Member- BelleoftheNorth
- 7 years ago
- Wedding: June 2011
We’re having my bachelorette party in Boston, as 3 girls live there and 3 live in Maine. All the girls were really excited about it at the shower, and my sister, the Maid/Matron of Honor, has been sending out all the info to the girls. However, one of the girls suddenly just said she’d been thinking about it and decided she can’t go. (It’s next weekend.)
A little back story- My friend is engaged but hates weddings and doesn’t want to have one herself. She just bought a house and is in nursing school, so I know she’s busy. She has always said she doesn’t care about money and spends it like it’s water. But knowing she had some big things going on (school and the house) I told her right up front when I asked her to be a Bridesmaid or Best Man “I know it can be expensive to be a Bridesmaid or Best Man. If you don’t think you have time or money feel free to say no, and I will make sure you are apart of our day in some other way.” She said yes she definitely wanted to be a bridesmaid and money didn’t matter.
Fast forward a little bit: Dress shopping. She came prepared to spend $300 on a dress. The dress was $115, shoes $40. She was pleasantly surprised (like I said, she hates wedding stuff so had no idea what costs were.) I have been trying very hard to keep costs down- I don’t want people to have to spend an arm and a leg!
For hair I told the girls it was $55, but they DID NOT have to get their hair done and we could do it ourselves if they didn’t want to. She said she did want to.
Then bridal shower time came around- each girl was asked to bring one food item, my mom let them have it at her house so there was no cost to rent the place.
So I have been trying to keep costs down as much as possible- I am by no means Miss Moneybags either! (Who is?! 🙂 )
Fast forward to Bach Party in Boston. I researched tons of hotels and found a suite that could sleep all of us- it would cost $55 each for the night. The show we are going to is $10 each. For dinner I got a restaurant.com coupon for $100 off $200. My sister said the restaurant we were going to is about $15/entree and house wine is cheap. We have other people besides the BM’s coming, but we figure dinner, wine, dessert will be about 25-30 each (or possibly less.) My sister sent the name of the restaurant and hotel to all the girls. She wrote back saying that she saw that the restaurant was really expensive- $150/couple and that reviews said to get a lot of coupons. My sister responded saying that it wasn’t that expensive and we should all expect to spend about $100 each for the night (dinner, hotel, show-not including any drinks we buy while out.) (This was all including paying for my stuff which I told them to NOT worry about.) Right after all of this was said she sent my sister the message saying she is not coming.
So here’s my question (finally right?) Is there a delicate way to ask her if money is the reason she is not coming? I don’t want her to feel left out just because she thinks she can’t afford it. (Especially since she got the wrong idea about the restaurant online- she must have looked at the wrong place.) I don’t want her to feel pressured, or like she wasn’t apart of it. Honestly if she doesn’t come it may end up working out better (less girls crammed into beds) but I want her to be apart of everything.
I thought this might happen which was why I told her to say no if she wanted to. I just don’t understand why 1 1/2 weeks before she suddenly says no- if something is going on I want to make sure I can help anyway I can, but is there a nice way to ask or should I just leave it alone?
