Hi all,
I am in a sticky situation where I need to sort out my official invitations. I have sent a "Save the Date" back in February because I am doing a destination wedding. Right from the start, I understand that not everyone will be able to attend the wedding so I made that very clear to the people who I sent the Save the Date. I would understand if people cannot make it and will not be hurt at the same time.
However, after sending the Save the Date what I experienced was a barrage of uncomfortable messages from my so called "close friends", who I will call person 1 and 2. Person 1 is someone I have known a very long time. As soon as I got engage with my fiancé, I have a group of people who should make up my groomsmen. Person 1 should have been the ideal person to be the best man but he rejected it and said there are better candidate. Obviously I was very hurt by this and wanted to talk to him face to face and see if I can change his mind. But the coming months he kept on making excuses where he cannot meet up to have a "heart to heart" talk about my wedding and my plans. At the very least I wanted him to be part of the groomsmen. In the end, because he was so busy and dragged out this meeting I ended up telling him via WhatsApp and he was not amused at all because I was doing a destination wedding! He said that there was not enough time to "save up" and the people who I plan on inviting will not make the effort now if I do not start the ball rolling (FYI, I wanted to do this group chat AGES ago but could not because Person 1 did not meet up).
Person 2 accepted his role as the groomsmen at first. He knew that this was going to be a destination wedding and was so happy to be part of it (This was at the back end of last year!). Come this year when I officially sent the Save the Dates to people, person 2 became silent. What he said next was possibly the worse thing that could have came out which was around the lines of "It's expensive comparing to the holiday I have been saving up for 2 years. It's cheaper there and I would have to spend less money over there compared to your Destination Wedding". I do not want to say what person 2 said completely incase he finds out about this. But going on those lines person 2 would rather go to the place he has been saving up for than to my wedding (Along with Person 1 and someone else).
I find out that there has been a group created talking about my destination wedding. This is fine if something comes out from it. But someone told me that person 1 and 2 along with the third person has been bitching about me having a destination wedding because it was expensive. They were also complaining about the dates, accommodation, duration of the destination wedding. But the biggest topic complained about was the finance side. Like I said from the start, I understand everyone cannot make it and that is completely fine with me.
I never experienced person 1 complain to me like the way he did to me. When he complains in this way, it would be nagging over the top and the person on the receiving end would feel very uncomfortable. If his goal was to make me feel uncomfortable he did it with flying colours. He kept on nagging me for the next week or so to the point where I questioned him as a friend. I still wanted to give him a chance and meet up face to face in person. Yet the excuses came in again. By the time he was conveniently free to meet up with me, I already lost the passion to discuss the wedding with him. He asked to meet up a couple of more times but I said no.
Which brings me onto the main point of the title - how do I uninvite guests? I have not officially invited anyone but the Save the Dates. Out of 20 guests I plan on inviting for my destination wedding, 11 confirmed going. The remaining 9 are grouped up together with person 1 and 2. Person 1 and 2 made their feelings known. The rest of the 7 people did not say anything to me at all but read the messages. It is these 9 people who are in question. Do I tell them that they are not invited because they are all struggling financially? Or do I not bother at all with them because they have been rude to me throughout?