I am one of 5 bridesmaids, DH is one of 5 groomsmen and our son is the ring bearer for a very posh type $100,000 wedding…There is no MOH or Best Man.
All the bridesmaids got together and planned what we thought was going to be a fun shower type event (the bride wants 3 showers). Ours, the bride wanted to be fun and for the younger crowd of wedding guests.
One of the bridesmaids slipped and let out some of the details…only for the bride to break out in hysterics screaming and crying almost to the point of hyperventilating, saying that it wasn’t what she wanted and that none of her bridesmaids knew her as well as she thought and we were all clueless and our ideas were completely TACKY! The groom then chimed in saying that having a co-ed shower (which was being done to honor him as well) was ridiculous, because most of the people would be couples, and couples won’t give two separate gifts! He then went on and on about how the showers were to be a money maker and to lavish them with gifts.
This went on to the point that both myself and another bridesmaid AND the bride’s mother were in tears…
The Zillas went on to say how they were stressed because of the cost of their wedding and the bridal party should be saving money on the shower to put towards a large check to help pay for “the main event”.
I am beyond mad with this whole event. We have since changed the venue and guest list as well as theme, food, favours and everything else in between…only to get an email last night saying that we need to change it all over again because this isn’t what they want either!!! 0312-09
It is quite possible and even acceptable to “fire” oneself from being a wedding attendant. “I’m so sorry but we can no longer continue in our roles as groomsman/bridesmaid due to unforeseen circumstances. We wish you all the best for the future and your marriage.” No need to explain what, exactly, the unforeseen circumstances are.
There is no point in trying to please the ungrateful, greedy people of this world.
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I would get out of that situation as soon as possible.
The bride and the groom both sound like immature brats!
I posted awhile back a story about how I was invited to my “good friend'” wedding shower,
only to come to find out I was NOT invited to the wedding.
I think I dodged a bullet though, because another friend (who was furious I didn’t get an invite) told me after the fact that if she would’ve heard the words “It’s MY DAY!!!” one more time she was tempted to push the brides face into the wedding cake.
One more: My folks traveled to another state a few years ago to my sister’s second wedding.
One night they are all sitting around enjoying good food and wine and happy conversation when my mom hears my sister complaining to her friends that one gal who couldn’t attend sent a gift that wasn’t “up to par ” with my sister’s expectations.
“Well….I KNOW how much money she rakes in, she could have afforded a MUCH BETTER gift than the crap she sent me!!!”
My mom said she choked on her wine and said “SUSIE!!! The whole point of this is to celebrate your WEDDING, not collect cash and prizes!!!”
My sisters friends just rolled their eyes like “Oh, you silly woman.”
Snorting coffee… LOVE the one more “It’s my day!” = Wedding Cake Face! (At least in the realm of imagination, where Etiquette Hell is loath to intrude provided that no act comes of the thought…)
This also said that lovely bride actually stomped her feet and had a tantrum like a two year old when she saw how the caterer cut up the cake for the guests.
It want how she and the groom “envisioned it”. It’s CAKE, for God’s sake.
Everyone at the reception stopped to see what was going on, and my friend happened to be standing next to the brides mom when this happened and said to her “What happened?!?”
The brides mom took a VERY big gulp of champagne and through gritted teeth said, “It’s her day.”
….this *friend* also said….
….it *wasn’t* how she and the groom…. Those should say….
Sheesh, auto correct!
Well, if the caterer cut up the cake before people had a chance to see it/bride and groom had a chance to take pictures with it, et cetera, then I’d understand, but if that had all happened, and the cake just wasn’t cut exactly the way the bride wanted, then I agree; she was being a Bridezilla.
The caterer didn’t cut up the cake in the size and shape the bride requested they be cut in….what size and shape she wanted???
No one knows just what her “vision” was.
and why is it always MY DAY oh I hate that when watching the bride shows OH IT IS MY DAY…and by the way Kicks I LOVE your stories!!!
Awwww….thank you!
You made MY DAY! 🙂
….and THREE showers?!? Sheesh.
“The bride wants three showers” isn’t just a red flag, it’s ALL the red flags.
Agreed!
I think every child dreams of having a lavish party where they are the center of everyone’s adoration and they get everything they want. Who wouldn’t? However, if you’re not mature enough to budget appropriately for your party, if you’re throwing tantrums because other people’s parties don’t meet your expectations, then you’re not ready to marry. It doesn’t matter whether you’re 14, 24, 44, or 74, you’ve got a lot of growing up to do before you can consider yourself to be an adult.
Can you back out while using the bride’s own words?
I’d tell her that clearly “none of her bridesmaids knew her as well as she thought,” so I felt that I couldn’t be a bridesmaid for someone I didn’t know that well.
Sneaky – I like it!
Perfect response to all of this nonsense! Can you imagine what this pair’s marriage will be like?
3 showers…tacky gift grab. Someone gift this couple a book on etiquette ASAP.
I would cancel the shower outright. I would also withdraw as an attendant.
If they are so stressed about the money they are spending, perhaps they should scale everything down. Frankly spending $100k on a wedding is ridiculous unless you are extremely wealthy and it isn’t a problem at all.
The shower thing is a deal breaker for sure. That sort of behaviour ends a friendship.
I don’t understand why the wedding party is also in charge of the venue and guest list and menu.
Are the bride and groom involved in any decision making? If they’re not, how can they complain? If they are, why don’t they take responsibility?
Your friends seem to be selfish, lazy, and immature. So be sure to expect a continuation of this behaviour.
I don’t really buy that perfectly normal people turn into freaks during wedding preps and then go back to normal. An uncharacteristic hissy fit, here and there I’ll buy, but on going horrid behaviour that keeps repeating suggests there must have been these traits in their personalities to begin with. It’s rare for two such people to find each other.
Oh, I agree. I think weddings can cause stress and mini-meltdowns, but some people are just born drama queens/kings and the “it’s my day” crap has just caused it to be worse.
Oh I thought they meant the venue and stuff for the shower, not the wedding.
Anyways if they aren’t happy with the plans, then they should sit down with their “friends” and tell them exactly what they want. But this is all ridiculous. Three showers.
I never understand this. So, these people are totally normal, gracious, good friends on a regular day, but throw in an impending wedding and they turn into rude, entitled, ungrateful jerks? I can see maybe, due to stress, very occasionally being a bit short with someone or dominating all social events leading up the wedding with incessant wedding talk. But turning into a completely different person? I just don’t see how it happens.
This is an old submission, but if this were new, my advice would be to drop out of the wedding as soon as the happy couple told you that you should be helping them pay for the cost of their wedding in lieu of a shower. Or maybe earlier when the bride dismissed your plans as tacky and said you must not know her well. I’d probably drop out of the friendship as well until the couple apologized and acknowledged their horrible behavior.
Some people can put up a nice facade until something that really angers them happens – ruining something of ‘their special day’ can be just the chisel that lets you see who they are.
I would have been out of there the minute I heard “the bride wants three showers”. When someone is that blatantly a gimmie pig, it’s your cue to run as fast as you can!
Lady V, you are SOOOOO right!!
This can’t even be true. The bridesmaids should be saving money on the shower so they could present the bride and groom with a “large check” to help cover the wedding? What!??!?!? Who are these people? I would definitely back out – this ungrateful couple isn’t worth the trouble.
Can I just say I would have loved a coed shower when I was getting married?
I would absolutely love to have a coed shower. I’m hoping I can talk my fiancee into having one.
Run. Away. Take the child.
where I live, 3 showers or more is not uncommon. You invite different sets of people to each one, like work friends at one, couples at another, church friends at a 3rd.
What struck me as ridiculous was the statement that the bridesmaids need to save money to give to the HC to help pay the cost of the wedding. where is this done?
but again, we have a story where people are jumping through hoops and doing whatever the bride says. Changing venue 2 times and the theme because the shower is not up to her standards? I’d just refuse to throw it at this point.
The biggest red flag is spending $100,000 on a wedding. Unless you or your parents are very wealthy that is just ridicoulus. It’s so illogical, you can’t help but get some craziness from the bride and groom, because they obviously are not thinking clearly. For instance, i would expect that this couple expects gifts to be in the several hundred dollar range or higher, and other stuff.
The problem is that with today’s inflation that isn’t even such an over the top wedding anymore, especially with handling about 300-350 guests and 3-5 attendants on each side. (a lot of churches I grew up with, that would be their capacity) Aka for 300 guests that is $333.00 a guest. With cater, venue, and the cake, photog, tux rentals, flowers, bride’s dress… not an out of the park but upper scale wedding. About 25 years ago one of my nieces went through college, got degree and met her spouse, went to work for three years and saved for the BWW she had always dreamed of, as her father would never be able to afford it. For 325 guests that one did top $50k. She was a beautiful woman and looked like she stepped out of Bride Magazine and she had EVERYTHING. Today I doubt you could put that one on for under $150k. More years back the one my mother had planned for me since I was four, was $45k for about as many guests–but there wasn’t that budget there and I fought the whole thing and won as she just couldn’t fathom you could put that on for $3k–it wouldn’t even buy the flowers. And at that time the menu was $35 a plate catered…
So after all that, no, $100k seems like a lot but it’s where weddings may be heading. An average large family wedding here in a rural area is now falling in the $20-30k consistently and in bigger cities it just costs more…
I’m not even sure “unforeseen circumstances” are necessary. “Unfortunate circumstances” surrounding the bride and groom’s overreaction to the shower planning should be sufficient. “I’m sorry you were disappointed in our efforts to plan these events. It seems we were more sentimental than you would have liked and less fiscally minded than was expected. I’m afraid that I’m unable to swap hats and fulfill my role to those standards and must therefore resign the honor.” Truth spoken, no overt insult offered. Done.
Words fail me. Okay, maybe they don’t. I’m with Admin: Time to bow out gracefully and let the Zillas stress themselves to the point of no return. I’m strongly encouraging my daughter to elope. Seriously. Not that she would be like this, but because she was a MOH last summer and it all kind of fell apart because of Bridezilla. P.S. that couple was married less than two months.
Three showers and no couples because they wouldn’t give 2 gifts? Showers that were supposed to be moneymakers to help pay for the “main event” *and* lavish them with gifts? Nope. I would have backed out immediately.
I’ve been reading this site for years now and I am still amazed by all the people that think their friends and family are supposed to pay for their wedding, reception and honeymoon. Then, if the couple decides to have children, they think friends and family are supposed to give them a shower for each child and buy all the big ticket items (cribs, strollers, car seats). Maybe I have bad friends and family, but there were no showers of any kind and I still managed to get married and raise my children.
Five-year-old’s shouldn’t be getting married in the first place.
Some people are just impossible to please, as well as obviously spoiled rotten…good for the OP, finally dropping the rope. “You don’t like anything? Well, then, you get nothing.” Done.
“Five-year-old’s shouldn’t be getting married in the first place.”
I snorted water out of my nose when I read this.
Well stated!
To be honest, I don’t think I could just bow out due to “unforeseen circumstances” in this case. I don’t think it harms anyone to point out that you’re refusing to be involved in their wedding due to their demanding, gift-grabby behavior.
I think society has to do a reset here. To remember that really, it’s the *hosts* (once the parents, now the HC, whether the parents chip in or not) who are supposed to be making their *guests* happy, not the other way round. That HCs should be saying “It’s my day – to make sure my guests are having a good time, and are comfortable, and remember our wedding as a good day *for them*”.
I agree that a reset is way overdue. Modern weddings are the only event that comes to mind in which the honorees are also the hosts and it’s not actually considered bad form for that to be the case. Birthdays and other celebrations all feel a bit forced when undertaken by the celebrant(s). But- I don’t think that either guests or the happy couple should be in the ascendancy. If each merely does their part and no one allows their own expectations to get out of hand, then no drama should ensue.
I say run away from this one…like Admin said I am sorry but we have to step down..
I wouldn’t hesitate to step down as a bridesmaid! It should not work this way. You should not be brought to tears over a wedding shower. The couple should not be so ungracious and greedy and basically using you for your time and money.
I’d be direct about resigning, too:
“I see that I’m not living up to your wishes as a bridesmaid, and there are simply limits I have for what I can contribute to your event. By your reaction to the party plans, I can see that you and your fiancé were terribly disappointed and I doubt I can do anything to make you happy in that regard; and I can’t write “a large check to help pay for ‘the main event'” so I need to bow out to make room for someone who can live up to your wishes. I’m sorry about the misunderstanding– the demands are well beyond what I had expected. I’d be happy to attend as just a guest, or to stay away completely if that’s what you prefer.”
Then stay firm in that decision.
In all honesty, I would find that people as self-centered, immature, and over-the-top greedy as this would not be missed from my circle of friends.
It always amazes me the number of people – bridesmaids, groomsmen, family members, etc. – who let the bridezilla/groomzilla completely dominate them for the wedding. They’re forced to clean tables, bend over backwards, spend hours decorating, and so on, only for the bridezilla/groomzilla to complain and be completely ungrateful. It’s quite okay for someone put in that situation to grow a polite spine and bow out. The first time you are used and abused, shame on them. But if you continue to let them treat you that way, shame on you! GET OUT NOW!
It IS kind of amazing when you think about it! The way that these tales are portrayed in so many television and media forums, it’s as though the drama is now expected and its absence would occasion some commentary! But for those who invest so much into these awful situations, I think it has something to do with a form of “sunk cost theory” whereby they are caught up in the need to get on with their role of “mother-of-the-bride”, “matron-of-honor”, “best-man” and this desire comes at the great expense of their time, dignity and pocketbook. More trouble would be avoided if people spoke up sooner, said “no!” sooner and otherwise set reasonable boundaries sooner. But that doesn’t seem to be the norm.
Get out. Get out now. You should have gotten out at the first tantrum.
I just feel bad you can’t take the mother of the bride with you.
RUN AWAY! run far away from these people and this event!
I think that once the bride is oblivious her own mother’s tears, the whole train has gone too far off the rails. Cut and run, OP!
Good night, this is undoubtedly gonna be a dumpster-fire of a time due to those two divas. OP, I’d take Mrs. Jeanne’s advice right away and save yourself a ton of trouble.
The bridesmaid’s caved in to the original temper tantrum? This woman behaves like this because people let her.
Yes. Back out.
I know it’s easy to think about what you could have done or said after the fact, but the hysterics would have been a good time to say, “I have things to do,” and leave. Maybe she would have gotten the hint that her behavior was unacceptable.
Sorry, “bridesmaid’s” should be “bridesmaids”.
I… why. Why do people continue through stuff like this? Because the bride/groom is your friend? At this point you should REALLY be questioning it.
I mean it sounds like you aren’t even getting paid for any of this. Even in the form of a thank-you dinner or something.
I would back out right now. I’m pretty sure no one (except the zillas) would blame you for it.
Wow…. I think I would have a case of the plague which would render me unable to assist with my BM duties, and might actually get some satisfaction in telling that to Zilla.
I wonder how many bridesmaids will be left before the wedding. Remember the scene in “The Sound of Music” where one by one the performers leave the performance they were commanded to put on for the occupying soldiers? I am imagining one by one, the bridesmaids sneaking away (food poisoning, back spasms, any reasonable excuse) until the bride stood there, by herself…
Since none of the family (bride, groom, parents of both) seem to take any responsibility, I would love to be a spider on the wall to see all that goes on.
Run for the hills! Be sure to tell the Harpy Couple (haha) that all three of you are bowing out of these roles. You don’t want them to think that just you and DH are out but your child will still participate.
Eh, I’d just name it, myself. “It’s apparent that my participation in your wedding plans is causing you undue stress, so I am recusing myself to spare you two any further frustration. Best wishes for your marriage.”
Either these people are usually decent but the wedding has gone to their heads, in which case they need a talking-to, or they’re monsters who should be avoided at all costs.
OP I would get out of there now because base on this little tidbit on how the bride and groom behave things are only going to get worse. They sound so greedy, immature and really ungrateful. I mean seriously you and everyone else went so far as to changed almost everything about the wedding and after all of that hard work (and I really hope no money was spent on these changes) the bride and groom have the nerve to say they didn’t like these changes either and to change it again. I can’t imagine what else they would want down the line but I can imagine them not being satisfied at all and the bride throwing more crying fits. And three showers really is too much.
Get out now while you still can.
Run, do not walk to the nearest exist. It might be too late to fake your own death to get out of this, since any exit at this point will be THE HEIGHT OF BETRAYAL.
my suggestion is to do exactly what Jeanne says. Politely excuse yourself due to unforeseen circumstances and walk away. May peace ever be yours. The person you are trying to be a bridesmaid for will never be grateful, this will not give you warm fuzzy feelings and it will poison your other relationships. bail out. like a rat from a ship sinking in a pool of it’s own greed.
Behavior like this is not something that just “happens”. I bet you there were signs this couple to be were no good that got ignored.
Get out now.
Right now. And drop these people until the learn some common decency.
I am not the most assertive person in the world, but for this one I’d be outta there so fast I’d leave a gust of wind in my wake. If someone treated me that poorly, I’d just say, “This isn’t working for me. I am opting out of this wedding party. Goodbye.” I wouldn’t even attend as a guest.
This is just such a train wreck. Bow out, know you will be spited and evil forever in their ways of thinking. Hopefully some of the other attendants will join you.
Doubt the couple will get the hint. Bet the marriage melts within a year too.
Dodge this bullet now. I don’t know how many brides have gone “But it’s MY DAY!!!!!” Um, any day of the year an average of 7000 other couples get married. It’s not a unique thing. And with the ‘But it’s MY DAY!!!!!’ is also they can have the moon for free and everything in between and any change of mind is to be implemented instantly (I can’t wave a wand and redo 80 hours of work in the next two hours, I really can’t. I lost my time turner)
I added elsewhere, the comment, that with inflation and other price increases, for a 300-350 guest wedding with 3-5 attendants on each side, this is no longer an over the top wedding. It’s getting into a pricier one, but still. It wouldn’t be hard to rack this much up any more in a bigger city with just a few upgrades (better cater menu, flowers, etc). 300 guests, $333 per, 350 guests, $285 per. Now take off the cater and the booze for each guest… etc.
IMHO, a wedding with 300-350 guests is by definition over the top.
Have the wedding you – not your wedding party – can afford.
My extended family, that was a common size wedding. Aunts, uncles, cousins, etc, it was pretty common to fill the church which would hold about that many. That was the 1960’s to the 1990’s. Also about three attendants, sometimes up to five. With flower girl and ring bearer.
I agree totally though it should be the wedding you can afford…
I think EHelldame’s advice is too mild. The happy couple’s behaviour, not merely grabby and unreasonable but outright insulting to the bridesmaids, goes well past the point where it’s appropriate to duck out with ‘sorry, unforeseen circumstances’; they *should* be told that their friend is standing down purely because of that behaviour. Politeness does not require anyone to make apologies for being intolerably insulted.
Also, one of the duties of friendship is telling friends hard truths they don’t want to hear. If OP ever considered this woman her friend, I think she owes it to that friendship to level with the bride on exactly why a bridesmaid, a groomsman and the flower girl are going to have nothing more to do with her showers or her wedding. If she is a basically decent person driven right off the rails by the insanity of the 21st-century big wedding (which can happen: a vast industry depends for its profits on brides being sucked helplessly into it) this just might pull her to her senses. It does seem that everyone else around her, including her own mother, is colluding in and enabling the madness, since all they do is burst into tears when they fail to please her. Just making an excuse and not telling her the truth will in effect be more collusion.
I don’t think OP has anything to lose by being frank here. Let’s face it, if she just ducks and walks away the friendship is dead anyway.
OP: If I may be nosy, what kind of shower was planned for the Bridezilla that she went into hysterics just hearing about it? I’m so curious….
I wondered that myself!
I would bow out.
If you are friends with the other Bridesmaids, let them know personally in addition to telling the bride as stepping down will likely affect them as remaining ‘maids.
Ooh, yeah. If the OP (plus her husband, and her daughter) back out of the wedding party, that’d mean the other bridesmaids would likely have to pick up her slack–not that it’s the OP’s problem anymore, but friendship-wise, there might be some fallout, which might be a big part of the reason why the OP even asked E-Hell if she should drop out instead of just doing it. But, flip side, maybe if the OP sits the other bridesmaids down and says, “I’m dropping out because I can’t keep up with Bridezilla’s demands,” they might suddenly want to drop out too, or maybe they’ve been wanting to drop out for a while, but none of them want to be the first/be the only one/make waves, and now they’ll have safety in numbers.
Run away now! Run away before you spend hundreds of dollars on a dress you don’t like and will never wear again. My personal rule for throwing a party is if they reject what you have planned, they reject it and that’s the end of it. They don’t get to demand something bigger and better. They just don’t get a party given by me. Let them find another sucker. These people are insane. I doubt you need them in your life.
This reminds me of my sis and BIL’s wedding. After the happy couple opened gifts and family left, BIL called everyone who no-showed or didn’t give an expensive-enough gift to “cover their plate and their share of the venue rental”, told them he would sue them, and as he got drunker, began threatening people with physical violence. He lost a lot of friends, he is basically the laughingstock of my extended family, although my immediate family is very fond of him because my sister is the golden sheep of the family.
I can’t begin to tell you how stabby it makes me every time I hear something about how the gift should “cover the cost of the plate”, let alone the venue rental. Have the wedding YOU can afford, without assuming your guests will help pay for it. Some of the loveliest weddings I’ve been to have been small, simple affairs where the guests were there because they were important to the couple, and were treated accordingly.
It makes me think I should just stay home and save you the cost of the plate and me the cost of my happy gift. There now everyone is happy.
The idea that the gift should “cover the cost of the plate” makes a wedding, which is supposed to be a very personal event, into nothing more than a show. The fact that there is an invitation extended and a limited list of attendees is moot when they are “charged” to attend and dunned for any perceived deficit in the value of their gift or cash contribution. If that’s the case, it’s become a fundraising dinner for a “charitable cause”. Entitled guests and hosts can then vie for the “honor” of whose wishes are preeminent and whose vision of the event should prevail. Admittedly, this is hyperbole, but you do hear about folks complaining that a wedding didn’t have an open bar or a decent band or acceptable arrangements for catering just as if they had paid for admission almost as much as you hear about happy couples who imagine themselves to have become divas for a day complete with an endlessly patient entourage, adoring fans and a rock-star’s budget.
I talked to my friends and came up with one from one of them. Large metro and parents were both serious professionals and had made it. First kid to get married had to have it all (by mom’s insistence, MOG) in very upscale everythings. There was a private club for the shower, another club for the rehearsal dinner, they managed to book the cathedral outside of a usual three year wait because of ‘friends of the family’ so had to have the wedding when they could get the venue… and this sister was living on own, didn’t have a lot, and was almost black sheeped by her mom (she wasn’t but since she didn’t run straight through to post graduate in a money field she was nothing to her mom)… was supposed to be an attendant. They were to meet for a pre dinner for planning at an upscale place that food and drink could run a week or so of her salary, and she had to cut and run when they decided to split the bill evenly and pay for the bride-to-be’s… she ordered just coffee and a dessert. The costs were laid out, her dress was going to be two month’s salary, and of course all this other stuff–they were actually assigning some of the costs to the bridal party (and the groomsmen too) for them to pay for the whole shin-dig. My friend left the money for her meal with the server as she snuck to the bathroom and said she held the phone receiver at arm’s length when first her future SIL called to melt it then when her mom called with another bushel of filth. It was after this she gave her two weeks, held a rummage sale to divest herself of extra things, moved across the country, and started a new life far away from them all. More power to her. (circa three decades ago)
NostalgicGal–that is one of the saddest stories I’ve read in a while. I don’t know why it hit me so hard, but it’s appalling that your friend was so meaningless to her family. I’m glad she stood up for herself and got away from those nasty people, but it breaks my heart for her that it had to be that way. Family isn’t supposed to care how much money you have, but how much love you have. That’s what weddings should be-sharing love with people you care about.
I hope your friend’s life is filled with love and happiness now.
She works, she has a place, she has a little internet business; she cruises to see the world, I’d say she’s happy. She goes back every three or so years to see her nieces and nephews (her brothers married, her sister was turned into Mama’s Baby on purpose and would grace chapters here on e-Hell, I even worked with her for a time) [that daughter lived at home, had a bedroom suite larger than either of our apartments and had bought a new caddy and was always complaining about her car payments and insurance–I was purposely invited one night by the Momonster that had created this daughter–to discuss with daughter-friend, reality life. Things like rent, utilities, and gods, for me the car and insurance and all was nearly my entire earnings, I WISHED I had that kind of money to toss at a nice car…and not have to worry about food, rent, utilities, and a bus pass to commute. It was obvious by the end of the dinner that MamaGirl didn’t get it and Momonster had to live with what she created]
It sounds like there’s a book in there somewhere approximately equal to the “Nanny Diaries” (except in this case, it would be written from the perspective of one or more siblings who were not the favored Golden Child). It would make for an eye opening read, certainly.
“He then went on and on about how the showers were to be a money maker and to lavish them with gifts.”
Wow… I’d bow out of this wedding and its wedding party faster than dropping a hot potato. If the gifts are in any way important compared to getting married, I think the priorities are wrong. I can understand that getting gifts can be very helpful to newlyweds, especially if it’s useful stuff to fill a house with. But ‘money maker’ and ‘lavish’… no, thank you.
“He then went on and on about how the showers were to be a money maker and to lavish them with gifts.”
And I would make sure to uninvite myself from that wedding and any of its other events very fast.