Dear Prudence,
My fiancé and I have been planning our wedding and want to keep it pretty traditional. We agree on almost everything, except when it comes to the wedding party and who’ll be in it. For context, we share a closely knit friend group consisting mostly of guys, which I don’t mind at all, but it means I don’t have my own group of girlfriends to be bridesmaids.
When discussing who we’d choose, my fiancé ‘claimed’ all of my close friends as the groomsmen and when I protested, he suggested I ask my friends from high school (who I haven’t spoken to in years) or my university friends (also all guys). I was taken aback by how unsympathetic he was, because he’s normally much more caring and considerate and this felt very out of character. It really upset me and I’ve avoided talking about it since.
As a kicker, my fiancé also has a best man lined up, but the person who I’d pick for mine is already one of the groomsmen. My position is that we either share everyone or forego the wedding party altogether, but I don’t know how to navigate such a non-traditional approach within an otherwise traditional wedding, especially in front of family members with a tendency to be judgmental. How do I untangle this mess so I can get on with the regular stress of wedding planning?