Hi all, I'm looking for some guidance about bridesmaids. FH and I are planning to have a bridal party of 4; his life-long best friend and his grad school best friend, and my life-long best friend and my grad school best friend. I only wanted the life-long best friends, but he really pushed for the second best friend so I decided to ask my grad school best friend. We're having a destination for us wedding in New York City in 2022, so I really wanted to keep it small.
Now an issue has come up with a friend of mine who I know will expect to be a bridesmaid, who we'll call A. A and I were extremely close in college (2 years ago), but have had a rocky relationship since then. She has had jealousy issues that she admits to since graduation, stemming from the fact that I was in grad school and making new friends while she struggled to find a job. We talked about these issues last spring where she would be excluding me from her life because of my time in grad school and things were better for a little while.
These jealousy issues rose up again in the last year when I started getting serious with FH and planning for our future together. She lives within 30 minutes of us and works 5 blocks from my apartment but has only met him 3 times and only seen me maybe 5 times since graduation. Any time I would mention something about FH or our discussions, she would be very short with me and try to stop the conversation, so I brought this up to her. She immediately apologized and said that she was having a hard time being happy for me because she was jealous that she and her boyfriend were not at the same place in their relationship as I was in mine and that she felt it was unfair that we were getting engaged when she was far from being engaged. For context, I know her boyfriend is paying off an engagement ring and is planning to propose in the next year, and she also knows this, but she thinks financial issues will prevent that from happening. Even after this conversation though, she's been a little better about being happy for me, but she's still not as excited for me as the two women who I would want for my bridesmaids.
For as long as I've known her, she's been very self-centered and has always taken other people's choices really personally, so I know this will be a big issue with her. I also know she will be upset because she still says I'm her best friend; but I don't want her in my small party because she hasn't been a very good friend to me. The two women I've chosen have been super excited for me and incredibly supportive of me and FH, so I feel perfectly comfortable having them as my party. I'm not planning to formally ask them until after the virus has died down, but they both know that they will be. So much question is, before I tell my party that they are my party, should I tell A that she won't be one?
