Woman Refuses to Cancel Her Vacation for Her Best Friend’s Wedding

• A woman refuses to cancel her vacation for her best friend’s wedding
• In a post on Reddit, the woman explained that the wedding date wasn’t set when she booked her non-refundable flights
• In response, commenters are saying that it was unreasonable for the bride to expect people to stop planning for months. Others argue that the poster misled users to take her side when she only included the length of her vacation in a comment, not her original post

A woman who was supposed to be her best friend’s maid of honor is backing out of the wedding because she has non-refundable plane tickets for a vacation.

In a post on Reddit’s “Am I the A——?” forum, a 25-year-old woman is questioning whether or not she’s in the wrong after refusing to cancel her three-week-long vacation for her childhood best friend’s wedding.

The poster, who was asked to be the maid of honor six months ago, explained that the couple’s families have conflicting schedules and limited availability, so initially an official wedding date wasn’t set. The bride, 26, had told the woman to keep her availability open, but thought her wedding would likely occur in December or January, or even on New Year’s Eve.

“That was the date she would reference when talking about the wedding. I mentally filed that away as ‘the date,’ but still nothing was set yet,” the woman explained. “She had also mentioned it could be as late as April, but since nothing was confirmed, I kind of focused on the idea of New Year’s.”

In the meantime, the woman booked the vacation in January for her and her husband to celebrate his birthday. But the wedding date that ended up working best for everyone, of course, fell over the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend that month.

“I spent a lot on this vacation (about $5,000) and the flights are non-refundable, with a cancellation fee. Since the vacation includes an international flight and multiple domestic flights (all non-refundable with cancellation fees), I would lose over $7,000 canceling this trip,” the woman rationalized. “I’ll admit, it completely slipped my mind that her wedding could fall within these January dates when I was making these plans and I should have run my vacation through her.”

The bride thought she had kept her friend “informed enough” to not book anything in January. However, the poster says what’s done is done, and she won’t cancel the trip.

“She’s upset with me and thinks I should cancel my trip, saying that I’m prioritizing my vacation over her wedding,” the woman wrote of the bride. “It’s a very small and intimate wedding, with only immediate family and three main friends she would want to be there (one of which being me). And I get it — I feel terrible.”

She continued, “I know it’s her wedding, and I want to be there for her. She did so much for my wedding. But on the other hand, it’s not a small financial hit, and the wedding date is still technically not confirmed.”

Reddit users were divided in the comments section, with some saying it’s unreasonable to expect someone to hold off planning their life for months and others writing that the woman should have known to run a three-week-long vacation by her friend.

“She left you hanging. She asked you to stop your life until she landed on a day. She literally said it could be anytime from December to April. That simply isn’t fair,” one person wrote. “She won’t see it of course, but you can’t cancel at this point. It doesn’t make financial sense.”

They continued: “It very well could mean the end of your friendship because she’s quite likely to continue to be unreasonable. Yes, it might have been good for you to check if she had her wedding that day, but at the same time she didn’t know and likely would have said you should block off a whole five months for her. It’s a sucky situation, but I hope you have fun on your trip.”

A few commenters went as far as to say that the woman “misled” people into taking her side because she only included the detail of the length of her vacation in a follow-up comment, not her original post.

“I was on your side until I read your comment that the trip you booked was three WEEKS long. You intentionally misled us in the post by saying ‘over MLK weekend,’ ” one user wrote. “You really didn’t think it was important enough to tell your friend that three weeks were off the table when she had asked you to save December and January? You agreed to that.”

The commenter continued, “You would have been well within your rights to say, ‘No that’s too much time blocked off’ when she first asked. But you agreed to block off those two months and then booked almost a full month of that time away. You should absolutely have called her before booking. Now that you have it booked, no you don’t need to cancel. But this situation is all your fault. And I don’t blame your friend for being upset.”