I know you have seen some ads for lawyers before, saying you could be entitled to financial compensation for such-and-such. But what if you dropped a large sum of money on your friend’s wedding, only to have them call it off for someone else? Would you expect financial compensation for that?
This 22-year-old man was set to be a groomsman in his friend’s wedding this month. They all graduated recently from the same college, which is actually where his best friend met his fiancée during their junior year.
They had a whirlwind romance, and his friend quickly proposed. His friend has been so into this girl, and he was thrilled that his friend found the girl of his dreams.
He was also excited to be his friend’s groomsman, which was meant to be his first time playing this role. Since he had no prior experience, he didn’t understand how much money it was going to cost him to stand up there with his friend on his big day.
He had to pay $250 to rent a suit, spent $500 on the bachelor party they went on in Miami, and bought a $75 wedding gift. He didn’t mind spending so much, because his friend has always been there for him.
As they were still in college full-time when he made these purchases, his wallet definitely felt it.
“With all that background, that brings us to early April of this year (6 weeks before the wedding). My friend just casually mentioned to me that he ran into an old friend of ours from high school, and they had a pretty long conversation catching up,” he explained.
His friend stated that this girl from high school was single and super amazing. Now, he knows that was a big red flag, but he didn’t think about it back then.
His friend didn’t act any differently until they got to the week of his wedding. His friend never admitted he had cold feet, and he assumed he was just getting anxious.
Two evenings before the wedding was set to take place, he, his friend, and the rest of the groomsmen all had dinner together. He was honestly shocked by how his friend was behaving like a shadow of his normal self.
He wasn’t laughing or saying anything at the dinner table, so they went home early. The following morning, which was the same day as his friend’s rehearsal dinner, one of the other groomsmen sent them all a text stating that his friend was calling off the wedding!
They all felt blindsided, and the best man called his friend. He wasn’t present for that, but the best man later told him that his friend was not joking about calling off the wedding and was already traveling back to his mom and dad’s house, an hour away from the venue.
They all went home because there was nothing else to do. He texted his friend a few days later to tell him he was there if he needed anything, but he was met with silence.
“This is where things get insane and set me off. My friend and his fiancée were supposed to go on their honeymoon 2 weeks after the wedding because they were planning on moving to a new city out of state to start their careers and needed to get settled, and my assumption was that they just canceled the whole thing,” he added.
“That brings us to last week, my friend, who has been completely unresponsive for over 3 weeks, finally texts me back. He apologizes for canceling the wedding and wasting our time, and let me know he actually [went] on his honeymoon to Mexico with that girl he ran into 6 weeks before the wedding!”
“I don’t know if he had been talking to her on the down-low the entire time since he ran into her, or decided he wasn’t ready to marry his fiancée and reached out to her after canceling the wedding. But to me, it didn’t matter at all.”
“Learning that he threw away everything he had built for this other girl and truly wasted everyone’s time (and especially money) when he obviously wasn’t ready to settle down was the final straw.”
He demanded that his friend pay him back the $850 he invested in his wedding before blocking him. He does not think his friend will reimburse him, but he’s so upset that he considers their friendship over and done with.
He’s left wondering if he went off the deep end, and if he should take this as a sign that his friendship is finished.
Well, yes, I do think the right thing for his friend to do is pay everyone in his wedding party back. But do I believe that his friend will do that? No.
He could try reaching out to his friend’s parents to see if they might be willing to compensate him accordingly as another option, but unfortunately (and as unfair as this is), that money is gone, and there’s no getting it back.
At the very least, perhaps he can return the wedding present, even though $75 isn’t going to really make a dent in what he already invested.
It was a good move to block his friend, because this friendship is never going to be revived.
What advice do you have for him?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
