Dear Prudence: Help! I Made Some Difficult Choices With My Wedding Party. My Friends Are Not Happy.

[ermingarden]

Q. Too Much Love for One Wedding: I’m getting married in a few weeks and my partner and I decided to do a joint wedding party because we’re queer and we’ve been together for so long, there’s a lot of friend overlap. For a medium-sized wedding, we’ve got 12 members in our wedding party.

There are a few friends who I love dearly but who didn’t make the final list. Most of it was just arbitrary, 12 feels big to me and we needed to make a cutoff. These friends aren’t coming to me upset or with accusations about it, but based on conversations, I think they’re feeling left out. We’re doing a welcome party for just friends and we’re doing drinks the day after for people still in town, but of course, it doesn’t work for everyone’s travel plans. There are also friends who we didn’t invite to the wedding at all because of venue capacity, waiting to get RSVPs from family, etc.

Any suggestions on how to let these people know I love them even if they’re not in the wedding party? Any suggestions for the people who weren’t invited at all? Not entirely sure what etiquette standards are expected or how to do right by people, while being upfront and accountable that we did make these decisions.

A: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: My strong belief is that very few people are dying to be in a wedding party. When all is said and done, it can cost THOUSANDS of dollars, involves wearing something you didn’t choose, and makes you organize at least one day (maybe closer to five days) of your life around making someone else feel special, putting your own needs and preferences on the back burner. I feel the same way about weddings. They’re cool and can be a nice time! But especially after a certain age, they’re not exactly a blast. There are a lot of other ways to spend a weekend day, doing what you want and eating what you want, sitting at a table with people you actually know.

Also! Most people have had a wedding, been in a wedding, or been close to someone who had a wedding. Everyone gets it. It is no secret that tough decisions have to be made when it comes to the guest list and wedding party, and that many people who are liked and even loved aren’t included. As a bride or groom it’s easy to get caught up in thinking your wedding is as important and emotional to other people as it is to you, and the vast majority of the time, it’s simply not.

That said, you say you’ve heard people are feeling left out so I will believe you. I don’t suggest explaining to them directly why they weren’t included or apologizing unless they confront you. That’s just awkward. And God forbid you give a whole sob story to someone who doesn’t actually care. Instead, you can just kind of spread the word that you would have loved to invite more people or have a larger wedding party but could not.

So whenever you have a chance, on social media or in real life, picking what feels right for the audience, casually toss out one of these statements:

—“We’re having a smaller wedding than we planned.”

—“We have a lot of relatives and couldn’t invite all of our close friends.”

—“We wish we could have included more people—it’s just so expensive and we’ve had to make tough choices.”

—“We are lucky to have so many close friends. Really everyone invited could have been a member of the wedding party so we just chose people we’ve known the longest.”

—“Wedding planning has been hard! If we could do it again we’d choose a bigger venue so that we could invite all of our loved ones…”

Then just be at peace with the fact that you did the best you could and that involved making decisions that excluded some and included others. In my opinion, you’ve done more than enough, especially with the extra events. You might slightly shift your mindset to, “People who feel entitled to be a part of our wedding are a little unreasonable.” And hey, a lot of people have trouble digging up a second or third bridesmaid. The fact that you have such a robust social circle is great. You and your spouse should go into your marriage grateful to be part of a community full of people who are apparently chomping at the bit to spend their Saturday celebrating you.

Comments

[ermingarden]

My instinct is that the problem stems from how large the wedding party is. It's one thing if a friend is having two or three attendants and you didn't make the cut; it's another thing entirely to have it implied that you're not among the couple's twelve closest friends!

[ermingarden]

There's also an additional response further down the page:

Q. Re: Too Much Love for One Wedding: When you choose some people and not others to be in your wedding party or to receive invites, you are telling those others that they aren’t as important to you. This is of course reasonable, we all are differently close to different people. But if they thought they were closer than they are, they’ve now learned otherwise, and this is hurtful, no matter how much you didn’t intend to hurt people. You can’t, and shouldn’t, do anything else, but your friends who didn’t receive invites (especially them, but also the ones who aren’t part of the wedding party but wanted to be) are going to have the feelings they have and make decisions about the friendship. It was entirely up to you to make those decisions for your wedding, but it’s also reasonable for them to make decisions based on that.

A: You know what? This is so true. I think there are some exceptions (Like: Laura might get invited even though she’s a third-tier friend because she is part of a trivia team that includes long-time BFFs Kate and Kendra, and it would be weird to exclude her, while Dan, who’s actually a second-tier friend, doesn’t get invited because he doesn’t know anyone else who will be there). But overall, what you’re saying makes a lot of sense—the choices about the guest list reflect reality, and maybe the best bet is to resist sugar-coating it. Related: Weddings not only reflect the current status of friendships but can deepen and solidify them. When you’re deciding who to invite, you are deciding who gets to meet your grandma and dance with your toddler nephew and say “I was at her wedding” when people ask if they know you. That creates a certain kind of closeness. And yeah, you’re choosing to offer that to some people and not others for a reason.

[lethe1]

My strong belief is that very few people are dying to be in a wedding party. When all is said and done, it can cost THOUSANDS of dollars

I had no idea it can cost thousands of dollars to be a guest at a wedding party. Unless a wedding party is something completely different from what I imagine it is.

[movingfinger]

Twelve attendants. Why not just have EVERYONE process with the bridal couple?

[jadelennox]

My strong belief is that very few people are dying to be in a wedding party.

I love how gently this is said, when in fact, wedding parties are frequently the causes of massive friendship schisms. The members of the bride's party often have ridiculous obligations for labor, cosmetic appearance, hairstyle, gifts, planning, etc. thrown on them, and even in the groom's party there are often expensive parties one is expected to throw. Most people I know in bridal parties have wished they could get out of them.

[melannen]

LW, "what about the people who didn't make the cut for the wedding?" is part of what bridal showers were originally for. (Especially since - again, at least originally - people weren't expected to travel to them, you can leave out the distant family and invite all the nearby friends. Plus, they can be very inexpensive per person.)

Ask the friends you're feeling guiltiest about if they'd like to help arrange a (low-key, not-high-budget, no-gifts-required) wedding shower for the whole extended friend group, so you have a chance to celebrate with you'd like to invite to the wedding but just couldn't.

You can have several if there are several non-overlapping groups of extended acquaintances.

[lassarina]

...speaking as someone with a large social circle who did have twelve bridal party members*, comprising primarily people I couldn't imagine my wedding without, I also know that I had a few friends who I would have liked to have in the wedding party but it didn't work out. I also had a lot of anxiety about this. Obviously the other people were invited to the wedding (I didn't have a bridal shower), but it wasn't so much about "I love my cousin more than I love this friend", it was also "who do I trust to stand firm against my mom" and similar considerations.

* the average in my friend group was 8.

[likeaduck]

My one note is that, "Most people have had a wedding, been in a wedding, or been close to someone who had a wedding. Everyone gets it." is not actually necessarily true for queers. I've been *to* far fewer weddings than my straight peers, and been *in* none.