Asking for help from Wedding party

I think I would have asked close family members individually if I really needed help pulling off a wedding I was paying for myself. I don't know if that was an option for you. I wouldn't ask the bridal party to contribute to the wedding, although I don't think it was appropriate for the bridesmaid to go off on you - clearly she is stewing about much more and this was the straw that broke the camel's back. Sorry for all you have gone through.

I can see where your bridesmaid is coming from, although, she could've probably been a little nicer about it. It's not your bridal party's responsibility to pay for anything for your wedding besides their wedding attire. If you couldn't afford the alcohol, you could've done without any. I've been to a ton of dry weddings, and they've still been a lot of fun. It would've been more appropriate to ask family members before asking the bridal party to help out.

I personally do not see an issue with asking close friends for help when you need it. Your bridesmaid seems stressed about something else, and honestly not a very good friend. She simply could have said "I'm sorry, but I can't help right now" and left it at that.

For everyone saying it is not her bridal parties responsibly- She did not make anything anyone's responsibility. She simply asked for help from her FRIENDS. Your bridal party is first a friend and second a member of your bridal party.

We would have eloped if I lost my job earlier than I did. By that time, we had signed contracts and paid over half of the balances for each of the vendors. Financially, it would make 0 sense to cancel the wedding. We cut guests down from 150 to 100, which hurt feelings but was necessary. I didn't get a job till about a little over a month before our wedding (which is this Saturday). Expenses were tight for 6 months on 1 income and we made all the arrangements, even me just taking an Uber instead of having a rental take me to the church/venue. In the middle of living on 1 income, my FH had to go to the ER for a brown recluse spider bite which made things even tighter budget wise. We just asked if they could gift us alcohol instead of something from our registry.

I'm sorry you've been having a rough time! While it is not common "etiquette" to ask that, your closest friends should understand and have compassion. Unless you guys asked for some $40 bottle (which I doubt you did), she didn't have to go off that much. She could buy a bottle of Barefoot for $6 at any gas station, Walgreen's, Target, etc.

On the other hand, maybe she has some financial issues of her own? That could maybe explain the lashing out?

I hope it all works out for you!!

You allowed your future in-laws to empty their savings to pay for the rehearsal dinner? You need the WP to help pay for alcohol? Sounds like some serious budgeting should have been long before now. I hope others can learn from this, and host a wedding that's within their means.

And yes, I think your BM is justified in being upset, although she could have voiced it a little better.

It is not like we did not have a budget and do a re-budget when I lost my job and my FH went to the ER. I did not ask my in-laws to empty their savings for this wedding. My FH simply told them that we would just have to do something simple for our rehearsal dinner and make it a potluck, but they decided on their own to pay for our rehearsal dinner. We've paid for all the vendors ourselves and had our spirits stocked for the wedding. The surprise medical bill that came in wiped our budget for wine and beer. Please don't make it sound like we did not do anything in making our wedding budget fit with our adversities, bc this is exactly what my BM did. I have already asked for an advance on my paychecks just to pay back my in-laws. I've felt bad since losing my job and I've never expected anyone to help. We we're budgeting to the best of our abilities, but life also doesn't stop during wedding planning. We had other bills to prioritize and we had to eat. We cut down everything to bare minimum and I'm already cooking a portion of our food so that we didn't have to pay for much catering. I'm taking an Uber to the church. We did not budget over our means, we simply had road bumps that were unplanned and coped the best way we could.

And by savings, it was their wedding savings. They had that money planned for other things like transportation for the WP but decided to just use what they had saved for the wedding to go towards our rehearsal dinner. It was no more than $700. They were going to gift us transportation and instead used it for the rehearsal dinner so that we didn't have to worry about doing dinner BYO or a potluck.

Yeah you shouldn't have asked. Your situation is definitely unfortunate, but your BM is right - if you can't afford to host something, don't host it. It's not their responsibility to pick up your slack financially.

I totally get where you are coming from. If I were to lose my job right now I honestly don't know how we would pay for our wedding. I'm lucky in the sense that we have 14 months to go- but it is a very real possibility for me to be unemployed shortly as the company I work for has taken some big hits. I think this comes down to a know your friends thing. Obviously most of them were okay with it or respectfully declined. And I would guess that most of them are aware that you wouldn't have asked unless you absolutely had to. Life is tough, you're experiencing that right now. She probably has something else going on in her life making it tough right now and this could have just been one more thing that put her over the top. I'd maybe just talk to her an apologize for asking that she bring some alcohol and hope that she understands the situation. But I would also expect her to be a little on edge come your big day.