Weddings are tricky to navigate. Emotions and expectations are all high, and letdowns are almost inevitable, in one form or another.

OP has been looking forward to her bachelorette party for some time. On the big night, though, a lifelong friend pulled her aside to tell her she’d learned something recently that both explained trouble she’d had as a child and affected her relationship with her mother.

I’m getting married in 3 weeks, and I just had my bachelorette over Easter weekend. During a quiet moment one of my bridesmaids took me aside and told me that about three months ago she was diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome.

Obviously I asked her what that meant for her and she started crying because she feels differently about her relationship with her mother.

We met in elementary school and she’s always had a learning disability, but she didn’t know that there was a preventable cause.

When the rest of the bridal party noticed she was upset it kind of killed the mood. OP didn’t end up getting to go out at all and lost out on the limo she had rented for the occasion.

My other bridesmaids noticed her crying, and the evening ended up being about her. We skipped out on going to a bar in the limo I had hired because she was upset.

Afterward, OP called and told her friend that she had been really hurt by her selfish behavior and cut her from the wedding party.

I thought about it all today and ended up emailing her to tell her that she took away an important moment from my life. I feel bad about this happening to her, but even though she didn’t always know it’s been going on for her whole life. If this was a recent thing she found out about or it was some kind of deadly disease I would feel differently, but she was sitting on this for months before bringing it up at an event that was supposed to be special to me.

You only get one bachelorette and mine was totally overshadowed. I felt really hurt that she did that, and told her that I didn’t want to have her in my wedding if that’s how she’s going to treat me at a time where the focus was supposed to be something good in my life instead of something sad in hers.

She could have waited a few more weeks until after the wedding if she wanted to have this conversation. She’s still invited to the wedding but I don’t want her to be a bridesmaid after this.

Her other friends think she went too far – but what about Reddit?

I was just texting my cousin (my maid of honour) and she disagreed with me doing this. She said that it sucked that we didn’t go to the bar, but this other friend has already paid for her dress so I should just let her stay.

My fiancé supports my choice, but I wanted another opinion. AITA?

The top comment thinks no one was right but everyone was wrong.

And this person thinks there’s a time and a place for everything – but grace is still important.

This commenter says, from personal experience, that you need to do your best to put your own crap aside during other’s big days.

Maybe we should all adopt this rule around alcohol.

The comments really had empathy for everyone involved.

OP did make this edit, which honestly kind of gave me the warm fuzzies.

Update: for those wondering I had actually seen her on two occasions since her diagnosis, including getting coffee one on one a week after it happened where she could have told me. It was the fact that she waited until my event to tell me and then derailed it that had me so upset.

I hadn’t considered the fact that everyone pre drinking might have set her off. After reading a bunch of comments here I called her. I asked why she hadn’t told me before and she said she was still trying to process when I had previously seen her. She didn’t realize she was going to cry so much and distract everyone and ruin the mood. She said she felt really horrible about doing that and that she hadn’t meant to ruin the evening.

I apologized for acting on my own hurt feelings and asked if she’d be willing to consider still being a bridesmaid. She said she really wanted to still be in the wedding. I don’t have the budget to have another bachelorette party, but I realize that I was only making that loss worse by hurting an old friend in addition to losing out on an event.

I was definitely attributing her behaviour to malice when it was actually bad timing. Back in high school she did a similar thing to me because she was jealous of the attention I was getting as part of a competitive choir, but she’s grown up since then (we’re 23 and 24 now).

I overreacted, and I honestly appreciate the tough love from this sub. It made me reconsider what I was doing and probably just saved a friendship.

Yes, weddings and parties are important milestones.

They probably shouldn’t trump salvaging a decades-long friendship, though. Right?