Planning a wedding can be the ultimate balancing act.

After all, balancing your own expectations with those of your family and friends is no easy task.

When a bridesmaid bowed out over a dress disagreement, it wasn’t just the bridesmaid headcount that changed, but the whole wedding dynamic.

Read on to see how all the drama unfolded.

AITA for not including an ex-bridesmaid in wedding events?

I (29f) am getting married soon and I recently had one of my bridesmaids decide to step down from the wedding as she didn’t like the dresses I had asked them to wear.

The bride thought the two had left things on a civilized note.

This was fine; we had a polite discussion about it, and it’s a voluntary position.

It wasn’t like I was going to try to force her to stay in the party if she really didn’t want to wear the dress.

But here’s where things start to get messy.

The problem is that, because she’s not in the party anymore, I’ve removed her from the bridesmaid group chat.

She won’t be invited to the bachelorette dinner (we hadn’t started planning this when she dropped, so she isn’t out any money or PTO taken or anything).

She also won’t be going to the rehearsal dinner, getting ready with the bridesmaids the day of, or sitting at the head table.

The bride thought all this was perfectly justified.

To me, this made perfect sense — all this stuff is for the wedding party or, in some cases, for family and out-of-town guests (she is neither).

But now her ex-bridesmaid feels like she’s betrayed their friendship.

Her perspective is that she was invited to all of this before and she should still be, as a good friend of mine for many years.

She thinks that by excluding her after she decided to step down, I’m being vindictive.

AITA?

It seems there’s a major misunderstanding blocking the way here.

Maybe Reddit commenters could help bring some clarity.

This ex-bridesmaid needs to keep in mind who the wedding is really about.

The ex-bridesmaid’s expectations are way out of wack here.

She betrayed the duty of her role, so why should she still enjoy all the perks?

Maybe the ex-bridesmaid still attending is more trouble than it’s worth, at this point.

What started off as a simple dress request has turned into a tangled web of expectations and emotions.

At the end of the day, there’s no sense fighting over fabric.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.