Group therapy: "I can’t afford to go to my best friend’s wedding."

My best friend has decided to have a destination wedding and I can’t afford to go. I am so disappointed and I’m also dreading telling her that I won’t be there. She and her fiancé have chosen to get married in Fiji. They want to merge their wedding and honeymoon and Fiji is equal travelling distance for his family in Hawaii (look, at least they didn’t choose Hawaii).

Regardless, I can’t afford to go. I do have the savings but for my fiancé and I to fly to the wedding, pay for accommodation, buy them a gift and outfits to wear means we’ll have hardly anything left. We are trying to save for our own wedding and to start our lives together. I also have a seven-year-old daughter. Going to this destination wedding is not an option.

But how do I tell my friend? We’ve been best mates since school days and she’s going to be devastated. Rightly so.

When people decide to have a destination wedding do they realise heaps of people won’t be able to go or do they expect everyone to move heaven and earth to go? To make matters worse, I think she’s going to ask me to be her maid of honour.

I couldn’t feel worse.

Should I just go to the destination wedding and use our savings, or borrow the money? Or should she understand?

Have you got any advice for this reader?

This post originally appeared on iVillage and has been republished here with full permission.