Brittany and Brandon had been dating since February and I knew that they would be getting engaged any day. I had also been toying with the idea of going on an exchange to Russia for months and months and just couldn't decide if I wanted to commit to it or not. It would be a 6 month exchange where I would go and live in Russia for 6 months, and teach children how to speak English. All for about $2000. Which was really cheap and exactly the kind of thing I wanted to do.
When I finally decided that I was going to do this, I told Brittany. To which her response was probably something like "I'm getting married, dude."
I was then faced with an extremely difficult decision...
Should I stay or should I go?
Could I bear missing my best friend's wedding? Could I deal with seeing photos of her, all in white, with the man of her dreams, without me by her side? If I did leave, I could only do so half heartedly; knowing that I would miss her wedding and any planning involved. I even thought of going on the exchange and coming home for her wedding. That plan was short lived... It would have cost me about $2000 in airfare to get home, not to mention the hours it would take to arrive in Canada.
I told Brittany that I hadn't decided but that I was still heavily considering going to Russia. That I would love to be there but that if she chose a date from September to December, I probably wouldn't be able to be there. With that said, there was a long awkward pause. Brittany then piped up and said that she would just... not have a maid of honor. She made it clear that she wanted me to be there but she knew that I could not place my life on hold for her one day. But the fact stood: that if it wasn't me, then there wasn't going to be a maid of honor.
In that moment my brain and heart just turned into absolute mush. All I could see was:
That's what really did me in. I couldn't leave when she so desperately needed me to pull off a fabulous wedding. Haha. But I told her I would have to think and pray about it. Regardless of what mother and sister told me, the answer was stay. The thought of not being there was unimaginable for both myself and the bride to be. Also, I knew that I would be terribly lonely on wedding day being away from her and all the excitement.
Stay tuned for more wedding details from the maid of honor's perspective!
