What It’s Like to Learn You’re a Second-Tier Friend at a Best Friend’s Wedding

Every wedding has a social hierarchy, which guests typically don’t mind (the people who are assigned to the “randoms” table tend to know that’s where they’re heading). But it can occasionally create the perfect conditions for hurt feelings. Here, one woman recalls learning, via weddings, that she was not as close to her two best friends as she’d always assumed. 

I’ve had this group of friends since the first year of high school, and my two closest friends in the group were Rose and Catherine. I was the first to get married, and I asked both of them to be my bridesmaids. Initially, I had just wanted to ask my sisters to be bridesmaids to keep the costs down, and Catherine actually got upset about this. She said, “Oh, I always thought we would be each other’s bridesmaids.” So I thought, “You’re right.” For my bachelorette, my sisters did most of the preparation, but Rose and Catherine helped out with decorations and games and things like that.

One day a few years later, I got a text from a different friend saying, “Oh my God, isn’t that amazing about Rose?” I said, “Isn’t what amazing?” And then about half an hour later, she messaged me to say she’d gotten engaged. I remember the day I found out I wasn’t going to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. I had met up with her that day; we’d been out for a dog walk, and I asked her about the wedding and she didn’t really say much. Then that night, all of the girls she had chosen as her bridesmaids posted on Instagram. It just felt like a little bit of a kick in the gut.

As far as I was aware, nothing had changed in our relationship over those years. We’ve never had a fight the whole time. We’ve been friends, and I know people drift apart and things but, to me, things hadn’t really changed. We all lived in the same city. And my main issue isn’t that I minded not being a bridesmaid. Sure, it would have been nice since she was mine and we’ve been friends for 15 years, but it was the fact that I was with her that day and she could have just told me, “Look, I know I was your bridesmaid, but I’m having these people instead. I don’t want you to be offended.” That would probably have been enough, but it was the fact that I had to find out on Instagram. It became a bit of an elephant in the room. Rose had asked Catherine and another girl from the group — who, from my perspective, I thought, Oh, I didn’t realize they were that close. But I don’t know their relationship.

I was invited to the bachelorette, but I was super pregnant and couldn’t trael broad. Even though Rose understood why I couldn’t go, I feel like it just made things stranger. On the wedding day itself, I was at a table with people I knew from school, but all of my close friends were bridesmaids so they were all at the head table and they went up to the bridal suite a few times to freshen up their makeup and I would just kind of be left. Luckily, I had my partner with me, but I did feel just a bit strange, too.

I never talked to Rose about it. I am of the mind that it’s her wedding, she can do what she likes, and I felt like I was being petty. I didn’t know how to approach it without just sounding like, Oh, why did she not make me a bridesmaid? It did make me think, just maybe, that I valued her friendship more than she valued mine. There is quite a distance between us now. We’ve just sort of drifted further and further apart.

Catherine’s wedding was more recent. When she got engaged, she texted me, but by that point we weren’t as close as we had been when I got married. And whenever we mentioned the wedding stuff, I felt like she would change the subject. As with Rose, I would’ve felt a lot better and had a bit more respect if she’d just said, “These are my bridesmaids.” But it was the secrecy and the tiptoeing around it that I just found really strange. She had a broader bachelorette party that lots of people went to, which I was also invited to, and then a smaller one with close friends, which I wasn’t invited to.

When I got my invitation to the wedding, I saw that my partner wasn’t invited. I thought, Oh, okay, a bit odd. Maybe she hasn’t got the space because it’s a small wedding. One of my other friends was also going, so I thought, It’s fine, the two of us girls will just go. I considered not going up until the day of, but I just didn’t want to let Catherine down. I thought, I’ve accepted this invitation, even though I didn’t sleep the night before. On the day of the wedding, that friend came to pick me up and her partner was with her. I was like, Oh, so I am literally the only one without a plus-one.

After Rose’s wedding, I felt like I’d drifted apart from the two of them, and Catherine’s wedding really solidified it for me. I just felt so out of place. It was a small wedding, so literally everybody I knew had a plus-one except me, and they were all in the bridal party. But because all of my friends who were at the wedding were in the bridal party for most of the day, I was just sort of on my own, trying to mingle with people I didn’t know. I ended up leaving early. I got my partner to come and pick me up, and I burst into tears when I got in the car. I just realized, Oh, I’m not as close to these friends as I used to be.

I let it pass. I was just, It’s one day and it’ll go by. I do sometimes wish I had said something, but it’s just a difficult topic to broach. Recently, I saw Rose and Catherine for the first time since Catherine’s wedding. It was fine, but it all felt very surface level. Things have definitely changed. I can’t really put a finger on what it is, but things are different.