Bride Demands Unemployed Friend Drop $5K on Her Lavish Bachelorette Trip and Paris Wedding

A woman claims her “wealthy” bride-to-be friend knew all about her difficult financial circumstances — yet still expected her to shell out more than $5,000 to attend her destination bachelorette trip and wedding.

The woman shared her story in a post on Reddit’s “Bridezillas” forum, noting in the title that she was “unemployed, technically homeless and in thousands of dollars of credit card debt” at the time.

“I have serious chronic health issues that led me to being unemployed for 2 years after getting laid off. I burned through all of my savings, had to sell my investments and jewelry, went into credit card debt. Then had to live with my mom as I couldn’t afford rent anymore,” she explained.

The OP (original poster) said her friend, whom she described as “generationally wealthy,” had her wedding entirely paid for by her parents. The bachelorette trip location was Joshua Tree in California, and the destination wedding was in Paris. The bride-to-be demanded that the OP travel to attend both events, and cover her own costs.

“She knew my EXACT financial situation and life situation, yet never said anything to me in the months prior to the bachelorette. To me, that was essentially her implying she expected me to come,” the OP wrote.

She noted that other friends, who were getting married at the time, were more understanding of her circumstances. “They all reached out to me, letting me know that while of course they wanted me there, they in no way expected me to be able to come to their bachelorettes and weddings due to my situation,” she said.

Unfortunately, her wealthy friend didn’t have the same take.

“I finally let my friend know I just couldn’t think of a way to be able to go to either event, I literally was $2k away from maxing out my credit cards,” the OP recalled. “I sent it via text [because] we had had a phone call previously that she dominated the whole time and didn’t listen to me, so I wanted to be able to write out my thoughts and told her we could talk about it in person.”

After pouring out her heart to her friend, explaining all the reasons why she couldn’t afford to come to the wedding event, the bride-to-be never even responded to the message, leaving the OP to conclude that it was “obviously a friendship ender.”

The OP said that while the two no longer interact, they are still on old group chats together. “It sucks that I can’t just remove her from my life. It sucks that she clearly in no way thinks she was in the wrong and has painted me as the bad guy in the story,” she wrote, ending her post by sharing that she “finally” secured a new job this week “so hopefully things will be looking up for me.”

In the comments, readers reacted to her story, with many reminding the OP that no one should ever feel compelled to stress themselves financially for a wedding. They also reassured her that she made the right decision and shouldn’t feel bad about it.

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“You considered your needs before taking a huge financial hit for a person who does not have your best interests in mind. She seems selfish and self-absorbed. Take care of you first, please,” one person wrote.

Someone else suggested the bride may simply not understand what the OP has been going through. “This woman is generationally wealthy and cannot fathom that you actually don’t have the money,” they wrote.

Yet another commenter noted that the OP’s situation with her former friend is all too common.

“Weddings are often de facto funerals for friendships — these situations being a fairly large percentage of the different reasons,” the person wrote. “Adding to this is the fact that the friendships are often on the way out, even if one does attend and pay for all of these things.”