There’s no shame in JILTING your friends’ weddings

By SAMANTHA BRICK, who’s refused 12 invitations — even though some brides never spoke to her again!

May. The month when social media feeds are suddenly full of flowers and white dresses, giggling women at hen-dos, and all the other signs wedding season is under way. This year, after the pandemic delayed so many celebrations, it’s worse than ever.

There are 275,000 weddings every year in the UK, yet in 2022 it’s predicted there will be 350,000. and while you might think a calendar full of weddings is a young woman’s problem, at 51 my friends seem to be optimistically throwing themselves into second marriages at an alarming rate.

One year in my early 30s, I remember receiving more than a dozen wedding invitations and nearly crumbling with the stress — and financial burden — of getting to them all with a suitable gift and outfit.

But I’ve learned a trick or two since then. So now, when invited to a wedding on a far-flung island, or where I know a ghastly former friend will be in attendance, or which I don’t think will last, I just say no.

So far this year I have received, and refused, two invitations.

I don’t think I’ll be alone in admitting that I always groan when I am invited to a wedding. Happy as I am for anyone in love, my heart sinks when they say they want me there for a celebratory knees-up. Especially since most of my friends seem to have moved to other countries, as I have too, decamping to rural France.

So going to a wedding means spending the cost of a two-week holiday on 48 hours in a destination and hotel not of my choosing (never mind liking). Lukewarm wine, no food options since I’m vegetarian, dances with handsy male relatives — and, as a married woman, invariably I get stuck mopping up the singles when the drinkydrunky tears start to flow.

The first time I declined a wedding invitation, well, to say it caused carnage is grossly to understate the fallout.

My close friend had ruthlessly curated a list of 40 guests. I was on it because I’d played Cupid when I introduced her to the groom. The wedding, in Italy, with a Michelin-starred chef, was a grand affair in a ritzy villa, with a dress code for each of the five meals.

DId she go into bridezilla mode? I think so. When I made the call to tell her I wasn’t coming, three days before, she was already on location. No doubt swanning about, making sure everything was perfect. Luckily for me she’d shortlisted a few reserve guests in case flaky people bailed at the last moment.

Look, I know it wasn’t a good idea to leave it so late to break this news, but I’d just got a new puppy — old English sheepdogs are hard to find!

When I met the bundle of fluff I instantly fell in love. So when I was told I’d be able to pick him up a week before the wedding, it was a no-brainer. My then husband immediately remarked: ‘There goes your friendship.’

I replied, ‘don’t be ridiculous! She loves animals!’ Boy, was he right. In fairness, I’d done a SWOT analysis (assessing Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) about my decision.

The happy couple were moving to New york shortly after the wedding, something I found out third-hand. We’d not been invited to a couple of social gatherings they’d hosted in London.

Was our friendship evolving away from the cosy closeness we’d enjoyed when we were single? I thought so. I was confident we’d still be friends, just not the joined-at-the-hip type. So I told her we weren’t coming. I assumed she’d accept my decision.

a couple of months later, however, I received a handwritten letter in which she let me have it with both barrels. I’d let her down, apparently, and it was typical of me.

That was 15 years ago; we haven’t spoken since. and yet I wasn’t put off doing the same thing in another wedding dilemma.

Not long after I’d moved to France in 2009, a friend married just outside Paris on a week day. She was a good uni friend, but we’d lost touch over the years. This time around, after dithering for a while, I turned down the invitation a couple of months before the ceremony. We were in the middle of home renovations and time away at a wedding was just another inconvenience we could do without.

yes, I live in France, but the chateau venue was a six-hour drive away. a call from her mum subtly encouraging me to accept fell on deaf ears. and, goodness, she tried, pulling every trick in the book: uneven table numbers, few friends from university, no one else who could speak French to the staff.

I held firm, knowing I’d followed the correct protocol by calling her and sending a formal refusal in writing. Even so, everyone, and I mean everyone, in our friend group gossiped about my no-show for months afterwards.

There is an assumption, which I find confusing, that if you are invited to a wedding you will attend. No thought is given to the circumstances or wishes of the guest. Can I afford it? Is it convenient? These seem to me to be legitimate questions.

My own first wedding, in 2001 on an australian island, was attended by just us two, with our travel coordinator and driver as witnesses.

The second time around was a country wedding in rural France with, admittedly, a rather unwieldy guest count of 150. In France if you invite one member of the village, you invite them all. But at least I had the good grace to do it in the school holidays so my family could come. Here I did get a taste of my own medicine. There was a friend I’d bonded with in the year before the wedding, regularly going for coffee after our yoga class. When I invited her, the casual rejection — ‘No, I don’t think so’ — left me flummoxed and, yes, it hurt.

It felt as if, by turning down the opportunity to see me say ‘I do’, she was rejecting the idea that she was important in my life. Finally I understood my friends’ reactions.

Since then, I’ve learned to say no with more finesse — and invent a good reason if necessary.

Take the marriage of one close friend a few years ago. I cringed when I heard she had proposed to him. and the general consensus was that she was punching above her weight. I know how alcohol can loosen people’s tongues and feared what I might say when asked what I really thought of their chances.

I decided to say we’d booked a holiday over the date. Soothed by my fib, she took the news well and the rebuttal didn’t affect our friendship. Oh, and they’re still happily married.

I’ve learned the key is to give notice of my absence the very moment the invitation flutters through the letterbox.

I must have sent at least a dozen refusals over the years. Most with what I think are entirely legitimate reasons. at one, accommodation was on a campsite. Ugh, I don’t think so! another was the wedding of an ex. No, I don’t want to watch you marry someone younger and prettier, thank you very much.

THEN there was a wedding to which my husband’s ex was also invited. I just couldn’t bear the insincere small talk, and luckily my husband agreed. But no matter how tactful the refusal, nor how much happiness you wish them, you just never know when a bride will throw an absolute wobbly. at times I have been guilttripped so badly that I end up picking something vastly over-generous from the gift list.

Google ‘how to turn down a friend’s wedding invitation’ and you’ll get millions of results. Even etiquette experts recognise such situations must be handled with complicated levels of diplomacy. Some advise sending flowers or a gift with a written refusal. Others say you must give a detailed explanation of why you aren’t attending.

and yet friends of mine have had an easier ride. One man I know flatly refuses to go to a wedding if he doesn’t think the marriage will go the distance — and makes no secret of his reasons. (annoyingly, his instincts are usually spot on — one bride, after an ‘I give it a year’ wedding, even moved in with him while the divorce went through.)

I think he gets away with it because he’s direct to the point of bluntness in all aspects of his life. So it stands to reason he’d behave in the same way with weddings.

It’s a strategy women should try, because it could save us broken friendships. We’re ‘supposed’ to enjoy weddings, and perhaps that’s why it feels so much more hurtful and personal when we say no.

as for the first friend whose wedding I bailed on, do I regret it? On reflection, yes. a bit. But I don’t regret missing her fancy parties, and I’m confident I had a much better time with my puppy than any of her pampered guests.

Occasionally, though, I come across pictures of us together and realise what a good, however complicated, friendship we had.

although clearly not good enough that she could ever forgive me for bailing on her wedding day.

I cancelled three days before... because I’d just got a puppy