A woman found herself in a difficult situation after she was invited to her longtime friend’s kid’s wedding shower — but not the actual ceremony.
In a Reddit post shared to the “r/weddingshaming” subreddit, the woman detailed her situation and pleaded with anyone planning a wedding not to repeat her friend’s actions.
The poster began by providing background information about her connection to the bride, writing, “I have a tight group of friends who met through our kids when they were little about 20 years ago. We travel together, hang out together, etc.”
“The oldest kid of this friend group is getting married,” she continued. “I received an invitation to her bridal shower in the mail. A few days later, I got a text from her mom saying she felt terrible but they couldn’t afford to invite every member of the friend group to the wedding and she was so sorry.”
The mother of the bride, she explained, “knows I will understand and support the daughter despite not being included in the big day.” She added, “This is, of course, true.”
The “tricky part,” according to the poster, is that she was not informed about who in the friend group received an invitation to the ceremony.
“We were all invited to the shower (it’s being thrown by a few of the other moms in the group) despite not knowing who did or did not make the wedding list. I understand in my head that this is their way of including everyone in an event to celebrate a kid of one of us, but holy crap is it awkward,” she wrote. “If I decline the invitation, I’ll look like I’m not a team player and being petty.”
In a final plea, the woman wrote that “unless it’s in a church basement or work conference room, do not invite people to a shower who aren’t invited to the wedding,” and revealed her chosen approach.
“I’m planning to go, give a gift and try to not talk about the wedding itself if I can avoid it,” she added.
Responses to the original post offered up different options — namely, declining the invite — while others repeated that the move was “tacky” and a “gift grab.”
After attending the shower, the original poster provided several updates to the situation, first explaining why she didn’t RSVP “no.”
“While always an option, I would have been the only one out of 10 of us who didn’t show,” she wrote. “I was not up for making that kind of statement. We really are close friends.”
A stock image of a bridal shower.
Getty Images
She also revealed that over half of the friend group — six out of 10 — weren’t invited to the nuptials. “The bride [chose] to include her friends over family friends and I am 100% there for that decision,” she wrote. “But MOB should have set her straight about the shower invites.”
Finally, she revealed a small act of pettiness she folded into her present. “I brought a gift that is deeply sentimental to our friendship group with a nice card that included the line ‘I can’t wait to see all the pictures!’’ she wrotel, adding, “I feel good about that little bit of snark.”
The woman also learned that her pal who hosted the bridal shower did not initially plan to do so. Upon hearing that she wasn’t invited to the wedding, one of her friends “offered to host a small gathering” to celebrate the bride-to-be, who then — along with her mom — asked them to host the shower itself.
“I now know who was and wasn’t invited and we all learned to never, ever let this happen again,” she finished her update. “No one felt good about any of it — it was really weird from start to finish but I drank bubbly and made a wedding dress out of toilet paper so not a total loss.”
