Friend of the Bride Question

[osmatar]

Hey, I'm new. And I have a question!

A friend of mine from high school is getting married in a few months and since we've been friends for so long she wanted me to be involved somehow. She actually lives on the east coast and I live in the midwest so we don't see each other very often, therefore I wasn't suprise to hear that I would not actually BE in the wedding. My friend asked me, instead, to make a speech at the reception. I'm totally fine with this involvement (although a tad nervous about speechmaking).

The problem came yesterday when she sent me an email asking me to videotape the wedding/reception/rehearsal dinner as well. I studied video in college so it makes sense why she would ask me, but at the same time I haven't used a camera since then...almost five years ago. In all honesty I don't want to do it. I don't think I'll be able to enjoy the actual event if I'm behind the camera the whole time. Plus, the guy I'm seeing lives in the same city so I was hoping to spend some time with him as well.

The problem is I feel really bad about not wanting to do it and I don't know what to tell the Bride. I know she's trying to keep cost down and me doing this would really help. So should I just suck it up and do as the Bride asks or should I tell her my thoughts on it and hope she'll still invite me? :)

Any advice would be helpful. Thanks.

[asm198]

I once offered to be a 'personal assistant' to someone that I became friends with about 6 months before her wedding. It started out just being someone she could do wedding stuff with and to be a kind of 'runner' the day of the wedding. That turned into so much more and I didn't get to enjoy hardly any of the wedding.

Basically, the bride started out planning a pretty modest wedding, but that morphed into a massive thing with no time left. So, basically anything that she suddenly decided she desperately needed, I was appointed to do.

I would nicely tell her you just can't do it. If you really want to go above and beyond, maybe you could do a bit of research and give her the numbers of some colleges in her area that have a video production (or whatever) major and suggest she contact them instead.

It's been my experience that this turns into a nasty cycle and you could end up running the entire show. For free, of course.

[allie1105]

Although this particular situation never happened to me, I always seemed to get roped into doing things I don't want to do. I have trouble telling people no - I am a people pleaser, and so I feel as though saying no to things like this would upset the other person.

I think you should do exactly what asm said - figure out what colleges are in the area and get some numbers for her. This way, you are still helping her out and saying no. You could always take the stance that you REALLy don't feel comfortable and haven't done anything like this in many years. Also, I don't know if this is applicable to you, but when my husband and I got married, we didn't have a videographer, but a friend did tape our wedding. He went to film school and did it as a gift to us - we never asked him. However, we never got the tape (this was about 2 years ago!) because he didn't have the software he needed to edit it and do what he wanted with it. Can you use that excuse? You don't have the necessary software to do what she would want?

[osmatar]

I think you should do exactly what asm said - figure out what colleges are in the area and get some numbers for her. This way, you are still helping her out and saying no. You could always take the stance that you REALLy don't feel comfortable and haven't done anything like this in many years. Also, I don't know if this is applicable to you, but when my husband and I got married, we didn't have a videographer, but a friend did tape our wedding. He went to film school and did it as a gift to us - we never asked him. However, we never got the tape (this was about 2 years ago!) because he didn't have the software he needed to edit it and do what he wanted with it. Can you use that excuse? You don't have the necessary software to do what she would want?


I actually could use this excuse because, since changing jobs, I don't have the software to edit a video. I'm actually really excited to go to the wedding because I don't see her very often, or any of my high school friends really, so it'll be nice to hang out with everyone, which is another reason I don't want to spend time on videotaping.

I like the suggestion of helping out by finding names she can refer to. Thanks for the idea!

[winneythepooh7]

As a recent bride, I definitely recommend telling her no now so she has ample time to find someone else. Even if it will cost her ;). Sometimes I think people who are getting married go through their list of friends and think about what each one does for a living so maybe they can get a discount or freebie out of them for their day.

When I was planning my wedding, we were planning to use a friend of my husband's as the photographer, because he works for one in his professional life. Well, I had to hear through the grapevine that his wife got a promotion in Hawaii so they'd be moving. He didn't even bother to call us to tell us he probably wouldn't be able to do the wedding. I ended up finding someone whose actual business was doing wedding photography and I am much happier with my choice, even though it cost me a litte bit more ;).