My maid of honor unable to afford bach trip, but willing to pay front row vip concert tickets.

View Quoted Comment I confronted with my MoH, without being entirely honest. I did not mentioned anything above, just simply sharing that your presence matters to me and if she really can’t come, that is ok. Before she made her decision, we discussed budget for the trip since bach trip can range any were from few hundreds or thousands. After we figured out all the breakdowns of the budget, everyone felt comfortable and my MoH decided to join the trip. My fiancé and I also decided to be generous and cover major costs of the trip. Our friendship did not end.


Also, from reading recent comments that there is absolute zero responsibility of bridal party other than showing up to your wedding sounded non-sense. Then, why is there thousands of search results on “Responsibility of bridesmaids/MoH?” on any social platforms? Wedding planning is a Team Work not just my partner and I. And to call me that I’m selfish and entitled is off line. I do believe that there’s definitely some level of engagement from bridal party, family and friends planning on wedding/wedding events. I felt like I was gaslighted to believed that I’m crazy when the whole entire world is saying I’m not. Also, framing me as someone who wanted extravagant trip, when reality my expectations were not that. All I asked was for their presence and budget friendly small get away which worked out at the end.
Whether or not, we had agreements or disagreements. I appreciate everyone’s time and energy to giving me a feedback (which should not be entitled to). From this, I self-reflected a lot and I learned to have healthy open conversation with my bridal party instead of coming off emotional and not being honest.

View Quoted Comment Thank you for your kind words! and normalizing my feelings.


I am also aware that I am not perfect and I am not always right. It was helpful to hear what everyone shared.

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Patriarchy and capitalism fules the idea that female friends are available, unpaid labor (illustrated above). 75% of WW complaints are from brides peeved at bridesmaids not working up to their potential based on these images. It's all about reasonable expectations. Gentle reminder to all brides that women do have their own lives to navigate.

View Quoted Comment Stop framing me as I’m taking my advantage of my bridesmaids. Stop labeling me as someone who is self-centered and sets high expectation. I am letting them have their own lives. Leave me alone now respectfully.

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All of this is perpetuated by the wedding industry, that wants you and your friends to spend money on wedding things. It has nothing to do with reality.

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I agree ! the main reason why I refused to have bridal shower, paid hotel accommodations, dresses, dinner, activity, and willing to pay flight ticket for my girls + more. I just received a sincere thank you text for covering most of the wedding related expenses from my MoH and I really appreciated that. This is my reality and I’m happy that I can provide financially for my girls, even though they said I don’t have to.

Even if my reality was different, there’s nothing inherently wrong to judge and people can celebrate their wedding however they want. I’m also grateful for my bridal party and friends who is more than happy to help me with anything without me asking and they do not perceive me as entitled. They just simply want to volunteer out of joy because they genuinely care and love for the bride. This is my reality.

A big thing that many people don’t understand because of the influence of social media is that it is not representative of every single social circle everywhere. It is representative only of the family/social circle (usually a celebrity with no grasp of real world budgets) who invented the trend and shared it with the world. Not everyone who reads those Instagram posts buys into the trends and considers them “standard nationwide” because they aren’t when reality sets in. In generations past, not only was a bachelorette party optional and many people didn’t have one at all, if they did it was a very inexpensive low key local event held the evening of the rehearsal dinner. And people didn’t need to nurse hangovers while getting ready for the wedding because alcohol culture also wasn’t what it is now.


That aside, the celebrity created Instagram posts (that sparked a trend of expensive destination bachelor/ette parties that require travel, passports, PTO, and everyone having compatible extroverted personalities,, and people who don’t buy into them and don’t want them are told “that’s the only option and everyone does it that way everywhere” and act like you grew a third head and polka dot skin if you don’t want one or you want something simple, old school, the night before the wedding as past generations did with zero issues or pushback. It’s also customary per the old school rules that the bride was the guest of honor, not the host, and it would be impolite to expect the bride to pay a penny at her own bachelorette. Which is another reason why people don’t like the weekend trips. It’s also interesting to read that people don’t like the weekend trips at all for all the above reasons, but they will still object to any attempts to kill the trend they claim to hate.
Not everyone enjoys the elaborate expensive destination weekends that are months in advance and require passports, PTO, and there is no place to escape when you are in closed quarters with a variety of personalities that you may not know or get along with. If you decline or leave early, you are viewed as disrespectful, even by the bride, as many past posts in the search bar have mentioned. They are optional as with all pre wedding parties. Someone attending a concert or some other event instead doesn’t mean they hate you or they don’t care about your wedding. But you are free to feel that way and hopefully the friendship lasts. Everyone has different priorities of what they choose to spend their time and money on, and you don’t get to decide that for them, nor do you get to ask what it was and judge them on it. Respect their choices or end the friend if you don’t, but they didn’t do anything wrong.