AITA for ending a 20+ year friendship after their wedding
This will be pretty long. Haven’t posted to Reddit before so forgive me for formatting.
​
A bit of background. I (M, 29) have been friends with Bride (F, 30) and Groom (M, 29) since early days in school. We’re part of a big friend group that has remained close after school and even after uni. Although we’re all friends, some are obviously closer to others. Bride and Groom were my closest friends and I was to theirs.
​
Bride and Groom dated for years and when they got engaged, they started planning a destination wedding. Everyone was looking forward to it, since it’s difficult to get everyone together it would be great for us all to reconnect and celebrate their wedding after years of them being together. Groom asked me to be his best man and I was so happy to be asked, since I’d known them the longest I had so many stories and really wanted to do a good speech about their journey that they would love.
​
The wedding invitations went out about a year before the date and they included a section that everyone was to make their way to the venue but they would arrange transport from the venue back to the main area of the city where everyone was staying. If people wanted it, you needed to say yes when you RSVP’d (important for later). They picked a really nice place in Spain, so when our friend group was booking accommodation some people booked hotels, mainly the couples, and others booked an Airbnb. I booked an Airbnb with three other friends: Chris (M, 29), Mark (M, 30) and Sarah (F, 29).
​
Anyway, the lead up to the wedding, no issues, no drama, all good. I was talking to the Bride about a month before the wedding and she mentioned a lot of people said yes to the transport from the venue back to the city after the wedding, so she booked a coach. The plan was the first would arrive, pick people up and drop them off and then come back and pick up the rest. She messaged everyone this detail in our group chat.
​
So, wedding day. And it was a great day. Food good. Speeches went really well and the place was beautiful. Everyone had a great time and it was just great to be in a room with all your friends in one place again. Both Bride and Groom had a great time, although they did get really drunk. Not really a problem, as they were having a good time and that’s all we wanted for them, but it didn’t help with what happened next.
​
As the night went on, some people left early and got a taxi, so they weren’t getting the coach. Also to note, the Bride had given a list to the organiser for the driver on who was supposed to get on the coach first and who was getting on the second pick up. It wasn’t communicated with anyone but we figured it’ll work out on the night. The first ‘coach’ arrives at the end of the night and it’s not a coach but 3 taxis. It got disorganised from here. The Bride and Groom got frustrated as nobody knew if they should get on this one or wait for the next one. The drivers were frustrated and the organiser for the drivers was screaming people’s names to get in the taxis. But since some people had already left, it added to the confusion. So the organiser put the list on a table of everyone who was supposed to get in the first trip back and told everyone if your name is on the list to get in one of the taxis asap. Myself, Chris, Mark and Sarah checked the list since we’re all in the Airbnb together and we weren’t on it, so we figured we’re on the next one.
​
Eventually the taxis got filled and off they went. About 30 mins later they were back for round 2. At this stage the Bride and Groom were stressed and annoyed at the situation so I told them to just grab their stuff and I’ll help the organiser sort the list this time. So they left me to it. I sat with the organiser in the venue and we went through the list of the people who had already left. Me and my friends from the Airbnb noticed that none of us were on this list either, so I told them we’ll order an Uber for ourselves once I’m done sorting the taxis for everyone else, since we realised from a head count there were still too many people for the taxis. Then I’m running around with the organiser and helping get everyone into the taxis. During this I checked on the Bride’s mum and dad to make sure they have a space and they said yes, they are getting in a taxi with the Bride’s sister.
​
So most people got in the taxis and others ordered an Uber so everyone had a way back. I head over to my friends and tell them we can book an Uber now, but the organiser calls us over and says she can fit us all in one of the taxis and to jump in. So we do and the only other people in this taxi are the Bride and Groom. We open the door and the Bride and Groom tell us to “get in! get in!”. We do. Door shuts. Off we go. Then the Groom loses his absolute shit.
​
Groom starts screaming at the four of us saying we ruined their night, what the fuck are you doing. We wanted Bride’s family in this taxi with us. He’s proper losing his shit. We just stayed silent. Not sure how to react or what was going on. Then Bride tries to tell him “No. I never sent them the updated list” but he carries on in a cycle shouting and screaming at us and ignored her comment. Bride then kept quiet. One thing to know about the Groom is, when he’s drunk he gets very argumentative and he is always right. Always. Like if he is drunk and says the sky is red. It’s fucking red. And if you correct him he just gets nasty and argues more. This continues the whole car ride. When we got dropped off, Sarah apologised to the Bride and the Bride says “Well, you guys did ruin the night”, completely ignoring the fact all of us heard her mention she never sent an updated list. We just shut the door and then Sarah starts having a panic attack. She got stressed out because she thought we ruined their wedding. We chill for a bit until Sarah calms down and then head back to our Airbnb. We’re like what the fuck was that about. We just start debriefing on what just went down, then I start getting texts from the Groom saying “What the fuck”, “fuck you”, “ruined our wedding. Hope you're happy”. I didn’t reply. We just stayed up and talked more about it before going to bed.
​
The next day we were supposed to join the wedding party in a pub for Day 2 but we decided not to go. I did get messages from the Bride and Groom just letting us know what the plan was. They texted me as if nothing had happened. They pretty much were brushing the Groom's reaction in the taxi under the rug. Which they’ve always done and I wasn’t surprised. I was the only one who they texted so instead of going we met up with the rest of our friend group and filled them in. That turned into us day drinking and just talking about other times the Groom has acted like this, which basically everyone has their own drunken Groom angry at them story. My mates did then say to me that they know I’m close with both of them but they always felt they treated me like shit and I just put up with it. One of the boys said ‘”You’re their shoulder to cry on when they need you but you're also their punchbag when they want you to be”. I know, deep ha. But this did stick with me and I decided then to just be done with them. I knew I’d bring it up with them later but I didn’t want to talk about anything or bring this up with them while they’re celebrating their wedding and in the honeymoon phase. So we had two more days in Spain before we all went home and we just didn’t reply to them or meet up the rest of the trip.
​
One week later. Still no contact with Bride and Groom. I didn’t reach out, they didn’t either. As far as I knew they didn’t think there was a problem. Then I get a knock on my door and it’s the Bride’s mum. I wasn’t expecting her and she said she was just passing by and dropped by to see if everything was ok. I just told her yeah, work was just really busy while I was away and I’ve been swamped playing catch up. This was bullshit but I didn’t want to complain about the Bride to her mum and I also didn’t want to seem that I’m kicking off an argument between us when they just got married. Bride’s mum then said to me that she thought it was odd she didn’t see me around Bride and Groom after the wedding and just wanted to check if everything was ok. She told me she said the same thing to Bride and Groom and they said everything is fine but there was an issue with the taxis and Bride’s Mum and Dad were supposed to be in their taxi with them when they left after the wedding. Bride’s Mum then said “Nobody told us that was the plan. We just got in a taxi that was bringing us back”. So basically Bride’s mum unintentionally confirmed to me that this ‘plan’ of them all being together on the way home after the venue was bullshit.
​
About two months after the wedding, I get a text from the Bride. First contact since the wedding. She just said she hasn’t heard from me in a while and wanted to check in. At this point I felt it’s been enough time since the wedding, I’ll let them know why I’ve been keeping my distance. I tried to be as mature as possible. I just said ‘yeah I wanted to take some space. The Groom losing his shit at us was out of line. And no apology afterwards and trying to brush it under the rug was shitty’. Bride then sends me an essay about how they were frustrated too and were expecting an apology from me but they forgive me and want to put it behind us. I just told her ‘I don’t want to hash everything all out. You're missing a lot of information. This isn’t a situation where we were all in the wrong. I think we should just stay no contact’. I was just really pissed off that they thought I should apologise and also if we were in the wrong, why am I the only one getting messages from them? They never messaged Chris, Mark or Sarah and expected an apology from them. Also, why is Bride reaching out? I did want an apology from her too but the Groom kicked all this off and should be reaching out. No? The Bride then replied with an angry message that she’s the only one looking to fix things and she won’t be chasing me again. And I left it at that.
​
Latest update was about a week ago now. This is coming up to a year since the wedding and a few months of no contact from my last text messages with the Bride. I get a message from the Groom threatening to beat me up and put me in hospital if I keep talking shit about Bride (Which is hilarious. I’m a big boy, the Groom is tiny. If I sit on him he’s fucked ha). Now I get this message MONTHS after the wedding and my last messages with the Bride. We’ve all moved on from this story. Don’t know how it’s brought back up to them. I’m guessing through mutual friends. But I feel pretty much over it now (I guess not as much as I thought since I’m posting this on reddit now ha). Miss the friendship I thought we had but it’s done now. So I just blocked them everywhere and that’s it.
​
There might be an update down the line. Haven’t seen them in person since the wedding and we still have a lot of mutual friends although a lot of people have gone no/low contact with them from the wedding. Other shit went down with other people but I’m not involved with that and not my story to tell. I thought about putting this story up on reddit for a while but feel I already got validation with my friends that I didn’t do anything wrong so I guess I’m looking for strangers on the internet to tell me otherwise if I’m missing anything. Also, I’m annoyed the Bride and Groom are missing a lot of information on what really happened and don’t want to hear anything else in case that puts them in a bad light so I like the idea if it ever comes up with them again, I’d just send them this reddit post with the key information. But that sounds petty and I’d rather we just keep not speaking anymore.
​
Although I had to leave some more details out as this was getting way too long but kept the key information in. So reddit AITA?
​
​