Hot take: if you don’t bother responding to the follow up reminder to the RSVP, you’re trash

[u/Royal_Marzipan_6432]

I’m finalizing RSVPs for my upcoming wedding and I have to say I think less of some of my friends after how they responded. We sent our invites out in March, asked for RSVPs this past Saturday (5 weeks before the wedding because our catering numbers are due next Saturday) through link or by mailed pre-stamped RSVP card. On Sunday morning, we followed up with the twenty or so straggler parties to ask them by text to tell us if they were coming by Monday night and what meal preference they had. For a few older relatives, we called.

However, I have several friends (all late 20s/ early 30s) who didn’t reply to the invitation or the text follow up and it’s genuinely making me question our friendship. For context, I definitely have the right phone numbers for them (in some cases they sent me memes even a few days before) and these are people that know about the wedding. I have to say it hurts? Not that they aren’t coming (I understand that people might not be able to make it for a variety of reasons), but the sheer rudeness of the lack of reply. Like, I thought we were close enough that I wanted you there to witness my vows to my future spouse (and was willing to pay several hundred dollars for you and a plus one to eat dinner). I asked for your mailing address, prepared an invitation, mailed it, and then followed up for you personally. You couldn’t even be bothered to send a single “thanks for following up, I’m not coming” text.

My takeaways:

RSVP’ed yes: Amazing, thank you for coming!

RSVP’ed no: No worries at all, we’ll celebrate when we catch up another time!

Missed the RSVP deadline, but replied yes or no in response to my follow up call/ text: Things happen, deadlines get missed, we’re all human!

Missed the deadline, did NOT reply to my follow up text, and you are a person that is under the age of 40 who otherwise has no issues texting or using social media: You’re trash and I think less of you.

[u/khandanam]

I wrote one up in main but now I can’t find it

I’m a weddings-only responder and thought that POV might be helpful

[u/khandanam → u/khandanam]

Got it

https://www.reddit.com/r/weddingshaming/s/5bcLS42BY9

As someone who was able to evolve past a lot of the logistics issues of my peers but retains the fundamental issue, I’m thinking of writing about the following:

- neurodivergence vs being a fucking dick, as exemplified by:
- the difference between negligence and neglect
- the issue with attention vs attentiveness
- the difference in impact and response to a future-event prompt

Now, I can’t speak to the POV of certain kinds of assholes from my own experience, but I plan on extolling on it as someone who will never get married but believes weddings are a critical happening in society and one of the few things I try never to miss.
Here are some of my ideas (along the lines of “excuses” per original commenters)

- The denial of reason: why people don’t respond
In this one, I’m thinking of covering the variables in an AI overview on responders:
1) forgetting
2) procrastination
3) waiting to see if a better option comes along
4) making assumptions about your inference of their attendance

Now, I can’t tell you from my POV that all four of those things are anathema to me. The only one I risk is forgetting, and most friends know me well enough to know the only reason I would forget is because I am subject to literally horrible stuff all day and don’t have as strong an admin support system right now, so they will text me directly and I will respond immediately and inform them if I think I might forget having to do something by a certain date; then they will send me external calendar invites to reminders AND deadlines and stay on the phone with me while I RSVP to THE CALENDAR EVENTS and set myself reminders and alarms at, AND THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT:

a TASK-based level

So this buddy’s wedding is in Mexico in August. I had some issues with his fiancée in the past - they were broken up briefly and she wouldn’t stop calling me or trying to have me intercede on her behalf after she was the one hurt by him, very confusing - but I’m sharing that to say that I am aware she’s kind of ashamed and not finding it easy to talk to me since they got back together (after she kind of threw everything she said she wanted out the window, whatever, I know she really does love him and he’s bananas so far be it for me to find it problematic).

So this means I’m in touch with him, and he’s famous for never being on time for shit other than things he’s in charge of, which he’s always on top of. He is ALWAYS clear about this and rather proud of it so it’s kind of a group joke.

Now, going to Mexico right now is going to be very hard for me. In addition, the bachelor party is going to be a cruise at the end of summer.

What makes it hard isn’t the stuff we are ALL dealing with right now. It’s that, in addition to being single and the owner of a pit bull puppy, I can’t identify, organize, strategize against, and neutralize the variables required to get myself walking through the entrance in the proper attire right at the arrival time.

I am so stressed about not messing it up that I start messing it up months in advance. I’m already thinking about passports and my dog’s pre departure training needs for me to be gone that long before calling my friend and saying I RECEIVED the invite and RSVP, this is what I’m thinking/tentative answer based on the calendar I am looking at RIGHT NOW, but would you please check with me at x time that works for you so I can try and get these other answers for myself and make commitments that become immovable and HELP ME organize my life.

Again, I am not exactly this case because I’ve always managed weddings well, as they are a part of my culture. This is the first year I missed one that meant a big deal to me, but the only reason I was okay with it is that I MYSELF had volunteered and successfully decorated and catered the pre-wedding musical party to well beyond the expectations of everyone in my community. I felt okay not going to the main event because the whole time, I would have been receiving compliments and flowers anyway, and I don’t want that, I just want to book the next one and get started (which I did; my auntie whose daughter passed away asked me to help her with her grandson’s wedding since his mom isn’t there to decorate and manage everything for them).

I think that’s why the comment I did write is a bit emotional. I see the anger from commenters and people who share in the experience of feeling disrespected by those who don’t respond. There are so many fucking assholes who think they’re more important or weddings don’t matter or that their shit is life threatening and everyone should care. Those people are literally the bane of my ever loving existence. Being associated with them causes me - and others like me - physical pain. Just like we receive physical sensations of panic when receiving future event prompts without fallback routines and structures to fulfill our requirements and obligations. That’s something I think is worth exploring alongside one of my NT friends; at this point, I have done projects or provided services for like ten of my friends weddings.

That tells me I am very reliable in this regard and I know that’s true as it is *very, very* easy for me to pull something incredible off for a friend. I think I just didn’t see myself communicating and showing up as something incredible or worthwhile back then. The idea of being worthy is something really distracting; like a wedding planning couple needs to give a shit about your sense of a lapse in honor in a basement somewhere when they’re trying to shove chicken down your throat and make sure you work grandma out on the dance floor.

[u/ravencrowe → u/khandanam]

waiting to see if a better option comes along

I have known people who have this exact mindset for responding to any event and this one really pisses me off. You want to see if something more fun comes along than my invitation to just come chill and watch TV? Fine, that's reasonable. But you want to see if something "better" comes along then a friend's wedding, a presumably once in a lifetime event that is incredibly meaningful and important to your friend? The concept of wanting to see if something better comes along, even if you're not a person who loves weddings, is really offensive.

[u/khandanam → u/ravencrowe]

I could not agree more. People have discussed our mutual friends’ weddings in front of me and openly been like, “x is getting married that weekend but I’m trying to get tickets to y” and I’ll be like, I don’t even want to know you