True Life Bride Wars: Negotiating with a Friend

After just watching the Anne Hathaway/Kate Hudson flick, Bride Wars, I am reminiscent of the dispute my best friend and I had about our weddings.

We were born two weeks apart, engaged two weeks apart, shouldn’t it be fitting that our weddings be two weeks apart? One of thought so, the other didn’t. Krystal was engaged first and being the planner that she is, quickly set the date.

I was given the coveted title Maid of Honor. I was determined to be the best MOH there could be and I even bought a book on the subject.

When my boyfriend proposed two weeks later, the only date that fit into our busy school and work schedules was two weeks before my friends’. Since we were to be each others Maids of Honor, this put a little pressure on things.

Krystal asked me politely, at first, to move my date so we wouldn’t encounter conflicts. Being the people pleaser that I am, I wanted to comply, but had to clear it with my fiancé first. To my dismay, he was not ok with this. I relayed the message to my friend and, understandably, she was not too happy.

At this point I didn’t care when our wedding was, I just didn’t want anyone to be mad at me! Unfortunately there is not always a win-win solution for both sides. I decided to side with my future husband. After all, a 20 year friendship should be able to weather this sort of thing, right?

Well my next mistake was the icing on the cake! I made the mistake of having my fiancée relay our wedding wishes to my friend so he could tell her his side of the story. This did not go over too well and my friend and I stopped speaking. Talk about a bad time to lose your best friend!

As our weddings approached, replacements were made for position of MOH and arrangements were finalized. Krystal and I still were not talking, but I secretly kept tabs on her through MySpace.

When I saw the picture of the wedding dress she was planning to wear, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the exact same one as mine!

Somehow after that I think we both realized how silly our conflict had become. After all, your wedding is supposed to be one of the most memorable days of your life. We slowly rebuilt the friendship and wore matching dresses on our wedding days.

After nearly four years, and three kids later, we can look back on our wedding war and laugh. If only I had the conflict resolution and negotiation skills that I have now, we might have worked out our issue and been able to be there to support each other during one of life’s biggest changes.