Wedding Etiquette and Grad School

[musichistorygeek]

When my longtime roommate at my undergrad school and her boyfriend announced their engagement two years ago, I initially agreed to be her maid of honor. My long-term plan at that point included applying to combined grad/professional programs in the general area, since family and other concerns at the time made a cross-country or international move seem unlikely. Their very long engagement (former roommate and her husband-to-be are both wonderfully geeky STEM folks who want to get married on Pi Day, 2015) didn't worry me too much, since at the time I thought I'd probably be studying/working in the region.

In the meantime, my own plans changed, and I'm now finishing up an MA and applying to PhD programs. There's a good chance that in 2015 I might be living thousands of miles away from the happy couple, and I definitely won't have the time or funds to fly back for the usual wedding party stuff (much less help with various maid-of-honor duties). Is there a polite way to decline now (while the wedding is still almost two and a half years away)?

[SeriousSillyPutty]

3.14.15. Ha! That's great. I approve, though I want to get married enough that I personally would let two decimal points suffice.

Anyway, Mole Day (10^23) is next Tuesday, so I say you wish the couple 6.02*10^23 lifetimes of love and happiness together, but explain your concerns. If she's half as geeky as you claim, she wouldn't want you to alter long term doctor plans, would she? Two years is PLENTY of time for her to find someone else. Or, you can just say that you wouldn't know for sure until a year before the wedding (or whatever your schedule would be), which gives her enough heads up to find someone early if she wants, or to wait and ask you again closer to the time.

[juilletmercredi]

How do you know that you "definitely" won't have the time or funds to fly back?

Let's say that you start your PhD in the 2013-2014 school year. You'll be a second year in 2015. I checked, and Pi Day is a Saturday. You have two years. Surely in two years' time you can save up enough money for a plane ticket and a bridesmaid's dress. And since Pi Day is a Saturday, you can easily fly out on a Friday, return on a Sunday, and not miss anything.

If she wants a maid-of-honor who can be around to fold a thousand origami cranes, then maybe you do need to step down or ask for a demotion to bridesmaid. But if she (like most people) just wants one of the most important people in her life to stand up for her on her wedding day, don't back out just because you're going to a PhD program. It's like a job. You don't cease to be a person, with all the requisite relationships and complications of being a person, just because you are in a PhD program.

And this is all hypothetical now, anyway. You don't know that you'll be in a program, you don't know that you'll be thousands of miles away. Just relax. If you do get into a program for Fall 2013 and it gets to be Spring 2014 - about a year out - and it looks like you won't be able to juggle, then you can talk to her then. But first, I would ask her what she wants of you. You may be surprised - she may only want you to stand up for her, as her friend. Oftentimes in-town bridesmaids will organize the bridal shower and bachelorette and stuff.

[Nerd_For_Life]

How do you know that you "definitely" won't have the time or funds to fly back?

Let's say that you start your PhD in the 2013-2014 school year. You'll be a second year in 2015. I checked, and Pi Day is a Saturday. You have two years. Surely in two years' time you can save up enough money for a plane ticket and a bridesmaid's dress. And since Pi Day is a Saturday, you can easily fly out on a Friday, return on a Sunday, and not miss anything.

What?! What is this, dare I say it, nonsense? Doing a PhD is a full-time commitment and requires savings up for travel expenses, living expenses, tuition/textbooks, medical + dental if necessary, and a host of other things. Feeling obligated to, on top of that, come up the funds for a bridesmaid dress, airfare, and accommodation costs?

I would talk to her sooner rather than later. As a fellow nerd I'm sure she respects that you might end up in a position where you are unable to be her maid-of-honor, and this gives tons of advance notice to either decline outright or tell her that you won't know until a year or two before the wedding.

[TakeruK]

If she wants a maid-of-honor who can be around to fold a thousand origami cranes, then maybe you do need to step down or ask for a demotion to bridesmaid. But if she (like most people) just wants one of the most important people in her life to stand up for her on her wedding day, don't back out just because you're going to a PhD program. It's like a job. You don't cease to be a person, with all the requisite relationships and complications of being a person, just because you are in a PhD program.

And this is all hypothetical now, anyway. You don't know that you'll be in a program, you don't know that you'll be thousands of miles away. Just relax. If you do get into a program for Fall 2013 and it gets to be Spring 2014 - about a year out - and it looks like you won't be able to juggle, then you can talk to her then. But first, I would ask her what she wants of you. You may be surprised - she may only want you to stand up for her, as her friend. Oftentimes in-town bridesmaids will organize the bridal shower and bachelorette and stuff.

I agree with juilletmercedi that it's definitely do-able and that it means a lot when your friend is by your side during the ceremony. My wife and I got married while I was at grad school for MSc in Canada and we were having the wedding in our hometown (3000+ miles away from where we were currently living) so that we were the ones traveling instead of everyone else. We had initially planned to fly home to visit friends/family about 3 times in the 2 year MSc program but in order to make the wedding work, we did all the traveling in the first year (before and during the wedding) and didn't fly home at all during the second year. PhD stipends aren't always so low that you only have enough to pay rent and buy food! So you are probably planning to visit your family at least one time between 2013 and March 2015 right? Maybe even two! Just make one of your (budgeted) trips home be for your friend's wedding.

In addition, March might be Spring Break time depending on your school schedule and while grad students don't really get "Spring Break" off, most advisors and schools will recognize that grad students should get at least 2 weeks of vacation time a year (like any other job) and you will probably be able to take a few days, if not a whole week, off for the wedding. Our three main responsibilities are classes, TAing, and research. Missing classes is no big deal, you can usually find a friend to cover your TA shift and research can usually be made up before/after the trip. With enough advanced planning, even things like experiments can be scheduled around the trip!

What?! What is this, dare I say it, nonsense? Doing a PhD is a full-time commitment and requires savings up for travel expenses, living expenses, tuition/textbooks, medical + dental if necessary, and a host of other things. Feeling obligated to, on top of that, come up the funds for a bridesmaid dress, airfare, and accommodation costs?

Doing a PhD is a full-time commitment like a full-time job is a full-time commitment. Most people will work between 40 and 60 hours a week, depending on their courseload, upcoming deadlines, etc. In addition, most PhD programs are fully funded, and you don't pay tuition (or your stipend is increased with this in mind). We definitely won't be able to live like our friends who went and got a "real job" instead of a graduate degree, but it is possible to save for a trip home over 2 years. Airfare should be covered/budgeted for if we plan to visit home anyways. Accommodation might not cost very much if we are visiting home for a friend's wedding. A bridesmaid dress is expensive, but the bride should recognize that her friend and maid-of-honour is a student who might not have a lot of funds and pick a dress that will be right for the budget!

That said, it's still important that you talk to your friend now, and find out what she expects from you as a maid-of-honour. Like juilletmercedi said, you'd probably have time if she just wants you there for the ceremony and to plan whatever you can from a distance. Although my wife's maid of honour was in our hometown and my wife was across the country, we flew home a week before the wedding so that we can do some of the traditional wedding prep stuff with our maid-of-honour/best man to make up for the lost time while we were away! Also, my best man was actually in a PhD program in another country so I asked another one of my groomsmen to plan the bachelor party and do other in-town related tasks.

So as long as everyone is clear on what their roles are expected to be, it should all work out! Grad school is a time where many of our friends (some in grad school, some aren't) are getting married. We can't be expected to shut ourselves off from people that we are close to just because we are pursuing a PhD. I have known many grad students who have flown somewhere to be at their friend's wedding, sometimes multiple times in one year! Luckily summer is the popular wedding season and the only demand on our time during summer is research!

[Eigen]

Two excellent posts by TakeruK and Julliet.

I've made about a wedding a year since starting grad school, and none of those was I even in the wedding party. It's important to be there for your close friends, and (hopefully) this is the only chance you'll have to be with them at their wedding.

Travel expenses aren't that expensive that you can't save them up this far in advance pretty easily, and most PIs would be very understanding of needing the time off. I had a friend who had all his professors shift his finals end of the first semester (PhD) because he was a best man in a wedding.

Towards the end of your second year, you should have adjusted, have a good relationship with your PI, and be almost done (or done) with coursework, so it should be pretty easy to make it, time-wise.

[juilletmercredi]

What?! What is this, dare I say it, nonsense? Doing a PhD is a full-time commitment and requires savings up for travel expenses, living expenses, tuition/textbooks, medical + dental if necessary, and a host of other things. Feeling obligated to, on top of that, come up the funds for a bridesmaid dress, airfare, and accommodation costs?

I'm IN a PhD program. I'm in my fifth year, in fact, and I've finished my coursework and my comprehensive exams, with external funding. I've also been to family weddings and was the maid-of-honor in one until a week before it was called off (which meant I had already paid the airfare and the accommodations - and it was a destination wedding, so it wasn't as easy as going home). I know many PhD students, medical students, and law students who have been in their friends' weddings during school. I also got married *myself* during graduate school.

You can't study 24 hours a day. Of course it's a full time commitment, but so is working. I've never heard anyone say "I can't be in your wedding because I have a job." If one manages one's time well, one can still maintain relationships with friends and families and even be in weddings. It's different if you have something big around that time - but even then, people can be flexible. My cousin (the one I was going to be maid of honor for) was getting married on the same day as my comprehensive exam, and I talked to my advisor and the department was going to let me take the exam a week earlier so I could go to the wedding (she ended up canceling about a week before). We're humans, not research machines.

I dare say, also, that anyone who barrels through a PhD program as if they can have no outside commitments is going to burn out really fast. I'm serious - you have to do some things for yourself, otherwise you will just be completely miserable. That includes being with friends.

[rising_star]

You can't study 24 hours a day. Of course it's a full time commitment, but so is working. I've never heard anyone say "I can't be in your wedding because I have a job." If one manages one's time well, one can still maintain relationships with friends and families and even be in weddings.

Seriously! I've been to quite a few weddings of my good friends since I've been in graduate school. In fact, during the first semester of my PhD program, I flew across the country twice in 6 weeks to attend my friends' weddings. My second year, I flew across the country to a close friend's wedding literally one week after attending a conference. Why? Because it was important to me. I wanted to be there. I saved the money from my regular pay for the plane tickets and it didn't impose any sort of undue hardship or force me to eat ramen for months on end. And I am not one of those people with an external fellowship so it's not like I'm raking in $30K/year. I got people to cover my TA classes, worked on the plane, etc. I minimized accommodation costs by sharing with friends and/or staying at someone's house on the couch.

You can make this happen assuming you want it to happen. So don't bow out because of circumstances that may or may not exist two years from now. It's also worth mentioning that I have been quite involved in weddings where I haven't actually been in the wedding party. In each of those cases (it's happened 3 times), I ended up helping out a lot because other members of the wedding party couldn't. This included helping plan a bachelor party, folding programs, co-hosting an after party, and generally just being there to do things that people in the official wedding party couldn't or wouldn't. Every time, it has been appreciated, especially since it was a bit unexpected (though really, they should've known since they know me!).

[prefers_pencils]

I just stepped down as a bridesmaid once I got into my PhD. My friend's wedding is next June and there's no way I can afford a weekend international flight. (My classes don't end until July so I can't couple it with a visit home.) I called her immediately to let her know and she was just fine - I still have the 'honorary bridesmaid' title.

I would wait to see where you're going first. PhD apps are a crazy process, and while you're a great friend for thinking about this so early, I don't think it's worth acting on until you know for certain where you plan to be.