The person who was originally going to be my maid of honour (oldest friend but hardly see her due to her travelling a lot) moved abroad in July, and when I last saw her before the move, she said she wasn't totally sure if she'd even make the wedding now as it would depend if new job would let her. As I heard nothing on the subject for ages and had to get planning, it was decided to ask my other bridesmaid to take over the role and have original maid of honour as standard bridesmaid so that I wasn't risking being let down. She still hadn't asked work about the wedding, so we went ahead with bringing the wedding forwards by a couple of weeks due to downsizing and this new date suiting the venue better.
I confirmed the date change a week ago with bridesmaid and asked if she could find out asap whether she could come or not, as we really needed to know for guest list/numbers now due to having a very strict limit and having had to cut a lot of people out. She said she still wasn't sure it would be possible due to work, but she'd do her best to sort it so she could. A week later I still haven't heard anything, so messaged again to ask if she's managed to find out, as we want to finalise guest list and send invites asap. I can see the message has been read but still no reply, even to let me know whether she's mentioned it at work or not.
What would you do? How long would you wait before taking it as she's not coming and filling her two spaces on guest list? I really don't want to invite someone else and then her say she's organised it and have to tell her we can't accommodate her anymore, as I was bridesmaid at her wedding earlier this year, and as I say she is my oldest friend and we always said we'd be a part of each other's big day. But I also need to know in enough time to be able to ask someone else if she isn't coming... and at the moment I'm struggling to budget properly not knowing whether I have one bridesmaid or two, and need to start booking hair and makeup artists etc... Any advice?!?