A bride’s extreme demands for her bridesmaids ended up pushing her friends away.
On Reddit’s wedding shaming forum, a woman shared a story about a wedding her friend was a bridesmaid for. The bride expected her wedding party to pay for the entire fancy celebration. Usually “level-headed,” the bride assigned expensive costs to each bridesmaid and even thought about adding more bridesmaids so she could have a bigger wedding.
The bride was about 40, considered calm, a great mother, and a good friend, the woman wrote. This was her first wedding, and she had only been a maid of honor once — for her goddaughter.
The bridesmaid friend was also planning her own wedding at the same time but agreed to help with this one. “You do what you can for the people you love,” the woman wrote.
Soon, it became clear that the bride expected the bridesmaids to cover the biggest expenses. “She asks my friend to pay for the DJ and the photographer. She asks for similar big ticket items to be paid for by the other bridesmaids and even casually mentions adding more bridesmaids so they can have a bigger wedding,” the woman wrote.
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The bride expected each bridesmaid to contribute about $5,000. When the bridesmaid tried to explain that these demands were too much, the bride “flipped out,” saying she had given a lot when she was a maid of honor herself.
“She came away from [her goddaughter’s wedding] assuming that weddings were afforded by outsourcing costs to the wedding party,” the woman wrote.
The bridesmaid eventually dropped out, and as far as the woman knows, the bride and her friend haven’t talked since.
One comment asked if the other bridesmaids ended up paying the costs. “Not at all,” the woman said. Most of them dropped out too, and the couple ended up having a much smaller wedding.
