You are spending a ton of money to just attend her wedding, never mind the dress, throwing the shower, etc. I would really hope she wouldn't expect a gift!!

1) I've never understood why bridesmaids are expected to pay for their own dresses. I think that is the strangest "etiquette" I have ever heard - it's like inviting people to a party and expecting them to foot the bill! Weird.

2) Even if I had a big traditional wedding I would never, ever expect a gift from my bridesmaids. It's just tacky to me.

3) Janeyg25 - I think it is perfectly understandable that you cannot attend the bachelorette. Your friend is going to be extra sensitive at this point because this is the biggest thing in her life right now.

Scary as it is, I've heard instances of people being invited to a dinner party then afterwards be expected to contribute $25, $50 or whatever. Say whaaa?

If the friend questioned me about a gift in an instance like this, my response would likely be: "Your gift is my time, effort and money helping you plan and traveling hundreds (thousands?) of miles away to take part in your special day."

Of course, I would probably never talk to her again after such a fiasco! But that's probably just my strong personality.

Since I was one who said you should try to go, for the record, I just wanted to say that hearing that going means an overnight trip, hotel room, etc. that is totally different. And yes, esp. on top of what you are already spending, then I think it's fine to say you can't do it. I did think if it was something local, you might have been able to work it out.

But yeah, the more you post about her - esp. the idea that she might complain about a present then I'm going to have to change my vote and say bridezilla.

I'm probably a lot older than most responders, but when I got married, there weren't even bachelorette parties. I agree that the costs associated with today's weddings are frequently insane and unreasonable.

With that said, as is normal with women, you're trying to keep your friend and your husband and everyone else happy without giving too much thought to what is best for you. Please take a minute to think through what is best for you and what alternatives will allow you to get through all of this with good memories. Once you've decided that, you can determine what you want to do. I'm not saying be selfish and only do what you want to do, but you seem to have left yourself out of this equation.

When we had our wedding, we put 'no gifts please' on the invitations but tradition is hard to break for people so we ended up getting a lot of money, most of which we donated to charity. We also had no bridesmaids/groomsmen. Some of our friends had their own weddings, we had 2 friends with pregnancies and some people had to travel. We really just wanted people to come and celebrate with us. We had a very low key wedding although quite a few people said it was one of the best weddings they had been to.

Really? She's made comments about only wanting nice gifts??? She needs a reality check! Maybe more...
She clearly does NOT understand the value of true friendship. If she wants nice gifts, maybe she should scale back her wedding plans & spend some of that dinero on buying the things she's "requesting" (read demanding) of her friends/family & others attending her wedding. She'd be darned lucky to get some Wal-Mart/Dollar Store dishtowels from me!
Final note: If she gets pissy about this. It's all on her. She needs to know that other people's lives DO NOT revolve around her wedding & wishes. Yes, it may be HER day, but it's YOUR life and YOUR money. A true friend would never ask you to spend money you don't feel comfortable about spending or ask you to go into debt for them. It should be enough to have your share in her special day...no more, no less. She should be willing to get married in blue jeans & t-shirts if she's asking (read telling)her friends to foot the bill for their travel, their clothes, a "nice" gift (read expensive), etc.

I lost my best friend from high school over her wedding. She definitely did become bridezilla. I was a student at the time, living on canned tuna and ramen noodles and living in a different state. When she asked me to be her maid of honor she seemed to be very sympathetic about my lack of money and said she would try to help me out as much as she could. I bought the fugly dress and was told that I could wear whatever shoes I wanted with it which was great because I had a pair that would match it. But then she changed her tune and bought shoes for me AND sent me the bill for it.

Long story short, I traveled back and forth to plan and attend her bridal shower and bachelorette parties. On our way to the church our bridesmaids dresses were packed in the trunk of the car, mine was on the bottom and got a little creased. As we were getting dressed she demoted me and said that she thought this other girl should be MOH instead because she had been a much better friend throughout the process of the wedding. And after the wedding she never spoke to me again. I tried contacting her a few times to patch things up but her husband called me and told me that she never wanted to see my face again, I had ruined her wedding and my wrinkly dress ruined her wedding photos.

Weddings suck.

Wow, insane. If it was that important to her then she should've had a travel iron/ironing board or steamer.

Wow! You are much better off without 'friends' like her!

Two of my friends/former college roommates had a fallout like that. One of them was a student at the time of the other girls' wedding, actually working on her master's thesis at the time. It was a destination wedding, also in PR and my friend was living there at the time, so that she really helped the bride throughout the wedding planning process. First, my friend arrived late to the rehearseal dinner, at this point the other girl started acting distant/ignoring her. Also, at the time, my friend had found out that her boyfriend of 4 years was in fact a married man! Still living with his wife. Because of settling of this issue, she had to leave the church ceremony early or something to that effect.

The bridezilla in question texted my friend, as soon as she departed on her honeymoon cruise, telling her that she ruined her wedding!

I was married 6.5 years ago (second marriage for both of us). We both wanted a wedding with our family and friends there, and we had about 120 people, most of whom had to travel. It wasn't a destination wedding, but our friends are pretty scattered. For most of them, though, it was a 2 to 6 hour drive. Only a few people flew in, and that was mostly my family.

We kept costs low (and paid cash), though. My BFF was a student at the time, and so I bought her dress and shoes (which weren't that expensive) and then since the other two bridesmaids were my daughter and stepdaughter, I definitely bought their dress and shoes. BFF and I picked out the dresses together, so I knew she liked it. (I didn't care if the shoes matched, but three of us needed new shoes, so we decided to buy one more pair.)

We are financially more comfortable than many of our friends, and felt they were spending enough money traveling and paying for a hotel that we didn't want them to spend more on us. We treasured the gifts we did receive, but that wasn't ever the point. We didn't register anywhere, and when asked what we wanted as gifts, we told the truth: all we want is for you to share our special day with us. (And my BFF and mother passed that on as well.)

Our wedding was a Saturday night and included dinner, but we also had a hospitality suite at the hotel where we served Friday night dinner (pizza) and Saturday lunch (subs) and everybody hung out there during the day Saturday.

Although I wanted a real wedding, I didn't want hoopla. We wanted to make our commitment to each other in the presence of family and friends. We wanted a close friend to perform the ceremony. We wanted an unusual venue (we were married in the Packard Museum). We wanted a dance. We wanted to feed our guests (cultural thing). So we did all that, and everyone says it was a great wedding.

It sounds like a ceremony, dinner, dance could be hoopla, but it really wasn't.

(Although we didn't ask for gifts, one broke starving artist type gave us an original piece of art--now that was some gift.

After reading all these horror stories, I definitely feel better about my situation! I sat down with my friend yesterday and told her flat out that I am seriously struggling with money right now and cannot afford to do this night out bachelorette party. She was understanding, but still expects me to be there. She mentioned putting hotels on her credit card upfront and then everyone will pay her back their share, which is understandable, but does not change my situation. I am going to do the best I can to make things work out, but at the end of the day, I cannot afford to spend a lot of money on this and she will have to understand. My husband's birthday celebration is now on Sunday, so I am available on the night of her party. I am going to see if somehow I can reduce the cost and go, but I know that it will be expected that she doesn't have to pay for anything (which is fine), so I will have to budget for that too. If the wedding was local, this wouldn't be an issue!

janeyg25, how was her response 'understanding'? She expects you to be there and she expects you to pay for it. It seems that she wants what she wants and your situation doesn't affect that.

She may be one of those people who don't understand that putting an expensive on a credit card still means you spent the money.

If she is understanding, perhaps she'd be willing to have the party more locally so it didn't require hotel rooms or travel expenses?

Something rubs me really wrong about someone planning a party, insisting people go, and insisting people treat her for the whole thing--and insisting someone else go into debt so they can pay "their share" of the party.

If you really can't afford it, then tell her, and she'll have to accept it--but you can't make her be happy about it or understanding about it.

She is absolutely being unreasonable now. She's having a destination wedding AND basically a destination bachelorette party and "expects" you to be there, even though you've told her you're struggling financially? That is unbelievable. Like I said in my first post, I can understand why she wants you there...but she can't expect people to go bankrupt for her.
I will never understand the sense of entitlement some brides have.

yeah, seriously. Wake up and come back to reality. I think at this point I wouldn't even bother trying to explain anything to her or try to go to this bachelorette at all. Ridiculous!