Yes, You Most Certainly Can Fire a Bridesmaid
In DepthOn Tuesday, we asked for your thoughts on firing someone from a bridal party—and you did not hold back. A few themes emerged among the responses, namely that if you remove someone from your wedding party you should also be prepared to remove them from your life. From a distance, that’s pretty obvious but it’s probably easy to lose sight of that when mired in wedding planning. It can be a highly stressful and emotional time, so.
There was also a pretty universal consensus that you shouldn’t can someone if they’ve already purchased the dress and etc. that you picked for them to wear and if you must do so, you should reimburse them. That is an exceedingly fair rule!
One last thing that took me by surprise was the number of stories that involved sisters firing sisters. I suppose that shouldn’t have been so striking, since the example story we led with was about sisters. But yeah! I didn’t anticipate that, probably because I don’t have sisters and now those of you who do are all, “Ahhhhh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha dummy.”
And now, onward to your best stories!
My sister had a very close guy friend who she had previously dated years and years before. When he got engaged, he asked her to be in the wedding and she very excitedly accepted. It was only AFTER she bought the bridesmaid’s dress that his fiancee told her she didn’t want her in the bridal party after all. My sister was totally heartbroken and cried for a few days about it. Come the bridal shower, my sister sent the fiancee a gift: the bridesmaid’s dress. Apparently it caused quite the stir when the fiancee opened the gift at the shower.
A co-worker of mine’s fiance had to fire one of his groomsman from the wedding party after he threatened the bride to be with a gun while visiting their house. I admit they were less concerned about the wedding party bit than about what do to if this suddenly crazy guy showed up at the wedding anyway (thankfully he didn’t)
Uh YUP!!! Axed one of my bride’s maids after I found out her boyfriend was holding people up at ATMs and was an actual cat burglar. UM NO, you are not allowed to bring this guy to my wedding, and I cannot have this association with you at all. We found out later he had been casing out her friend’s places so he & his crew could go back & rob them. NO WAY I was letting them anywhere near me & mine. So out she was. I was crappy about it really, she was there when I found my own dress and we talked about buying a dress for the BMs as well since they tried on a few that same day, I just never called her back to tell her when/where to get the dress. Actually, I just never called her back after I found out about that boyfriend.
My sister in law called me up before my wedding to her brother and asked me to explain what right we thought we had to get married in a church. Told her I wasn’t going to have that talk then kicked her out of the wedding party. Good decision.
I was really close friends with a guy named Aaron in my early 20’s. Aaron and I had that rare chemistry that allowed us to be friends without and pretense of romance. Aarons girlfriend had just gone into boot camp with the Army when he and I met and I’d really only met her through the random phone call and occasional trip home. This lasted for 2 years until her release at which time he proposed to her and she said yes. What followed was an awkward period where everyone assumed that his girlfriend and I would become best friends forever. We just never clicked though. One day, out of the blue, she called and asked me to be her maid of honor. I was surprised and a little sad because our relationship was never at a level that I would have considered such a request but I quickly agreed. I embraced it. Aaron and his girlfriend were forced to move out of state with her job so the bulk of the planning fell to me. I had to tour halls, send millions of pictures, book caterers, talk to florists, and on and on. 6 months into their year engagement, after everything was wrapping up with planning, she called late one night and fired me. She said she was getting family pressure for not choosing a relative for the position and followed up that she had no problem with me moving into an usher spot.
The wasp in me politely declined the demotion and curtly ended the call.
After an hour and 3 margaritas I called the chef catering her event and plied him with sex, wine, and my sad story.
The day before her wedding he came down with a mysterious illness but assured her he would leave it in his most proficient sous chef hands.
I didn’t attend but I hear the raw oysters caused some wicked food poisoning…
And finally, my personal favorite if only for the reason that I desperately want to make “because fuck you, Jess” happen.
I got “called up to the show” as it were, to be maid of honour for a childhood friend after she and the original maid of honour had a very dramatic “mutual break-up” at 3am on the night of the bachelorette party. 6 days before the wedding. Original MOH Jess (her real name, because fuck you, Jess) had driven the bride to the bachelorette party, in a major city, from the middle-of-nowhere town where they both lived, and had pledged to take her back that same night, with all it entailed (i.e. sobriety). She then proceeded to spend the entire dinner portion of the evening talking about herself and what a brave little toaster she was for having made the decision to leave her husband (who was, no joke, the best man, and had not yet heard about her decision). She then pouted through the bar-hopping, bemoaning her self-imposed designated driver status. Being fond of the drink myself, I had booked a hotel room in the city and planned on staying overnight, so I obviously offered to let everyone crash. The bride agreed, which touched off the dramatic fight with Jess. They took it outside, and it ended with much tears and hitting each other with purses, followed by Jess quitting the wedding party after the bride admitted that she couldn’t stand the idea of ever seeing her again. Turns out, not only did I have to share the bed with the sobbing bride after Jess noped out and split by herself, I also had to drive the bride home to nowheresville the following morning at 7am (my head!), a good 2 hours in the opposite direction of my home. I felt so bad for my friend that when she asked me to replace awful, self-centered Jess as MOH, I immediately agreed in a spirit of “fuck that bitch, Jess.”
That said, by the time the wedding was over, my feelings were moreso “fuck that goddamn genius, Jess.” Being my friend’s maid of honour was one of the singularly awful experiences of my life. She brought me to tears twice on the wedding day itself (and I am NOT a person who cries easily) and her generally monstrous bridezilla behaviour meant that we didn’t see each other for nearly 8 months after the wedding. It’s taken us nearly 3 years to fully mend fences. Looking at her wedding photos causes me to taste metal, somehow, like when a storm is coming. If ever I wished I had been fired from a wedding party, it would have been that one.
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