I think it's safe to post this because it has been more than a few years but I firmly insist that this not get posted outside of reddit. This one's about a now ex-friend who was invited as a bridesmaid. It’s a long story and I apologize for my English if it’s bad. Names have been changed.

To start, my friend Sara was getting married, and she invited our friend group (who mostly got together in college) to become part of the bridal party. I was lucky enough to also be invited as a bridesmaid. The now-ex-friend Lia was also invited to be one.

Sara not "own a country" rich, but she is still massively wealthy, and her marriage is to an equally (if not more) insanely rich family. She's is also really one of the nicest, sweetest people I know. None of our friend circle are anywhere close to her financial and social status, but she always makes sure to include us in her life along with her rich friends because she says she connects with us more (we have same hobbies and interests, it's how we all met). Example, in one of Sara's major birthday milestones, we were all invited to her multi-million-worth celebration in a big event location, and we all got a beautiful custom gown (for free!!) because we were part of the program for a dance routine. (this is important later)

Anyway, the point is, she's a wonderful person who loves us and gives with an open hand, and so for her wedding she invites our friend circle as part of the bridal entourage at her big wedding. What's more, all we literally had to do was be there when needed, because she (and her fiance) would be handling all costs. It was kind of a unbelievable surprise for us.

Our now ex-friend Lia was also invited as a bridal party member. We met her as part of our common-interest group and she was normal, she was alright, I always thought. But her entitlement started to show a little when Sara would do things for us. Sara used to offer to give us rides home when it was late, and Lia grew to expect it all the time after. She also came by often at Sara's house, sometimes without warning, she'd just arrive and expect to be welcome and stay all day or sleep over. Lia would also make comments during get-togethers like a joke to Sara like, "ah, is it your treat today?" and get all happy when Sara gives in to say yes (she usually does) even though the rest of us tell Sara she didn't have to.

During that birthday I mentioned, Lia was super happy to get the free fancy gown too and would tell everyone who’d listen how she sat in front of rich people and celebrities. During the holidays Lia would always talk about how excited she is to receive Sara's presents for us because she always gives great presents (like jewelry, makeup, sometimes gadgets…). In the group chat she’d drop lots of hints of “Oh I wish I could have this for birthday/Christmas/etc” with a picture of an expensive thing.

It was uncomfortable at times, but I didn't think was too harmful or anything during that period, because Sara didn't mind or say anything about it. And I thought maybe it was just because Lia didn’t have nice things like this growing up, so she was enjoying it… So when Lia was also part of the bridal party, I didn’t think there was anything unusual about that. But in the group chat, before Sara even told us what she and her fiance had planned, Lia was already expecting to be part of the bridal party, thought it’d be the "red carpet event" of the year, and already bragging to other people about being part of it. And she even said, quote, "and at the price of zero!" because she didn't expect to pay for anything or do anything.

It was really stressful to see the expectant way she talked to Sara about it as well. Lia wanted the whole bridal party to have a spa day at this expensive place so they "could get beautiful" for the big day. She was asking about Sara's plans for bachelorette party and if we were going to fly to a different country and how many days it would be. The rest of us were kind of baffled because we thought bachelorette party was supposed to be OUR job to hold for Sara, especially after everything she's done for us. Apparently Lia expected it to come from Sara too, like a vacation package.

And Lia even warned everyone about "her schedule" and that it needs to be at a date when she could get some days off from her job so she could be available. And she told Sara she wanted to come help her "pick out a dress" so she could give her suggestions. Huh?? Sara said that she wasn't "picking out" a dress, a designer was making it bespoke for her, and Lia went all in. Asking which designer it was (It's not a name like Chanel or Dior, but if I said the name, you may recognize the designer immediately), what the style was going to be, and that she could come to Sara's fittings so she could supervise...

Around this point, some of us started to gently remind Lia that it's likely going to be Sara's family to accompany her to this kind of thing, and that the dress will surely be beautiful and up to Sara's wants, and that WE have to plan bachelorette party. Lia matter of factly said that Sara could tell her family that she was coming too, that they all knew her, and that she "was Sara's sister too." Okay.... Lia added that she was also happy to help with "ideas" for the bachelorette party (and evidently, with full expectation that Sara will pay for it).

Lia was so lost in her own expectations that we opened a separate group chat without her because she wasn't listening to any of us, and apparently I wasn't the only one starting to worry that Lia was getting to be too much. The others pointed out Lia's actions even before this, and we started to notice that pattern of her being expectant of Sara all the time. I mean, I know Sara might've afforded it all without blinking but Lia's words and actions felt very entitled all the same.

Anyway the problems really started here. When I reminded the others in the group chat about bachelorette party plans and how we can pool resources to do this fun thing, Lia would brush it off. Either she would say it was a boring plan and not “classy” enough to do for Sara, or she’d want to know why we had to pool money for it when Sara could afford it for everyone. Or if she wouldn’t, someone else from her rich friends should. I tried to say that it was because we wanted to do something fun that Sara likes that it doesn’t have to be an expensive activity, it’s about making sure Sara had a great time after all she’s getting married and has always done so much for us. Lia only insisted that it was too “low” for Sara to stoop to things like we were planning. (Which is weird, because Sara already does things like that with us and enjoys them.)

And Lia didn’t show up to our planning meet ups either. She was always saying she couldn’t come, busy doing something else, so we stopped asking her and she didn’t initiate contact. I’d known Sara the longest of our friends so I was the one mostly communicating with her about fun stuff she might want to do for the bachelorette and she was very happy about them.

So some of us met with Sara and her sister (the Maid of Honor) to talk about plans, and Sara then asked if we thought Lia was maybe acting a little weird. We were surprised because she’d never said anything about it before. And Sara explained that Lia had been bombarding her with messages about this wedding (when the rest of us hadn’t heard from Lia much at all) and about all the things that was going to happen, asking of all the details and what the bridal party gets to do. And if Sara didn’t answer, she’d even literally come by Sara’s house and wait there until Sara came home.

Her sister Emma also told us that Lia acted funny around her as well, always wanting to know what Emma got to wear and do, and had some side-comment to say when she found our that the Maid of Honor got to have a different dress from the bridesmaids, how she got to sit in a nicer table, did a different thing at the ceremony… And more than once, apparently Lia made comments about knowing what a MOH does if Sara needed an “understudy” or something for the MOH—It was just…unbelievable.

Anyway I don’t know what Lia was actually doing all this time because she was always “busy” for us, but when we met with Sara, we got a lot of planning done, even talked about the dresses each of us bridesmaids were going to get (each gets a different “style” of dress but they were all part of the same theme, and they were all bespoke, I could’ve cried because it would easily be the most beautiful thing I’d ever worn in my life) and the fitting and rehearsal times/days. And Sara seemed to feel a lot better talking to us because this seemed to have been weighing on her for a while now. She started contacting me more, and, as we found out later, talking with Lia less.

After one such very fun and productive day, the group chat imploded suddenly with Lia accusing us of backstabbing her. She saw that Sara posted about going to a hyper expensive salon with her sister for skincare and hair dyeing and that Lia didn’t know about it and that because we met up with Sara earlier in the day, clearly we didn’t tell Lia about it on purpose. NONE OF US knew Sara was going to do that after our meet up and certainly none of us went with her, and we told Lia that. And while that made her feel a little better, she said she was mad that we didn’t tell her we were meeting with Sara. And we told her we tried and she’s never available so we stopped asking, and she said she “would’ve come if she knew Sara would be there.”

Well.

It got worse as it went on. Lia came to the rehearsals (there’s a whole program set up for ceremony and reception and we actually needed to practice because it was like a stage performance, very pretty for the wedding video). And Lia would get very mad about where she was supposed to go walk and stand. She wanted to be at the head of the lines. She’d complain she wouldn’t be seen if she stood next to one of our taller friends. She kind of whined when we got assigned our escorts among the groomsmen and she didn’t get paired up with this guy who is a bit famous as a celebrity. Stuff like that.

I was very worried about Sara because she seemed to be getting stressed out (she hates confrontation and finds it uncomfortable) with all of this from Lia. The rest of us tried to herd Lia along and to make a laugh out of some of her whining to lighten the mood for everyone. Fortunately, Sara had a very scary (and apparently expensive) wedding coordinator and choreographer who sort of bullied Lia to place during practices. Unfortunately, Lia would whine about this bullying to Sara later. Saying her coordinators were mean and how we, who were supposed to be her friends, were making fun of her when we tried to make light of her complaints.

It came to a head during the fittings. Lia was busy (again) and would be late but SWORE she would come and demanded that we all wait for her but we went on. We all enjoyed the fittings because the designer’s shop was just AMAZING and the people there were so nice and they adored Sara. We got to fit into these beautiful dresses which clearly cost a fortune and we couldn’t stop thanking Sara for all of this. Sara was even so thoughtful that she had each of us wear these jeweled brooches to pin the sash part of the dresses. While we all fitted, we talked about the bachelorette plans and Sara was very excited about it and said her fiancé also wanted to make sure “us girls” got pampered and get us that getaway Lia initially proposed.

Lia arrived in the middle of all of this, and she saw all of us and I swear, I’d never seen her look so unhappy to see us. She smiled for Sara of course, and wanted to know where her (Lia’s) dress was. And oh my god, her face when she saw her dress. You’d think they offered her a potato sack and not a gorgeous designer gown. She wanted to know why hers was “different”, and was reminded that everyone’s was different. She was scowling and criticizing the dress the whole time she was getting fitted, wanting alterations, wanted it to look more like Emma’s, and all that. She even said it “wasn’t her color” (umm…the color is part of the wedding theme???) and wanted a different color. She wanted to know if we even got jewelry to go with the outfit.

When she got given the brooch, the first thing out of her mouth was, “I’m keeping this, right?” and shocking as that was (because I mean that was a pricey piece of jewelry right there), when Sara went to give Emma this little tiara (which is sort of like a scaled down mini-version of the tiara she as the bride would wear), Lia asked if she would be getting a “crown” too.

I don’t know what actually set Lia off. As far as I know, a group of us were just standing there cooing at ourselves in the mirror because we all “looked so cute” in our theme colors and pretty dresses and taking photos. I just know Emma made a joking comment about how no one is allowed to post anything yet, no one can show pictures, and Lia made a comment back that was along the lines of the dresses being obviously unfinished, who would want to post them when they still “looked like this.” In front of the dressmakers!! Sara was very shocked and hurt by that because she had picked the styles for each of us which she thought we’d love and look our best in individually.

Lia just…exploded. Saying that clearly, Sara was being scammed by the rest of us because Lia got the “worst” dress and the “worst” brooch, just like during Sara’s birthday event (we all had the same dress!!!) and how we’ve all been backstabbing her because we apparently made sure she was never informed about these things so she can get saddled with the worst stuff and now she’s not even allowed to show people the dress and jewelry and how she has the “worst” spot and we were all using Sara. That we, and I, manipulated Sara to make her stop talking to Lia and isolate her from us and to make Sara give her the worst things out of the group.

Sara just melted down and started crying because none of that was true, she’d tried so hard to make everyone look so nice and she had honestly given us SO MUCH and the rest of us ended up straight up SCREAMING at Lia for this telling her she was ungrateful and greedy. And Lia just KEPT. GOING. Saying we were all shitty friends to her and always have been because we didn’t want her to have nice things that she worked so hard for. (???)

That really ended the fitting (we apologized millions of times to the people in the shop) and we told Lia to leave but she refused to until she “got her dress and jewelry and shoes because Sara promised they were hers.” We called Sara’s fiancé to come pick her up because she was crying so much from the stress. And when her fiancé arrived and saw Sara in such a state he asked what happened and Lia started yelling AGAIN and he told her to shut the fuck up. (This is a guy that does not swear normally.) He had heard from the groomsmen about how Lia acted in the rehearsals, he’d heard some stuff from Sara about her and Emma had told him even more and he matter of factly said that he wanted Lia out of the wedding. Lia was so mad and insisted that Sara is the one who wants her at the wedding. I could barely believe she had the guts because she was talking to the groom here!

Anyway he just told her to shut the fuck up again and that she was out of the wedding, so there, and demanded that the shop throw her out. She didn’t put up a fight about the dress and the jewelry then but she threatened to make a big social media post exposing all of us about abusing her. I was really terrified that she’d do it and ruin my friend’s wedding and smear her reputation. And she did post, and it was in a friends-locked private post so it wasn’t public so I imagine Sara's and her fiance’s family threatened her with a lawsuit if she said things publicly maybe? I’m not sure. But she was very much painting herself the victim and drumming up sympathy.

All I know is none of us talked to Lia again even when she tried to talk to us, after everything she said, especially when she was asking about times and dates (she really thought she was still going!). From mutual friends, we heard that she kept making the nastiest locked posts ever every time Sara would make a post about wedding prep, about our “cheap” bachelorette event, and got very salty when we did go overseas together. She was silent when the wedding day happened.

I’ve not tried to contact her since, though recently she apparently is orbiting around our extended friend group probably trying to get back in, and we would not let her talk to Sara again. But I assure you, Sara and her husband had a wonderful, uneventful, fairytale-like wedding beyond our wildest dreams and are very happy.

(Anyway: tl;dr – Bridesmaid takes advantage of a generous bride and acts so entitled that the groom and the whole friend group throws her out of the wedding, losing all the friends and advantages she’d gained.)