Great!
But then it hits you, and you start wondering how to navigate etiquette. Knowing when to message … how often … what time, etc.
You don’t want to be the one constantly bombarding everyone with messages, but at the same time, staying silent could render you the “passive” friend — only listening and not contributing.
Add in the fact that it’s a group chat of everyone in a wedding party, and there’s a whole extra layer of complexity.
That’s what a bridesmaid recently discovered after she failed to follow the protocol in a WhatsApp group.
Taking to Reddit, the bride explained what went down before asking whether she was the “a–hole” in the situation.
The woman said her fiancé was having her brother as one of his groomsmen, and because her fiancé didn’t have a sister, she wanted to return the gesture and make his girl best friend “Sally” a bridesmaid.
“Sally was really excited to be a bridesmaid because she said her sister intended to have her be a bridesmaid last summer but then didn’t,” the bride writes, adding that she seemed “genuinely happy” to have been asked.
But cut to a few months later, and Sally’s behavior said otherwise.
“I made a group chat to discuss the hens’ night [bachelorette party] and the wedding. The first text I sent was a greeting, and I asked the girls to introduce themselves so they all had each other’s numbers,” she said.
Everyone in the chat responded except Sally.
Weeks went by and the chat moved on to talks about their dresses and other logistics heading into the big day, but there was still radio silence from Sally.
“My sister started asking me who the extra number in the chat was, and I was starting to get worried, so I had Sally over for dinner.
“While she’s over, I told her that I was concerned and I needed her to respond to the group chat just so that we all know she’s a part of it.
“She apologized and reassured me that I have nothing to worry about and that she’s there for me whenever I need something.”
But then, in the lead-up to her hens’ night, Sally left more communication unanswered, which led the bride to “really start to stress.”
She asked her fiancé to reach out to her because she was “technically from his side,” and he did.
Much to their surprise, Sally came back with an angry text to both of them, saying she was “past exhausted” and trying to show up for herself, but said the bride had nothing to worry about.
The couple replied saying they understood if she was going through a hard time but that she did need to take part if she wanted to still be in the wedding party.
“I told her that we love her, and she’s not alone, and that we’re here if she needs anything,” she explained.
“This was a month ago, and I haven’t heard anything since, so I’ve decided to remove her from the bridal party.”
The bride noted that she has still invited Sally to the wedding.
‘She wasn’t pulling her weight’
“Not the a–hole, Sally gave you literally nothing,” one of the top commenters on the post wrote.
“You did nothing wrong; she wasn’t pulling her weight,” chimed in someone else.
A third woman said a similar thing happened to her, and she regretted not acting on it.
“My biggest regret from my wedding is not kicking out a bridesmaid who acted like this,” she revealed.
“It made so much more work and stress for me having to track her down for every single thing and put a dampener on all the events because people didn’t know what the f–k was going on and why she wasn’t participating.”
