Dear Prudence,
My brother is getting married in the fall. His fiancée asked me to be a bridesmaid, which I accepted. She and my brother live across the country, and I have only met her two or three times (once at my own wedding, so there was not an abundance of time for any meaningful communication other than pleasantries). Future sister-in-law seems very laidback about her wedding planning and doesn’t have a ton of expectations of the bridesmaids. She is even going as far as to plan her own bachelorette party, which I think is somewhat unusual but hey, you do you.
As I mentioned, I don’t know my future SIL very well. We have spent maybe a collective 12 hours in each other’s presence. I know asking me to be a bridesmaid was out of obligation. All of the other bridesmaids are her friends from college/post-grad, who I have only met for 30 minutes on a Zoom call. I haven’t heard any plans of a bridal shower, and the bachelorette party is happening on the Thursday before the wedding (which is on a Saturday).
Here’s the predicament: Future SIL has made a hotel reservation for the night of the bachelorette party, and she wants everyone to share a suite. This means that everyone will be two to a bed, like some kind of big sleepover. I am super uncomfortable with this. One, I am an adult with a salaried job and have no interest in sharing a bed with anyone other than my husband (and even then, sometimes I wish I had the bed to myself!). Even if these were my best friends, I don’t know that I’d want to share a bed unless it was out of utter desperation. I don’t know these women, and while they seem nice enough, I don’t think I would be friends with them had we met under other circumstances. Not to mention that I’m a super light sleeper and get extremely grumpy if I don’t get an uninterrupted night of sleep.
The suite is only a few hundred dollars split between all of the bridesmaids. My family, husband, and I are flying in from out of town on Thursday morning before the bachelorette party.
Family/husband already have hotel reservations made for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Am I a jerk if I stay with my husband that night and still pay for my portion of the bachelorette suite?
— Too Old for a Slumber Party