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Op, I think you are leaving some details out. Are you supposed to be the best man or a groomsman? If so, you should probably go without your wife. Is there someone who can look out for her while you are away? Would the couple be willing to change the wedding date if you couldn't make it? Is this your first child?
I don't think your friend would realistically expect you to show up when your wife is 34-35 weeks pregnant. I'm not even sure your wife's doctor or the airline would allow her to fly. Send your friend and his bride a nice gift now, and visit next summer when it would be much safer for your wife and the baby. Maybe consider sending a message to someone in the wedding party to be read as a toast to the bride and groom at the reception.
I missed my cousins wedding and my SIL's wedding due to both of them being around my due dates. Nothing much you can do, being pregnant means you can't do everything.
I think that you should go to the wedding without your wife. If I was your wife, I would want you not to miss the wedding of one of your best friends in college. Even if you weren't a best man or groomsman, I think that you should be there. Just book a plane ticket and go for the weekend.
Just because a couple is married, doesn't mean that they have become siamese twins and attached at the hip. His wife might enjoy having some private time to herself. It could be a good time to spend some quality time with her mother or other family or best girlfriends... especially before the baby is born.
Here's the scoop: one of my best friends from college is getting married to an awesome woman who I met last year when he traveled basically across country to check out this neck of the country and visit me. So naturally I would travel cross country back to see him, and go up and down the east coast to see other friends who migrated there. In a heartbeat, 99% of the time barring a few things ... like severe illness (and even then if it was life threatening I'd go do it anyway because if I was gonna die well ... travel list time), family death/marriage, and birth of my own kid.
Which, ironically, is exactly why I'm debating not going. My wife is currently pregnant and by the time their marriage rolls around, she will be exactly 34-35 weeks pregnant. And we'd have to travel cross country in an airplane or by train. And as it turns out I already took about a week off work to go to my brother's wedding earlier this year. And I only get two weeks vacation per year, plus some sick time.
I guess I could take FMLA but that is unpaid and I don't think I could afford it.
So ... two questions really:
1) Is it unreasonable to say I'm not going to my friend's wedding under the circumstances?
2) Would it be a "compensation prize" to go out and visit them next year when the kiddo is say 6-9 months old and we're comfortable taking him traveling?
my sister in law had her baby in another state because she traveled for a wedding and ended up going into labor and had the baby in that citys hospital . She was none too happy with my brother and blamed him for the entire fiasco as she put it at the time . He wanted to go so bad to his college room mates wedding that he also insisted that she go along . So No I think if you want to go then you should go without your wife . stay for the wedding but leave immediately afterwards .
I wouldn't be upset if my husband wanted to go to his BFF's wedding and I was 34/35 weeks pregnant. I'd want him to go -- because it would probably be the last chance for him to kick back and relax with his friends before he is responsible for another human being. :-)
Ask your wife -- if she's ok with it, then go for the weekend -- not for the extended "victory tour" up and down the coast. If she's not ok with it, that pretty much settles it.
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