Rebecca Meyer
This 22-year-old woman is starting a Master’s program in September.
This summer, she’s been living in her old childhood bedroom at her parents’ house until she starts her graduate school program soon, which is a few states away.
In 2020, her older sister, 34, got married. Her sister and her fiancé had, unfortunately, gotten engaged right before the pandemic.
“They were given a choice by my parents, who were paying for the wedding: They could have a small backyard wedding on their original intended date, or they could wait until the pandemic got under control and have the bigger wedding they originally wanted. They chose not to wait and had a small wedding, which I took time off from my Bachelor’s program to attend,” she said.
Apparently, this small wedding wasn’t enough for her sister, who has lately been saying that she’s sad that she didn’t get to have the larger wedding she’d originally hoped for.
“She and her husband have decided to hold what they call a vow renewal party, but what is essentially a second wedding, complete with ceremony, bridesmaids, and a wedding dress,” she explained.
The problem is that the date her sister and husband set for this party, October 2024, directly conflicts with an important part of her graduate program. She specializes in Wildlife Sciences, and she is part of an assistantship program in which she works directly with a professor on research, and through this program, her tuition is waived.
Her and her professor’s research is focused on black bears, and the month of October is crucial because that’s when bears are getting ready to hibernate. So, she isn’t able to work around that in order to make her sister’s party.
When she broke the news that she couldn’t make it, her sister and her mother were angry. They’d both apparently assumed that she’d be able to be a bridesmaid again like she’d been in her sister’s first wedding.
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