Bride Treated Bridesmaid as a ‘Placeholder,’ Dropped Financial 'Bomb’ on Her Last Minute and Refused Her Plus-One

A woman is recalling her friend’s awful experience as a bridesmaid.

She revealed in a recent post on Reddit's "Wedding Shaming" forum that her friend was asked to be a bridesmaid for a wedding that took place in Hawaii — despite not being close with the bride, and ended up accruing a lot of costs.

The woman claimed that the bride "doesn’t have many friends and she needed four bridesmaids to match the groom's side of the party." Therefore, her friend only agreed to be a bridesmaid because "she felt bad for the girl."

The disgruntled bridesmaid is a close friend of the bride’s younger sister.

The friend was originally told she would only have to purchase her plane ticket, but the costs continued to add up.

"A few weeks before the wedding, the bride dropped a bomb on her," the woman wrote. "She suddenly needed to pay for professional hair and makeup, pay $100 a night to stay in the airbnb, and she could no longer bring a plus one."

Related: Mom Catches Heat for Agreeing to Pay for Her Daughter’s Wedding — but Not Her Stepdaughter’s

The bridesmaid was also directed to "sleep on the couch" at their rented accommodation.

She felt further put out during the actual wedding events and said the party "basically pretended she wasn't there."

The bridesmaid was put in a rough position as one of her friends had "set a date for her wedding on very short notice, a couple weeks after the Hawaii wedding."

The woman said she encouraged her friend to "bail" on the Hawaii wedding, but "she was getting a lot of pressure from her parents to follow through." Apparently, the woman was left "bummed out" because she did not have enough paid time off from work to attend her actual friend’s wedding after taking time off for the destination wedding.

Related: Man Rejects Being Friend’s Best Man Over Bride's 'Beef' With His Girlfriend: 'If My Girl Can't Go I'm Not Going Either'

The poster addressed some of the feedback, saying that her friend is a “people pleaser” but she expected more "hate" for the bride. She also added that there was no mention of the bride’s younger sister being friendly with her friend during the wedding, "so it's safe to assume that, yes, she participated in ignoring my friend."

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People in the comments section quickly criticized the bridesmaid and hoped that it taught her a valuable lesson. "Yikes. Your friend needs to learn the word no," one person wrote. "And people need to get over uneven numbers in the bridal party."

Another blamed the entire situation on the bridesmaid. "I'm sorry, but this is 100% on your friend," they wrote. "As soon as she was told about the extra expenses, she should've backed out. She allowed herself to be taken advantage of and walked all over. Hopefully, it's an important lesson learned."

A third person expressed that they feel bad for the bridesmaid, but noted that it is her fault, adding, "I hope the experience helped her to grow a spine and stand up for herself so she doesn't put herself in this situation again."

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