Bride sparks debate for booking her wedding the same weekend as her best friend

‘She was trying to divide the loyalties of the friends group,’ one reader writes

One bride-to-be’s decision to book her wedding the day after her best friend’s has stirred up controversy online.

A recent post to Reddit’s popular forum, Wedding Shaming, detailed the situation from the perspective of the best friend’s fiancé. The original poster started by giving context to their relationship and nuptial plans.

“My partner and I got engaged May 2022, and booked a Friday in Sept 2024 in Sept 2022,” the Redditor wrote. “Told all the close family and friends our plans and our wedding date and location when we booked it and were very open to the friends and close family about where/when it was.”

Despite their efforts to give guests a heads-up to avoid any scheduling issues, a conflict arose. The Redditor’s fiancé had asked her closest friends to be a part of her bridal party and asked her best friend, who had got engaged during the summer of 2023, to be her maid of honour.

The Reddit user continued: “Then, in December 2023, the MOH approached my fiancé about getting married in Sept 2024 out of the blue. She said she always wanted a September wedding.”

Of course, the Redditor’s fiancé was shocked by this because it was the first time she had mentioned it, but she ultimately told her friend: “It’s not really my place to say you can’t have a wedding in the same month as I do.”

A week later, her friend texted in a group chat with the rest of their close circle, revealing the date and location of her wedding, which turned out to be the Saturday after hers, at a location that was an hour away from where everyone lived.

“She also plans on doing the ceremony at noon, and my fiance will be in the bridal party, meaning an 8am start, same with all of my fiances BM, they’ll be in her party,” the Reddit user noted. “A male friend that’s REALLY close to the friend group has a wedding on that Saturday already so he can’t attend her wedding.”

“My fiancé instantly rejected the BM question stating it’s going to be difficult to attend the wedding, let alone be a Bridesmaid. The friend group all expressed the same thing,” they continued.

On top of that, the Reddit user’s fiancé “rescinded” her maid of honour request, and their mutual friends noted how financially challenging it would be to do both weddings back-to-back. The Redditor admitted they were never fans of this friend.

They added: “She’s using our photographer and florist because she doesn’t have time to research so they just piggybacked onto our research (which I don’t care about). This is more of a rant, but man... what an illogical move by this friend to book the day after her best friend’s wedding.”

Opinionated readers flooded the comments section of the Redditor’s post, noting whether they thought the fiancé’s friend was being inconsiderate and selfish.

A harsh critic wrote: “She was trying to divide the loyalties of the friends group. She sounds like an awful person. Does she not have family to tell her what a bad idea this is?”

“She was thinking that she could sabotage OP’s wedding by having it the same weekend but on a Saturday instead of a Friday, thinking that people will choose hers because they won’t have to take off work,” another added.

An intuitive individual predicted: “People that do make it are going to be socially drained/partied out and likely talking about W 1 the whole time.”

“The only thing I can think is that she thought it would be a good idea to do it while everyone was in town so that people travelling didn’t have to make two trips in the same month,” one person guessed.

“The only thing I don’t agree with is changing BBride2’s status from MOH to BM. She needs to just replace her completely,” a blunt reader remarked.

A widespread debate was prompted by comments regarding whether the bride and groom deserve to rest the day after their wedding.

“You deserve to sleep in and recuperate the day after your wedding. You will be so tired. I wouldn’t even go. She made her choices,” one Reddit user stated.

An experienced woman said: “It was hard enough for me to get up and go to my 11am family brunch/gift opening the next morning, and I didn’t get drunk the night before... I couldn’t imagine having to get up and not look exhausted in someone else’s wedding photos at lunch the next day.”

The original poster followed up with an update, saying that the friend has now sent out a date change, explaining how she’d gotten the months wrong. She claimed that the wedding was meant to be in August, not September. The Reddit user’s soon-to-be wife asked her friend what was going on, to which her friend said that she had changed the date due to the September one not working out. She never apologised.