My [23M/20F] friends forward the date for their wedding. I [22M] was asked to be the best man and I am overseas for a few years. They initially agreed to pay a piece of my plane ticket and tux rental now I'm getting the run-around with that and more! How do I handle this properly?

OP's wife here. The main issue is not that we can't afford to go. The main issue is that when we were initially told about this wedding (which was supposed to happen in Spring 2016) we were told that they would help pay for part of our tickets. Which honestly wasn't entirely necessary but they insisted. So the understanding was that they were willing and that they could afford it. When they changed the date, the agreement still stood but now they're back tracking, and my main concern is because they really can't afford what they're doing (which is none of my business, they're going to do what they want regardless).

However, the groom was demoted at his job and went from full-time to part-time and subsequently he and his fiancée thought it was better to move up their wedding date to Winter of this year, so they could (by some weird logic) still afford a wedding they still are persistent with having. However, it's inconvenience because it's either spend money on a wedding we weren't planning on going to so soon and celebrating our anniversary and Christmas together. Could we afford to do all of it, sure but I'm not willing to participate in something where they feel like if I'm going or not, they still need a body by my husband's side. I just think it's disrespectful and tell me a lot about the mindset of the whole thing, but I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole.

It's just turned into a large pile of inconveniences for us because of their poor planning. Also as someone else has I also feel like we're just bodies to be there not because they care about our presence.

Anyway, I've decided not to go because it's not really worth it to me. However my husband and the groom have been good friends since childhood and if he wants to go I'll support that. We just wanted to gather different perspectives so we're not being one dimensional about it.

/r/relationships Thread Parent