January 2018, a then-close friend godparent to my first child) was anticipating her upcoming engagement and asked me to be a bridesmaid. 

Shortly after she got engaged, I became pregnant with my second child. Thanks to her busy work schedule and my stressful pregnancy (and postpartum/prenatal depression) we didn’t talk or see each other much the rest of the year.

In August 2018, before the baby came, my friend set the date for her wedding in May and invited me to meet to look at invitations. During this hangout, she said something to the effect of, “And of course I want to to be a bridesmaid, but I know you’ll be busy with the baby, so I have a special request to ask you: will you play a song at the wedding?”

I thought I was being uninvited to be a bridesmaid because we weren’t as close as we used to be before I had kids (2017 and 2018 due dates) so I was surprised and hurt at the request, and said I’d think about it.

After talking it over with a different friend, I convinced myself that maybe the bride-to-be genuinely thought I’d be too busy with the baby. I wrote her an email to say, if it’s really about the baby, that’s not a problem and I’d still love to be in the wedding. If it’s more that we’ve grown apart, I totally understand and will be happy to celebrate the wedding as a guest. 

She wrote back that she was just worried I’d be overwhelmed and of course she’d love to have me in the wedding. 

At first I was relieved! But we still haven’t hung out a lot, and any requests to hang out typically get turned down or cancelled last minute. Despite living 10 minutes away, she didn’t meet my newest baby until he was 4 months old. As I see her go through the wedding planning process and say yes to things she then tells the wedding party she does not want, I’m now worried she’s a secret people pleaser and was actually trying to dis -invite me to be in the wedding and my awkward email “forced” her to keep me.

AITA? Or does it sound like a honest miscommunication between friends going through a busy time?