question: WHAT DO I DO?
I have called twice (with voicemails) over the past two weeks. I have also texted her several times outside of the group message with the bridal party. The first call and the initial messages were not wedding related, but subsequent things have been, mainly because the wedding is in 29 days and I'm panicking.
Any advice is appreciated. I'm not going to throw her out of my wedding. I don't think that that's any way to treat your friends. Even so, I AM willing to give her a way out if she doesn't actually want to participate. I won't hold it against her. I just really, really need to know if she's going to bail. 29 days is not a lot of time to deal with this and I don't know what to do.