Bride 'Heartbroken' After Bridesmaid Doesn't Extend Invite to Her Wedding, but Secretly Invites Mutual Friends

Mar. 15, 2025

Two bridesmaids (stock image).Photo:Getty

Getty

A woman is “heartbroken” because her bridesmaid didn’t invite her to her wedding.

The woman explained in aposton Reddit’s “Wedding Planning” forum that she and her “very good friend” got engaged just a few months apart. While the Redditor immediately asked her friend to be one of her bridesmaids, her friend told her months later that she wasn’t invited to her wedding because it’s family-only.

The poster was initially “not angry” or “upset.” Her friend had made it clear from the start that she’d be having a “small” wedding. However, she admittedly was still “bummed” and “disappointed” because she thought they were “best friends,” and assumed she’d be a bridesmaid, or at least make the guest list.

“I lived with this friend for two years before we met our partners, in a place very far away from our families. So we are very close, hung out every night, took care of each other when we were sick, drove each other to the dentist to get cavities filled, kind of friends,” she explained. “And even last month we were both planning each other’s weddings for crying out loud. I am not understanding the switch up at all.”

Sad bridesmaid (stock image).Getty

She became even more upset when she discovered that her friend might not have been entirely truthful.

Before the woman learned that her friend’s wedding was just for family, she offered to paint the wedding invitations. She created a watercolor design of her friend and fiancé, which her fellow bride loved and decided to use for her final wedding invitations.

“I then find out she did invite a few of her friends because she specifically told me that they loved the invites and might reach out to have some done for them,” the woman wrote. “I asked her, ‘Oh, were you promoting me?’ And she said no she just sent out her invites to get dinner after her ceremony with a few mutual friends and they were asking.”

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The friend added that it was “extremely tough deciding who could come,” and that inviting her would also mean inviting her fiancé and other friends' partners, which would be “way too much.”

The Redditor is now second-guessing her friendship, and is contemplating whether or not it would be “weird” to keep her friend as one of her bridesmaids.

“I never saw this as a ‘you’re obviously not her best friend thing,’ I saw this as a ‘this is just family’ thing. Does it suck she had a few friends come and I didn’t make the cut? Yeah. But I wasn’t taking it to mean that we weren’t friends?” she said. “…Do you think I am reading this wrong?”

Sad bride (stock image).tomazl/Getty

tomazl/Getty

The woman concluded: “I am feeling a bit heartbroken and I am wondering if it is normal or if I am missing some social queues [sic] here.”

“I think it’s weird that she’s a bridesmaid and didn’t really give you the decency to really inform you that you weren’t invited and also invited other friends,” one Reddit user commented in part. “You did something nice for her (the invites) but also didn’t invite you. I’d definitely feel some type of way. Now would I remove her as a bridesmaid? Idk. It could cause drama, but also wouldn’t want someone standing up there with me if I didn’t feel as if they truly cared about me.”

source: people.com