A Practical Wedding: Am I Going to Lose My Best Friend Because I Won’t Get Vaccinated?

[minoanmiss]

long.

My best friend is getting married outside of the US. I am her only bridesmaid/maid of honor and we have been best friends for 15+ years.

Because of covid, things have been rocky. I have not been vaccinated. She has. The border is only letting vaccinated US citizens in. Therefore I cannot go. She basically hates me because I won’t get vaccinated. I’ve tried to explain my reasoning, but she honestly doesn’t care and has tunnel vision for the pro-vax. I feel like I am losing my best friend because of this. I plan on scheduling a photo shoot for us in her wedding dress and me in my bridesmaid’s dress for when she returns. I’m just not sure what else to do.

This might be slightly surprising to regular readers, but here it goes: I’m not going to tell you to get vaccinated. Not because I don’t want you to get vaccinated (because having two little kids who can’t get vaccinated and a family member with primary immunodeficiency, I’m depending on everyone who can get vaccinated to do so). But because at the end of the day, getting vaccinated is a personal choice.

The thing is, that choice comes with a lot of caveats and even more repercussions.

The first caveat is this: if you’re not going to get vaccinated, you need to be practicing the most aggressive kind of social distancing and masking available. In fact, staying at home would be a great choice. Because while your choice to stick a needle in your arm is your choice, what happens if you get or spread COVID is a choice that impacts lots of people. More spread means more variants, which put us all at risk. And if you get really sick, our exhausted frontline workers will have to care for you, and you’ll need a hospital bed that are in really short supply.

So if you don’t want to get vaccinated, fine. But that means you’re going to need to act responsibly. And acting responsibly very likely means no weddings for you (unless you’re all wrapped up in PPE and standing far away from everyone else), and it certainly means no traveling out of the country. And that’s what comes with making decisions: consequences. And you have to own them.

As for repercussions, well, you’re looking the first one square in the face right now. You’re not able to enter another country because of your vaccine status. Presumably, you took that into account when you chose not to get vaccinated, and if you didn’t…. well… you need to add that to your calculation right now.

But the second repercussion is to me, the bigger one. Since you have a much higher chance of getting and spreading COVID, it’s very likely that there are people who won’t want to be around you right now. (And, as covered above, you really should be socially distancing anyway.) It’s very possible your friend won’t want to do a post wedding photoshoot with you: not because she doesn’t love you, but because she doesn’t want to get COVID.

We are living through an incredibly emotionally difficult time, and all of us are doing our best to cope, and most of us are failing. So I’m sorry if your friend is making you feel like she doesn’t love you because of the decision you made. She’s probably mad, sad, disappointed, and scared all at once…. and she may not be handling those feelings particularly well (spoiler: most of us are not). Beyond that, she may feel like you were not the person she thought you were. And I’m going to let you in on a secret: this happens in weddings all the time, not just in weddings during COVID.

During wedding planning, all of our deeply held values suddenly come into public view: religion, ethics, money… and now public health. Sometimes friendships break up when these sorts of values systems come into play, and your friendship might be one of those friendships. But more than that, when we make major decisions, we have to weigh a whole lot of factors, and then figure out what’s right for us. It’s complicated as hell, and it’s pretty much the definition of being a grown-up. And the reality is: choosing not to get vaccinated will very likely mean there are things you won’t be able to participate in. (This isn’t new BTW, my kids can’t participate in public school without a copy of their vaccination records.) It’s possible that you may lose friendships over the choice. And those are all factors you need to balance out when considering your decision.

As for what to do with your friend? Well, first up, you can’t go to her wedding, and she’s hurt and sad. So try to do something nice for her, that doesn’t involve being close enough to spread germs. Send her a nice gift, or write her a nice note. Don’t make it about the pandemic, or vaccines. Just tell her how much you love and appreciate her, and how much you value her friendship. Then do what you can to support her wedding planning at a physical distance. Offer to have regular phone calls, volunteer to do some DIY craft project for her, see if you can Zoom in for her wedding. But most of all, try to switch the conversation from being about the pandemic to being about her. Offer her all the support you can, because that’s what a friend does.

And a personal request from me to you: check with your doctor, and if they say it’s safe for you to get a vaccine, please consider getting it. If you can’t, please stay home or mask and distance. The unvaccinated and immunocompromised people in all our lives need you to stay safe, as do all our frontline workers.

—Meg

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Does Meg get paid by the word? only two were really necessary.

Also, goodness, over the last whenever hasn't this become such a frequent question? Either "My [important person] refuses to get vaccinated [often with the addition "and mocks/derides/rails against vaccination"], what do I do?" or less commonly "for some strange reason my [important person] doesn't want to be aorund me because I refuse to get vaccinated. WTF?" And it just doesn't seem to me that both sides are contributing equally to the problem, you know?

[cereta]

Yeah, that was a really long way of saying, "You made your choice; now, she's made hers."

[redbird]

It might be worth it, for the part where she says "even if your friend was OK having you come to the wedding, as long as you're unvaccinated it would be selfish and anti-social to travel. Also, you should stay home as much as possible." Maybe someone who isn't willing to be vaccinated will go along with the non-pharmaceutical ways of preventing contagion, and leading with "vaccination is a choice" might get the LW or some readers to listen.

Potential good behavior

[lauradi7dw]

Before the caregiver agency my mother's aides come from started requiring vaccination, the one vax-refuser was the best at complying with the mask rule - not the flimsy cloth one the agency gave out, but a good medical grade one, worn tightly. She wasn't a Covid denier, and had a good grasp of PPE. Still, she was convinced that getting the vaccine would do her serious harm, despite the evidence all around her (we all could give testimony that we'd had no bad effects from the shot).

[green_grrl]

I actually liked that the response wasn’t just “Get vaccinated.” That would just harden the reader and her ilk even more. Instead the response was a really good reminder that freedoms/rights also come with responsibilities, like the ones countries are enforcing at borders. And schools are enforcing with kids. And immunocompromised people are depending on to live.

(And really, the response boils down to my favorite family of advice, “Well, well, well. If it isn’t the consequences of your actions.”)

[ekaterinn]

THIS. My best friend from grad school was refusing to get vaccinated (kept saying she wasn't 'ready' - I suspect her newish boyfriend of being an anti-vaxxer). But her workplace enacted a mandate and she complied - even got a mRNA vaccine instead of J+J! Continuing to work in her chosen profession was more important to her. (It also let me stop worrying about her so much, which she was glad about it). If her best friend's wedding along with more general participation in society is not more important than remaining unvaccinated, then LW has to live with the consequences of those actions.

[resonant]

This question was how I learned that That Bad Advice is back.

[minoanmiss]

!!!!!!!!

[jamoche]

Whoo! I was just thinking this would be *perfect* for that.

[watersword]

OH MY GOSH, 2021 has suddenly improved!

[bikergeek]

Dear LW, stop being a fucking dolt and get vaccinated. No love, Me.

[mommy]

I have negative feelings about expecting guests to show up for a destination wedding. There are people who won't be able to make it for a variety of reasons (money, family obligations, not having a passport, etc.). If you want to have an international destination wedding, then you need to adjust your expectations regarding the guest list.

I also have negative feelings about anti-vaxxers who expect sympathy for the entirely predictable consequences they now face. It's normal for countries to demand that visitors get a host of vaccines, and there is nothing surprising about the covid vaccines being added to the list. Not being able to travel internationally is a typical consequence of having anti-vax beliefs.

Basically, I'm feeling ugh ugh over both the bride and the LW.

[minoanmiss]

In ordinary times I would definitely rant about the ostentatious consumption and unfairness of destination weddings, yeah. But destination weddings are stupid and exclusionary, which is on another level than preventable infectious disease.

[mommy]

The infectious disease is definitely the more important issue. I just don't want to give the bride a pass when she's also doing something that warrants a (lesser, separate) side-eye.

[minoanmiss]

There is that. Bride, you're not off the hook!

[movingfinger]

Heaven forbid someone marry a person from outside the US! In another country! And ask people to be there! Which is to say, histrionically, that there is a large gap between "outside the US" and "annoying destination wedding" which the letter as given does not bridge.

(The wedding could be in Canada.)

[minoanmiss]

OK, that's a good point. Also, 9/10 for histrionics, excellent arm waving.

[green_grrl]

I more got the feeling that groom to be is Canadian and they are just bipping across the border for his family/friends? I don’t know why—it could be a destination splurge, but the letter doesn’t whine about, “Why doesn’t she just get married here so I can participate.”

[mommy]

That's definitely possible, although that still comes with the same list of reasons why folks on the guest list might not be able to attend due to the size of both countries and passport requirements. It's still better than what I was imagining, though.

[ekaterinn]

I also got that feeling. I was the maid-of-honor for a friend in Canada while living in the States. If that's right, the bride may have also put off the wedding for a long time as the border was closed since the beginning of the pandemic and just re-opened to vaccinated travellers in August. In that case, bride would be perfectly justified in cutting off unvaccinated LW.

[ambyr]

If that's what's happening, I would assume the reason to be that Canada is currently letting vaccinated Americans cross the land border, but America hasn't yet opened the land border to Canadians. (It will soon, though!)

[movingfinger]

Still thinking about this one---I would be so cheesed off, bridally speaking, at a maid of honor who refused to show up at the wedding but still expected to be in a consolation (consoling whom?) full-dress photo shoot later! In some location that has nothing to do with the wedding day! If this anti-vaxxer can't be arsed to show up on the day, she is not in the wedding party and not in the pictures. And I would expect the friendship to wither and die, because of the values the MoH-designee holds.

[heavenscalyx]

Dear LW,

Yes, you've lost your best friend by being an antivaxxer jerk, because we're all exhausted by your ilk. Suck it up, cupcake.

No love,
Me