Pay Dirt is Slate’s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Athena and Elizabeth here. (It’s anonymous!)
Dear Pay Dirt,
I have a very longtime friend, we’ve been friends since we were little. Sometimes we don’t keep in touch very often, but life gets in the way, right? She just had a baby and is getting married.
She decided to have a destination wedding in a very far away country. I am an assistant professor and I teach during certain times of the year, and that makes it very very difficult to travel during the times I teach, let alone to foreign countries. She did not ask me when I was teaching or if it would be a good time for me, and ended up scheduling it during the semester, smack dab in the middle. I originally decided that it was too impractical for me to go since I would have to be on a 24-hour flight just to get there, and then I…
