Help Me Hera: Is it selfish to RVSP ‘no’ to my good friend’s fancy Spanish wedding?

Posted: Monday Aug 19, 2024

I can afford it, but not by heaps, and I’d love to go, but I’m unsure how much she values my presence. Help!

Dear Hera,

About a year ago, one of my best and oldest friends announced her engagement (very cool!). I still live in Wellington, which is where we’re both from and where her family lives, but she’s currently living in London. Last week a wedding invitation arrived, revealing in a very casual manner that she’d be having her wedding in a random, far-flung small town in Spain at a veeery expensive-looking venue. Horror.

Financially, she lives a different life to me. Both her and her fiance earn high salaries, as do most of her friends and family – so making a complicated trip across the world for a one-day event is probably not a huge burden for most of the people around her. I earn an OK salary, but with rent and other expenses, there’s not a whole lot leftover – and I’m pretty open and honest about that. While I could technically afford the trip, if I went, it would be the one overseas holiday I can afford to take for the next two years. 

I’m also unsure how much she really values me being there as she hasn’t asked me to be in the bridal party, nor did she give me a heads up ahead of the invite being sent or acknowledge that it’s a big ask. 

While I’m excited for my friend to get married and would LOVE to be there to celebrate, I’m just as excited about other events and achievements in my friends’ lives: graduations, writing being published, birthdays, babies, new pets, dream jobs, overcoming fears, leaving a bad relationship. Because I see marriage as equal to a lot of other life events, the culture of expecting your friends and family to drop a huge amount of money and travel across the globe for your wedding is, to me, insane. 

Still, I feel that she’ll take it as a slight if I say that I can’t go. It would also likely weaken our friendship – which is already weakened by the fact that we live so far away from each other. Am I diminishing the importance of getting married? Am I being selfish if I don’t go to the wedding? 

Help!

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