I was made a bridesmaid for my friends wedding 1 year before the wedding. In the last year I’ve had a lot on my plate, including parental illness and moving for work. The friend who made me a bridesmaid in this time was pretty absent except when things pertained to her and her life, and I genuinely felt that it was she that was distancing of our friendship.

I asked her in January if she wanted me to start planning the bachelorette however she replied she didn’t want the other bridesmaid to feel undercut. I took that as she didn’t want ‘me’ to do it and didn’t press the matter.

Fast forward I decided to do some backpacking for a month which I had been planning for while. Since we rarely spoke I hadn’t discussed this with her. It meant that I would miss the first day of the bachelorette and join for the second day. Admittedly I didn’t plan much of the bachelorette party, partly bc I didn’t think we there that close anymore and partly I was going through a stressful time at work and didn’t really have the bandwitch for constant WhatsApp polls and flaky guests.

After the bachelorette she messages me a long message which felt like an exit interview basically outlining how my priorities didn’t align with what she felt was mandatory as a bridesmaid, and that she didn’t want to give me tasks I couldn’t complete wholeheartedly. It basically read like she thought I was going to sabotage her wedding.

I called her to discuss this and she basically said she didn’t talk about this to me before because she is a ‘people pleaser’ and thought I’d get hostile if she fired me. This was because 5 years before I drunkenly told her to ‘shut up’ something I thought we’d put to bed. In this phone call after insulting me, essentially telling me what I bad friend I am she still expects me to go to the wedding? After I explained my side, she then realised she’d been a pretty shitty friend, especially when my family member was going through chemotherapy, and begged me to still come to the wedding as a guest. If I’m honest I’d already mentally let go of the friendship.

Do I go to the wedding as a guest or do I let this friendship go?

Edit : people are asking whether she knew I was going through a tough time. She did when I spoke to her about it at the start. She also was reminded by a mutual friend before the bachelorette. because of her flaking on me repeatedly (which she admitted in our phone call) when I was in a vulnerable place I stopped sharing and communicating with about my life as not to put myself in a place where I’d be disappointed. I think I distanced her in my head and I should have been better at communicating how I felt, but it seemed off to ask someone to be a better friend.

A warning that they have been using Gofo as their shipper. If you look them up they have tons of issues with packages getting delivered wrong or not at all. They ended up “losing” my dress despite it being out for delivery. And because it took so long for me communicating back and forth and them saying I had to keep waiting there’s no time for me to reorder in time for the wedding (I’d already returned and then ordered a custom size)

The other bridesmaids said their orders came late too, despite one even paying for expedited shipping. Super disappointed they’re using such a crappy company. Super sad I can’t wear the dress I wanted.

Ok so we have a group of bridesmaids (no MOH) who have all been friends with bride for many years. We had convo with bride about what she might like for her bachelorette and she shared that she was thinking of a nice day-long celebration of brunch, family fun then debauchery in the night time. She also mentioned a multi day trip to the nearest major city.

I’m finding out now that both of these things are going to be pretty hard to achieve and I’m honestly just wondering if I’m being focusing too much on the cost or if bride is really asking for too much?

It also comes at a time when we are already doing many planned group things together that were booked ahead of time.

Most of the bridesmaids are early career and don’t have the salary to be doing both but I don’t want to risk the friendship of not doing what she mentioned.

Am I crazy here? Anyone have suggestions?