Hey all,
I need advice about my current situation, as it’s keeping me up at night... literally.
One of my best friends is getting married and as much as I love her, she is not a considerate bride. The talk about her bachelorette has started, and she wants a destination bachelorette. Mind you, she’s already having a destination wedding. Neither her or her MOH have asked any of us where our budgets are for any of this. She wants flights to PHX, AirbNb with pool, etc and just her bachelorette party alone will put me in the hole $1,100. Also, she’s forgotten that there is me and another bridesmaid who’s husbands are in the wedding party as well. The groom also wants a destination bachelor party estimating about $1,500 to LA. This obviously doesn’t include dresses, tux, alterations, shoes, bridal shower, wedding accommodations, etc. Her expectation is roughly $3k for my husband and I to be a part of their day, and quite frankly I’m not sure I can justify the money. It makes me feel like a bad friend. And it’s not that I don’t want to be there at her bachelorette (even though she’s my only friend out of the bunch, so there’s that). I just find it quite selfish that the expectation is so high and that no one has cared about our finances. When I got married last year, we put our wedding party first. This bride was in my wedding party, and had a pink bridesmaid dress in one of the colors I was thinking about from a previous wedding. I ended up choosing the pink that she already had a dress in so she wouldn’t have to buy another dress. I felt like that would make me an asshole to choose the other light pink shade. I asked all my bridesmaids what their budgets were and we worked around that for the bachelorette. I wanted a beach weekend in like Santa Cruz or Monterey and ended up forgoing a weekend and having 1 night out locally like 10 minutes from my house in order to accommodate my friends and not put them in a financial strain to celebrate my day. I bought all my own bachelorette decorations, games, and prizes. I chose and booked the hotel. I even pitched in for the Uber rides and a pole dancing class that they dropped the ball on and couldn’t book. My mom bought snacks and champagne for the room. My bridesmaids in total spent $150 on my bachelorette party per person, bought a dress, alterations, and spent money on wedding accommodations, which many of them split 4 ways and shared rooms. This bride didn’t help with my shower, showed up late even, DIYs, and didn’t even show up early enough the day before my wedding to help set up anything. She waltz in when we were all done setting up the reception. Like I said, I truly love her, but I guess it’s really hard for me because I wouldn’t and didn’t ask my bridesmaids to do any of the things she’s asking us to do and so therefore, I find it selfish and hurtful that she or her MOH haven’t cared at all about being considerate towards the group.
Help! I don’t want to back out of the bachelorette, I don’t want drama, but I want her to know how I feel, what it’s truly going to cost, and hopefully enlighten her. I feel bad that I’m kinda wishing that this whole destination bachelorette falls apart and we stay more local.