cant ask a specific sim to be part of a wedding?

so i have the wedding stories pack and two of my sims are engaged. i'm trying to ask the groom's best friend to be the ring bearer but none of the options for wedding roles show up. i've tried asking with both the bride and groom ( who both have max friendship with him); for the groom, the activities menu shows up but the only option is to practice fighting and when i try with the bride, the activities tab doesnt even show up. i've also tried re-announcing the engagement to him with both sims, scheduling the wedding first THEN asking him, resetting the sim, repaired my game, deleted cache files and even removed all mods but nothing has worked. has anyone else experienced this and is there anything else i should be trying?