Kate Hackett
We have a tricky one this morning! u/pattiesni wants to know if she’s the jerk for “firing my bridesmaid for disclosing her diagnosis at my bachelorette?” and at first blush, you’re probably like: uh, yes. Right?
Well, hold on, friend. Let’s take a look at the actual story and see what Redditors thought first!
OP is getting married soon and had her bachelorette party over the weekend.
I’m getting married in 3 weeks, and I just had my bachelorette over Easter weekend.
A bridesmaid confided in OP that she was recently diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome and it has changed her relationship with her mother.
During a quiet moment one of my bridesmaids took me aside and told me that about three months ago she was diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome. Obviously I asked her what that meant for her and she started crying because she feels differently about her relationship with her mother.
The friend was very upset and the other women in OP’s party noticed; the evening wound up being about this friend. And OP …did not like it.
We met in elementary school and she’s always had a learning disability, but she didn’t know that there was a preventable cause. My other bridesmaids noticed her crying, and the evening ended up being about her. We skipped out on going to a bar in the limo I had hired because she was upset.
OP actually emailed this friend to tell her that she took away “an important moment.” Gross, gross, gross.
I thought about it all today and ended up emailing her to tell her that she took away an important moment from my life. I feel bad about this happening to her, but even though she didn’t always know it’s been going on for her whole life.
Because she felt “overshadowed” by something that OP has decided is not worth being upset by, OP didn’t want this poor woman in her wedding party anymore.
If this was a recent thing she found out about or it was some kind of deadly disease I would feel differently, but she was sitting on this for months before bringing it up at an event that was supposed to be special to me. You only get one bachelorette and mine was totally overshadowed. I felt really hurt that she did that, and told her that I didn’t want to have her in my wedding if that’s how she’s going to treat me at a time where the focus was supposed to be something good in my life instead of something sad in hers.
Meanwhile, OP’s cousin and maid of honor told her she was a total asshole for this.
She could have waited a few more weeks until after the wedding if she wanted to have this conversation. She’s still invited to the wedding but I don’t want her to be a bridesmaid after this. I was just texting my cousin (my maid of honour) and she disagreed with me doing this. She said that it sucked that we didn’t go to the bar, but this other friend has already paid for her dress so I should just let her stay. My fiancé supports my choice, but I wanted another opinion. AITA?
Yep, yep, yep, yep, OP is definitely the dick here. God, what a horrible way to treat people. But… you all know I sure do hate “MY WEDDING” people, so here we go.
Reddit didn’t entirely agree with me; the top-rated answer is actually that everyone sucks here!
They wrote, “I get it! She found out months ago and waited until that night to say anything, took the attention, and you lost out on the money you paid. It was completely understandable to be hurt and frustrated. BUT you didn’t need to cut her from the wedding. That was retaliation, pure and simple. You could have called her and opened up the door to have an honest conversation about how you felt and allow her to respond, this would’ve shown compassion and grace. Instead you made a decisive decision because your feelings were hurt. It is your wedding, but she is also a close enough friend where you asked her to be a bridesmaid and she deserved that conversation before you decided to push her out. I would absolutely apologize to her and realize that in this case you’ve both been shitty to each other.”
Another person pointed out that there were three entire months to process this news.
“Big NTA. I don’t understand the y.t.a comments. She had 3 months to process her diagnosis and ask for support from friends. The thing that really angers me is that she turn a special moment that was supposed to be about having fun into something sad. And quite literally ruined your plans by using social pressure, because if you wanted to go to the bar anyway you would have looked like you don’t care about her,” they said.
