I don't have many girl-friends. Well, that's a lie, I do have lots of girl 'mates' who I go out and party with but I'm not massively close with them, the people closest to me in my life are men (except for the girl I'm marrying!!)
She, on the other hand, has an entire entourage of females around her - she has 2 very close friends she went to school with, a couple of other close friends she met as an adult, a sister and she's very close to her mum and her aunty. My best friend is a fella, and in my family I'm closest to my Dad (who bought me up alone) and I only have a brother - my mum and I have a really rocky relationship and are constantly biting tongues around one another. I have one very good friend who is a bit like a sister, I've known her 20 years but she lives a 5 hour drive from me, is a single mum of 2 very little ones and is (understandably) incredibly unreliable (even to try and pin down for a catch up on the phone.)
From the moment we announced our engagement OH's entourage have been clucking around about dress shopping and hen nights and the night before the wedding and the morning of etc ... and I feel a bit stuck. Luckily, we'd agreed straight off that neither of us wanted to have bridesmaids (or any official roles for anyone - we have lots of people we want to play a part in our wedding and didn't want to be limited by specific people having specific roles - for example, my best mate, the fella, is giving a speech at the meal) so I didn't have to worry about that, but I feel really sad about dress shopping and things like who i'll be getting ready with on the day.
My friend of 20 years has said she would love to come dress shopping with me, but like I said, she's unreliable - I can't even get her to agree to a date (I've already said i'd go to her to save her having to travel) ... I do have lots of other friends I could ask and who I'm sure would come, but it feels like a really special day and I don't really want to share it with anyone I'm not super close with. My best mates wife offered to come but it feels a bit like a pity offer - I certainly wasn't invited when she went dress shopping! Whoever I go with, Mum will have to come, I can't not ask her but I'm dreading it!
In honesty - the person I most want to go dress shopping with, the person whose opinion I value the most, the person I'd have the best day and the most fun with, is my OH. She's very understanding about how our different friendship groups impact on me with all the wedding stuff, but she really really doesn't want us to see one anothers dresses before.
I don't even want to think of hen's! I'm happy not to have one, but then I can't not have one if OH does!!! - and her friends won't have her not having one (she doesn't even want one!!!!)
UGH! WEDDINGS!!! This is exactly what we didn't want when we got engaged, pleasing other people and not putting what we want, and what makes us happy first!!!
