(no subject)

[geminigirl]

When I see posts on the wedding planning communities and boards I frequent that start out with "am I being unreasonable here," my usual feeling is yes, you are. And I was warned about having Bridezilla moments, and I've probably had a few, but I'm not sure that this counts as one...maybe it does. Mostly this is just a vent, but if you do decide to read it, be aware that I'd like your opinion on whether or not I'm being unreasonable, and be aware that it's regarding the wedding, and the bridesmaids' dresses, which are not some hideous fuschia flapper thing or anything like that. You can ask aquariumgirl here for the picture, though the color I chose is the victorian lilac.



My sister is indeed, really important to me. Don't get me wrong here.

She's got a good job, in NYC, an apartment, etc. She does travel a lot-her job frequently has her in Canada , all over the place. In a few weeks she's going from Chicago (where her boyfriend lives) to Vancouver, to Toronto, to Halifax and then back home. A lot of travel. I understand that.

So, we're about to go and order bridesmaids dresses for the wedding. There are four people in the bridal party...my sister, aquariumgirl, an LJ-less friend, and zedrikcayne's sister. Everyone except my sister is travelling a significant distance to come to the wedding, and everyone but my sister is a stay at home mom.

So there are four places in Manhattan that carry this silly bridesmaids dress. Two are close to my sister's home, and two are not. I called the first two, based on the numbers listed on the manufacturer's website. Neither one was correct. I called the third. (For those of you familiar with Manhattan, my sister lives on the Lower East Side, works on Third Ave in Midtown, and the third bridal place was on the West side between 8th and 9th.) The third offered me the three dresses that would be effectively "mail ordered" (they get the measurements from the bridesmaids, and mail order the dress, and then ship it) at a very good price-$50 less than most other places, which means $50 less than what it would cost my sister in the store. Seems like a good idea, right?

Not if you're my sister. Apparently it's too inconvenient to travel to the west side to deal with this dress-a total of four times, and no more, probably.

I did suggest that we "mail order" her dress and let her get it altered anywhere she likes-close to home or work. The dresses do need to be ordred together to make sure they're the same dye lot.

Am I totally evil for wanting to save everyone else some money? It's possible my sister won't even have to pay for her own dress...my Mom will probably offer to pay for it. Everyone else has much more in travel time and costs for the wedding.

My sister frustrates me like this regularly. It's as if she sees only herself in many ways, and doesn't consider others. But tell me, is it totally wrong of me to feel like she can handle the slight inconveniece?

Comments

[dindin.livejournal.com]

Seems a bit much. How did she feel about your suggestion to mail order the dresses?

[geminigirl]

Haven't heard back from her yet. She's in Canada at the moment-I emailed her, or I'll talk ot her tomorrow night when she gets back.

[dindin.livejournal.com]

Ah. I will say that we did that for my sisters wedding for at least one of the bridesmaids - I can't tell you what the problem was, whether it was poor measuring or poor manufacturing, but (the) one (of the) dresses that was ordered came about a size too small. Seriously, would it kill her to make probably 3 trips to the dress shop?

[melaniesuzanne.livejournal.com]

She, not you, is being unreasonable.

[geminigirl]

Thank you. I was hoping you would weigh in on this one, having been recently a bride yourself.

I am also complely willing to accept the idea that I'm being Bridezilla here.

I dragged the Mom in; asked her opinion. Let her explain to my sister why it's not unreasonable.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

What is the alternative that your sister would prefer? The other options are not clear to me. IMHO, if she wanst to spend extra money for her own convenience, I think it'd be less stressful for all involved to not argue with her and just let her do it her way. Right and wrong are irrelevant here.

[geminigirl]

My sister wants us to go to one of the places closer to her home where everyone would be paying a price somewhere around the price quoted for her dress at the original place. (Dress=N, mail order dress from the place across town=N-50.)

Unfortunately the dresses need to be ordered all in one place at the same time, or they may come from different dye lots, which means that if we did it her way everyone would pay N. If she were complaining about paying N, rather than N-50, I could understand that, and would figure out some way to ensure that she wasn't-whether I picked up that money or Mom did. But she's complaining about having to go to the place that's less convenient for her.

We'll see what she says to my alternative solution...mail order her dress and let her get it altered somewhere close to her home or work.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately the dresses need to be ordered all in one place at the same time

Ah! That was the part I missed. Good luck finding a compromise. Maybe she can cover the extra $50 for everyone. :)

[nmc.livejournal.com]

Actually that strikes me as the perfect response.

"That's fine, but it will cost the other three people $50 extra. So if you want to go with that plan, we can do that, but you're going to have to reimburse X, Y and Z $50 for the added expense."

Oh, and in case it's unclear, no, I don't think you're being unreasonable (at all).

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I agree with them *points up thread*.

And, as I probably count as someone familiar with Manhattan, assuming your sister is a normal fairly-healthy young adult, that trip to the dress shop doesn't sound particularly out of the way. To be honest, if it had the right dress and it was for a special one-off occasion like this, I'd probably travel that far a few times myself - and I'm not always that good at walking.

I wonder if her actual problem is having to travel to the other side of the city, or actually that she doesn't like your choice of dress or something but is being too passive-aggressive to tell you? You, of course, know her far better than I do :) Does she definitely want to be a bridesmaid?

[geminigirl]

She actually picked the dress, based on the things that were required-sleeves and not too difficult to breast feed in. If she has a problem with the dress, that's her fault.

If I were asking her to go to Brooklyn or something, I'd see where she was coming from...but it's crosstown. And it's a little inconvenient cause she's on the east side and this is on the west, but not impossible.

[katishna.livejournal.com]

Um, how big is Manhattan anyway? It's only a few miles across isn't it? They have busses and a good subway system? I think you're being reasonable, $50 is a lot of money and it would make a big difference to me if someone was too busy/lazy/whatever to get on the subway in order to spend a little less on something that we'd all be wearing once. Tell her I said to suck it up.

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

Why don't you mail-order the other 3 and let her pay more for hers? She's being totally unreasonable on this one.

[geminigirl]

She's fussing about having to go crosstown to get the alterations done. It's not the money.

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

So let her wear it off the rack.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

or let her pay to alter it elsewhere. That way only one trip to the store - they can mail order it straight to her.

while she's not being reasonable in holding this up for everyone else I also understand how changing one's routine 4 times is difficult. I know how hard it is for me to get errands done.

[entirelysonja.livejournal.com]

You're not being Bridezilla.

None of this would be a problem if we all lived in the same place, of course. But we don't, so there are bound to be issues relating to the dresses.

I do have an alternative suggestion, which I realize may be a bit odd this late in the game, but it's what I'd suggest to any other bride in this situation -- you could have the bridesmaids wear different colors, thus eliminating the issue with the dye lots.

I'd have to look at the color swatches, but maybe Victorian Lilac, Cornflower, Celadon, and Butter would work.

I can't remember whether your sister or Rachel is the maid/matron of honor -- if it's your sister, that's another option -- have her wear a different color, and the rest of us wear the same color.

[geminigirl]

My sister. And I thought about the different colors thing in the beginning, because it's bad enough I'm asking you all to buy the same silly dress, but to choose the color for you as well seems just way selfish, but when we looked at swatches I just didn't like any of the combinations enough to do that.

I emailed my mother, and posed the same question to her about whether or not I was being unreaosnable. She said she'd deal with my sister...I think this is her way of acknowleding that my sister is indeed being ridiculous and inconsiderate, but there are certain things that Mom can say to her that I can't.

[meepkitty.livejournal.com]

I agree with the above. She is being a bit unreasonable. You have done everything you can to make it easy on your attendants. I think the previous suggestion about her covering the other $50 for each of the bridesmaids is a good 'offer' to help her see how four trips to the other side of town (at times she can schedule) will be less than $150 for her. Good luck, doomcookie!!

[aliki.livejournal.com]

As someone who has both lived in Manhattan and was a recent bride, I can honestly say your sister, not you, is being unreasonable.

Manhattan is too small for her to make such a fuss.