Dropping Out of a Wedding

"Hi Marie.. I need to talk to you about the wedding. I really appreciate you wanting me to be part of your special day. The expense of the dress and everything is just too much for me right now. I value our friendship, I love you as one of my closest friends and I hope you understand."

You can maybe talk to her and express how you feel. If she is still passive aggressive, drop out and just attend as a regular guest.

Definitely let her know how her expectations and how her, her mother's, and her MOH's attitudes are making you feel. Tell her it is not in your budget to purchase a $250 dress either. The way she decides to hold her wedding is out of your hands and you shouldn't chastise her for the tables and chairs (even though her doing that is ridiculous), but everything else is very valid on your part.

Unfortunately, you can't control how she feels about you deciding to drop out, but that's on her and not you. Just be as kind as possible and hope for the best honestly. If she's upset now, hopefully she'll come around later.

I agree with just being honest. It sounds like you realize that she isn't normally like this so be prepared for her to be upset but if you're willing, maybe you can revisit your relationship after her wedding regardless of how it goes. I would back out because I think it would damage my relationship more with someone to be continually treated like this (I didn't even deal with my own wedding every weekend).

I hope other brides read this and consider how they treat their friends while they are planning weddings. Once the wedding is over you still want to have the relationship in place you had before hand so be respectful and thoughtful.

I mentioned those other things in my earlier response only because I remember your other threads.

This COULD be friendship-ending, but it's hard to say. It's different than asking about bride dumping a bridesmaid because, from the way you're making this friend sound, she hasn't been treating you very well at all and doesn't seem to care about anyone other than herself. No friend should be treating another that way and expecting everything to be fine and dandy. I think you're absolutely within your right to let her know how you feel and that you think it would be better if you stepped down. It's just hard to know what her response would be; both initially and later on. Maybe she'd be pissed, maybe she'd have a wake-up call, who knows.