My 30F friend of over 15 years (30F) is getting married in January 2027. I live on the other side of our country from my friend who had asked me to be in the wedding party. We had been friends for years, so I excitedly said yes and expressed it wouldn't be an issue to fly out for important dates like going dress shopping, bridal shower, bachelorette party, etc. I just requested that they at minimum let me know a week or so in advance to book flights.

Since the moment she got engaged (she has been engaged for about 4 months now) she has been increasingly tough to deal with. To give context, she has snapped out on multiple friends, has been rude to her parents, and has even freaked out on her fiance. Don't get me wrong, I have never planned a wedding so I don't quite understand the stress of it, but it just seems excessive.

She has called me to vent numerous times about other people in her bridal party, her fiance, and parents over the last few months and I had asked her how I could help or if she just wanted to vent. She would express every single time that she needs help because she doesn't know what she wants. Her maid of honor and mother given options for things, yet each time they do, she calls me screaming and pissed off that everyone is involved. I noticed this starting to really become a toxic situation because I'm at this point VERY sure she was asking them for help the same exact way she was asking me for help, so I quietly decided to step back and distance myself from her a little bit. Not that I wasn't answering calls or texts, just cutting down the amount of time we were on the phone with each other.

Now to this past weekend where everything hit the fan: I am not an avid facebook user. I only reactivated it because of marketplace, however, I saw that my friend had posted that she had found her dress and had tagged all of the bridesmaids except for me. She did tag one other person into that post who I didn't recognize as one of the initial bridesmaids, either. I looked at messenger after this and saw that I had been removed from the wedding group chat. At this point, I just didn't want to talk to her anymore. I had asked multiple times per week "when do you need me out there? what can I do to help?" and it was met with "you don't need to be out here yet" each time.

She called me 5 times in a row a day or so later and truthfully, I wasn't answering. I knew the second I saw the facebook post that she was talking badly about me the same way she was talking terribly about the others in her wedding party. I eventually decided to just take a deep breath and give her a call back. She asked if I would be ok just attend as a guest. I told her "okay", gave no push back, and never confronted her about the post. After all, it is her wedding and she should have who she wants standing with her. Who am I to argue that? She was going on about "its not fair to make you pay so much money to fly out" and "I don't want our friendship to be affected by this." I asked explicitly if I had done anything wrong to which she said no, that she's just overwhelmed. I thought that was that and that I could move on.

However, after thinking about it for a little bit - I decided I didn't want to be friends anymore. I was going through a really tough time and living situation, she never asked if I was okay. And realizing this, I started to reflect on how most of our friendship has been one sided. Like blowing me off when I come to visit, never answering when I call but calling me non stop when I don't answer, etc. I wrote out a text explaining that I need to take a step back in the friendship and was going to send it the following day. She sent a message the next morning explaining that me offering to help was overwhelming her, that I haven't been present in the friendship, and that she doesn't wanna strain our friendship anymore. I ended up modifying my message to apologize for not being present, and that I didn't find it fair that she is mad at me for offering help when she had explicity asked for it. At the end of my message, I said I needed to take a step back on everything. She never responded to anything I said. I later removed her off social media and removed each others locations and sent one final text wishing her the best but explaining I have numerous reasons to not wanna carry on a friendship that I'm willing to talk about it if she wanted. She's now changed her tune and said "that was the point of my first message, I don't wish to be friends" which made no sense.

She is now running a smear campaign on social media, posting song quotes from the song "fuck you and all your friends", and I am being dragged for all of this. I just have to ask though, AITA? Is there any way I could have done something different here?