Bridesmaid Expenses

Bride 1. If you want to help her plan. Start using Facetime, zoom, teams, and what not. You are not her unpaid wedding planner and it is outrageous that she expects you to fly out there to help plan her wedding. She is not ready to be married if she is giving you the silent treatment. Super immature on her part

You needed to give your budget once that request came in. $400 is a lot to just toss. Chances are , you are not getting that back. Hey Bride I have $X total for your bach trip, that may mean I have to miss out on some activities. You need to speak up. You can only let others take advantage of you if you let them

DO NOT GO INTO FINANCIAL HARDSHIP OVER SOMEONES WEDDING. If the cost of attending a bach party vs keeping a roof over your head and food on the table, don't go. If you have to empty your savings to "prove" friendships, then it's not really a friendship.

Boundaries are completely appropriate. It is NOT appropriate to expect people to drop thousands of dollars are your wedding.

Have honest conversations with both brides about what you are able to and willing to swing financially. Stick to what you say and don't overextend yourself. Your friends are either reasonable and will understand or are superficial and will reveal the true colors of your friendship.

Also, there is no need to be face-to-face to help with planning, nor is it your responsibility to help a bride plan her wedding as the MOH. My best friend, who lives a four hour drive away, was supposed to be my MOH (but then we had to cancel our wedding because of Covid and she ended up having a baby right around the time of our rescheduled date and couldn't attend). I literally saw her ONCE between my engagement and our original wedding date, and that was when I drove to her to help shop for her MOH dress. Anything else I wanted her opinions on I ran by her over the phone and by texting her pictures. It's natural for a person to want to share aspects of her life with her friends, and its likely that most brides-to-be will have some conversations with their besties about their wedding, but that's very different from assigning planning tasks to people who are not being paid to provide services. My bestie and I would talk about wedding florals and attire because we both enjoy flowers/gardening/nature and she works in fashion retail and we regularly talk about trends, get opinions from each other on outfits, etc. but as a part of our regular conversations on our phone calls during our commutes to work. I didn't require her to set aside specific "wedding planning" time with me other than when we went shopping for her dress.

I am utterly baffled by these brides with the crazy bachelorette weekends and costs. All I asked of my girls was to get a dress on the day - and I even let them pick their own, I simply asked for a specific color. Two of my bridesmaids are doing Rent the Runway!

Do not, under any circumstance, over extend and put yourself into debt for someone else's wedding. And anyone asking, or expecting you, to do that is not a friend. I do not understand the friend expecting you to fly out and spend multiple weekends helping her plan. Maybe it's because I did it myself and when I wanted an opinion, I simply texted, but that seems insane. And then not speaking to you over you saying you would watch flights is beyond.

It also sounds like the 2nd Bride didn't discuss with anyone a budget before Venmo requesting for her bachelorette. This is extremely extremely rude. Everyone's financial situation is different, and if you want something extravagant, you should be picking up the tab for everyone. If not, you need to discuss with everyone a budget.

These over indulgent, way too extravagant bachelorette destination weekends are beyond me. My bridal party and I are going to a Drag Brunch one weekend for mine when everyone is already in town. I don't know, maybe its because I'm in my mid-30s but I think all of this has gotten way out of control.

I would tell both your friends that the amount expected for you to pay for these extra things is out of your budget and that you'd love to still be a part of their day, but maybe not all the extra activities if they insist on having them be this pricy.

The other problems based on the info in the original post are of the bride planning the extra events and of the expenses being expected of the bridesmaids without first making plans among everyone involved. Even then, there should have been plans if someone had to back out of an expensive event -- how would the shared costs be redistributed? Maybe some brides have all rich friends who can gladly pay high costs for these things but not everyone can do this.