A few years ago, my family and I got invited to my second cousin’s wedding. The bride (my cousin) and groom were wonderful people in their mid-twenties who had known each other since middle school.
They were very much in love and had been deemed “the perfect couple” by our entire family. The wedding was exquisite, too.
It was a large outdoor wedding with beautiful decorations and flowers everywhere. It was a shame it ended up being nearly ruined.
First of all, the bride and groom had to wait 45 minutes because the groom’s mother was late. She showed up in a fancy white dress that could rival the bride’s and insisted on being in all the pre-wedding photos, which made it hard to tell who was the bride and which visibly upset the actual bride.
The groom’s mother then started verbally attacking the bride on her appearance, among other things, which left her close to tears. Then, when it came time to say the vows, the best man stepped forward—and what he said left us all in total shock. He professed his undying love for the bride, saying that he’d been in love with her ever since high school.
He proceeded to list all the things he loved about her including some pretty explicit things he said he wanted to do to her. He claimed he knew she felt the same way, but the bride just shook her head, looking extremely uncomfortable and even a little bit scared.
He was escorted out of the premises unwillingly. And to top it all off, the groom’s ex-girlfriend decided it was the right time to object to their marriage.
She claimed that it should have been her at the altar with the groom.
But after that whole mess was taken care of, the bride and groom got married and the wedding party was still awesome. Despite the shaky wedding, they’re still as happy a couple as they were before the wedding, and they’ve been married for five years and have two beautiful little girls
Like I said. A very dramatic wedding.
2. What A Tangled Web They Wove
I was the best man at this wedding, but I lived in another city, so most of this is second-hand. Still, the drama involved seems crazy considering how undramatic this couple normally is.
I was the best man for my older brother. The bride and my brother had eloped about a year earlier for health insurance reasons, but were throwing a moderately sized wedding to celebrate it (around 100 people) in a local park.
The bride asked her brother Alex to officiate the wedding and his girlfriend of four years, Christie, to be her maid of honor. Bride and Groom specified a very strict no plus-one policy. You weren’t allowed to take your significant other unless there was a ring.
Christie was an obvious exception, because she and Bride were already friends.
Note that my other brother’s girlfriend of five years was directly told not to come because of this policy. About two months before the wedding, disaster struck. Alex calls Bride to let her know that he and Christie broke up and that Christie no longer wants to come to the wedding and won’t be the maid of honor.
Bride asks what happened and Alex just says that they drifted apart.
Also, Alex has a new girlfriend that he’ll be taking to the wedding instead. Bride reminds him of the policy and that they won’t allow plus-ones if there’s no ring.
Well, she was in for a surprise. Alex says that there is a ring. Alex and his new girlfriend (let’s call her Danielle) are engaged. Also, Danielle is pregnant. Bride asks how he met Danielle.
Alex met Danielle when he was helping teach a pottery class at his local community college. Danielle was a student taking the class. Danielle is 19. Bride asks the obvious question: “Did Alex cheat on Christie with Danielle and get Danielle pregnant”? Alex says absolutely not.
Alex says he broke up with Christie, started dating Danielle, proposed to Danielle, and then he and Danielle got pregnant on purpose.
Note that Bride had spoken with Christie two weeks earlier and Christie had been excited for the upcoming wedding and being the maid of honor.
Still, Alex is her brother, so Bride agrees to invite Danielle to the wedding and Christie is uninvited. The bride needs a new maid of honor and doesn’t have many close female friends. She ends up asking her 16-year-old cousin from Europe who she hardly knows.
This isn’t a big deal for her. The wedding goes forward without a hitch. Everyone has a good time. My little brother’s girlfriend helps with set up and clean up, but doesn’t attend the ceremony or reception as per the Bride’s wishes.
A few months later I run into Christie at a bar. That’s when I find out the twisted truth.
I buy her a drink and Christie is more than happy to tell her side of the story. Alex had been cheating on Christie for months with Danielle, before Christie learned about it.
Alex and Christie were actually trying to have a kid during that time and had even picked out baby names. Alex only fessed up to his infidelity when he found out that Danielle was pregnant.
He then swiftly dumped Christie and proposed to Danielle. As a final insult to injury, Christie had recently found out the name of Alex and Danielle’s new child. The name was one of the baby names Alex and Christie had picked out for their potential baby.
3. Mixing Business With Pleasure
The wedding planner we hired was seen by multiple friends and family making out with and going into various closets with a friend of ours who was helping set up our wedding. We confronted our friend and he confirmed they did the deed multiple times on our wedding day.
I’m furious. It was so unprofessional and inappropriate on all levels.
And that’s not to mention there were tons of things going wrong with our wedding or not completed properly with our wedding that I can’t help but to think would’ve been done better/smoother if she hadn’t been “busy” all night. One of the major things was she did not check out catering at the end of the night and they ended up taking all of the food we paid for with them instead of leaving it behind.
Ultimately, she refunded us after the wedding. We expressed our concerns to her and she offered a refund and asked us not to review her.
4. Karma Is Real
My wife and I chose “rustic picnic” as the decor theme for our small wedding.
This was in 2013 and mason jars were still very trendy. We aren’t trendy people, and weren’t then but figured this was the cheapest way to throw off a wedding that is still “pretty”. We also were having our wedding in a state park, so it fit.
If you can’t tell, our wedding was intentionally affordable.
As a working-class queer couple with conservative family members, it was important to my wife (and her mother) that our wedding “fit the mold” so to speak.
We went to a few $25k+ weddings that year, and I’m still proud to say our wedding was the prettiest, and most Pinterest-worthy of that era. Of course, that all came with a downside.
In the hours before our nuptials, her mother cried out of sheer relief that our wedding was not going to be a total embarrassment. And it didn’t come without significant effort.
We scoured craigslist for mason jars. Drove an hour out of town for them, out to the country. Some were pretty plain, but some were genuinely antique jars—an excellent find.
We purchased lace and wrapped half of the newer ones with it, delicately gluing the lace to the outside of the jar.
The other half or so we both made patterns with our hand prints in muted versions of our wedding colors. It was a dorky cheesy choice, but believe it or not, they looked nice and were very much ours. Or so we thought.
We also happened to pick up off craigslist about a hundred glass baby jars. They wrap those with almost impenetrable paper labels. It took very tedious hours to get these labels off. To pull off having these tables covered in mason jars, glass, and flowers it took us at least four weekends to pull off.
Effort. Time. Money. Personalization. I’m still angry, can you tell?
Enter… Courtney. You know people like her. Well, she is engaged to Todd, my future brother-in-law. Did they get engaged a month after we did, after only knowing each other a month?
Yeah, they did. First she showed up to our wedding shower wearing sweatpants. It was noticeable, it was weird, but whatever. I wish I could have gone in sweatpants.
She only got worse from there.
What does she do in the middle of the shower? Burst out crying. “She doesn’t have anyone planning a shower for her, she doesn’t have any of their wedding planned, nothing is done, they don’t have a venue”. Granted, at the time she was having issues with her family, a messy parental divorce.
But money was no issue, they did quite well for themselves.
A brigade of my wife’s relatives offered their help; My wife offered our help crafting anything that needs done. We were done with our own wedding labor at that point, but still in the crafting zone.
She rebuffs ALL of these offers of help. Eventually, they land a venue at a countryside church, and plan to do their reception outside.
We hear about a few people in her family getting fitted for their attire for their wedding.
Nothing strikes out of the norm because we are busy excited for our own impending wedding. The morning of our wedding our enlisted family and family friends (none of her siblings or their partners) helped me set things up perfectly.
Our wedding goes off without a hitch.
Both of our parents contributed the food, and it was tasty. It was this amazing joint effort of love. As the reception wore on, it was easily noticeable that her siblings and their partners were nowhere to be found.
They spent the entire reception drinking in their cars or around back of the building. It was a small wedding, thus easily noticed.
A few times, they came back around and Courtney would clearly be looking down her nose at everything.
Just obviously, being a judgemental cow. My wife didn’t notice either of the offenses until her maid of honor was mad on her behalf in the weeks after. I’ve got a keen eye for terrible behavior, but again, I gave it no mind as this was our day.
Just as folks helped us set up, they helped us clean up. Even Court and Todd—surprising considering their complete lack of participation. Everyone breaking things down without asking. Earlier than we would have liked.
I wasn’t angry about that. I appreciated the help, but chose to continue dancing with my wife, under the stars. We were blessed with wonderful weather.
In the midst of our dancing, I noticed something strange. Todd was placing boxes in his truck and Courtney was hovering around inside.
Literally, she spent more time inside “cleaning” than during our entire reception. Again, I have a keen eye for garbage, but let it slide because again, this was our day. Do you know where I’m going with this?
Yes, they attempted to steal all of our decor.
And that’s not all. My thief aunt also steals a table, chairs, and bottles of booze. But this is normal behavior for her. She recently was fired from her job for stealing cake from a work event.
Our cake was also stolen. My wife’s mother’s BFF cut the cake for us. Tiny little slices for everyone, about a quarter inch wide. Why? Because at the end of the night she planned on asking to take some of the cake for a graduation party the next day.
“Of course, yes feel free, just leave us the top two tiers” What utter garbage. You should have seen these slices she was passing out. In the days after our wedding we had to fight to get our stuff back. My wife’s mother attempted to convince us to let them have it, “they have nothing”. No. We hear from her cousin that Courtney is claiming we pilfered ideas off her Pinterest, and she feels the right to our things.
However, remember she had no idea what she was doing for her wedding at the time of the shower.
They only booked a venue a month before ours. My wife finally gets a hold of him and explained they were very personal to our wedding, and that it would be extremely weird for them to use it.
Finally, with enough cajoling, he dropped the boxes off at their parent’s house.
We got most of it back. I still think there was some missing. But it’s still not over yet.
At the rehearsal dinner a week before their wedding, we find out that my wife’s ENTIRE family was at the fitting. She was excluded from the very start.
Everyone in her family, including cousins, children of cousins, and aunts are dressed similarly. They are all included in the wedding party. We are visually the outsiders. My wife is heartbroken and leaves their dinner in tears.
Despite a terrible experience at the dinner, the night of their wedding we are called by her mother that Courtney is freaking out. All of these plates she painted need work. My wife, the saint, actually helps.
Well, that’s where karma came in. Guess what happens to the plates during the reception? The paint leaks off onto people’s food.
It rains at their wedding and is the coldest day on record for June in our area.
Their wedding is chock full of decor she had bought in the days prior at TJ Maxx. Some of the stuff still had price tags on. On top of it, she cheats on him. One and a half years later, he was both divorced and married again.
Then, my wife’s other brother get engaged.
They include my wife as a bridesmaid probably to attempt to forego any drama (she wasn’t REALLY included), and possibly to appease the mom. Her parents and brothers all start attending the same church that doesn’t recognize or condone homosexuality.
Awesome. The church lumps queer people in with “hoes, dealers, and drinkers”.
They don’t bat an eye. Despite being a queer couple, once we had the necessary goods it was incredibly easy starting a family for us.
We are blessed with two daughters, who happily will never know such family drama. Well, Todd is impotent and her other brother requires expensive intervention to conceive.
5. Communication Is Key
Just as early Covid was happening and no one really understood the implications, a family member was right about to have their wedding.
Social distancing was just starting and masks were barely something the public needed. The original invites had been sent out months before. But they sent two updated invites. One said more news to follow.
The next new invite said what everyone expected—that it was now a small wedding. There was no new RSVP.
Small weddings were just starting to happen. The family thought that the real one was happening next year, as mentioned in the invite. With a follow-up party the following year. Being a polite family, everyone thought the couple were nicely trying to say don’t come, but come if you must see us get married in the church.
Well, it backfired spectacularly. No one actually came. Apparently the real one was this year and a small informal party was supposed to be next year for the supposed few who would bow out. They had an entire church and hall rented out.
We all missed the wedding. None of the aunts, uncles, cousins, etc, extended family showed up.
They had a huge banquet, and no one came. To make it worse, a few days later another family member had a socially distanced outdoor wedding on a farm.
Everyone came. Everyone sat far apart and wore masks. And there was a separated food truck line, etc. The previous bride and groom had to sit through everyone coming to another family member’s wedding, while no one came to theirs.
Multiple people even apologized to them for what happened.
The bride looked like she was near tears the entire time. However I’m not sure they would have been able to have a socially distanced reception anyways, because it was not outdoors. Major bummer.
We all felt really bad.
6. Bridesmaidzilla
I got engaged in 2020, after the lockdowns but long before my friends and I were comfortable seeing each other in person. A couple of months after my fiancé and I got engaged, I sent out packages to all of the ladies I had chosen as bridesmaids. One of them is the crazy bridesmaid (I’ll call her Ellen for the sake of anonymity) whom this story is about.
We have been friends since high school, are still in the same core friend group, and while not as close as we once were, I still wanted her to be a big part of our special day.
We recently went on my bachelorette party, which was a weekend-long trip to a very affluent town a couple hours away on the coast. We were a large group of girls and it took my MOH a lot of time and effort to coordinate an itinerary and place to stay that would accommodate everyone.
Onto the story: From the very second we got to the house rental, Ellen was obnoxious. Everything was about Ellen. Someone had a funny story to share? Ellen had a funnier one. Someone complimented another person’s outfit?
Ellen had to step into the middle of the room to talk about how awesome her outfit was. At one point, someone asked me where we were honeymooning, and guess what?
Ellen and her husband had just booked a vacation to the same resort! It went on and on…and on.
Now I am not the type of bride that needs constant attention. Seriously. I had to take a day off after the bachelorette because 72 straight hours of socializing had me completely exhausted. Anyway, onto the worst of what Ellen did. On our final night, we had a reservation at the nicest restaurant in town.
I’m talking renowned chef, $80+ entrees, dress code, etc. Everyone got dressed up and excited. We arrived to the restaurant about five minutes early. Our table wasn’t ready yet—no problem. I understand that there are currently staffing shortages in the service industry and that patience is a virtue.
Ellen does not understand this because she immediately started scolding the hostess for not having our table ready.
She then scolded her for seating us outside—at an outdoor restaurant—and next to a live band, even though everyone wanted to go for the music in addition to the food. It got increasingly worse from there. Ellen spoke about money constantly, as in how much she makes, how much she will make, and how her lifestyle will be going forward.
Something important to note is that everyone on the trip is not rich. We are middle and upper middle class—some are educators, some are mothers, some are in sales. We all work full-time jobs, have student loans, and while we are more privileged than some, we don’t talk about money. We had all saved up for the bachelorette weekend and it wasn’t something any of us could afford to do normally—it was a special treat.
My opinion is that when you talk about how “well-off” you are, you do a great job at making others feel like trash. Not to mention that literally no one cares about your financial situation.
Ellen ordered around the waitstaff in a demeaning manner, screamed at a busboy to make him take away patio heaters from other patrons and bring them to our table.
She screamed at a manager to bring us complimentary prosecco (because she was cold…), took her cellphone flashlight out to show the manager that her steak was cooked medium and not medium rare, and made it a point to yell at/berate every employee she saw.
It was mortifying. The final straw? Well, that was when it was announced that my father had graciously called the restaurant to pay for our $1,500 bill as a gift to all of us on our last night of the trip.
Ellen’s immediate response was not to thank my father for the meal—he was on the phone with my MOH. Oh no, Ellen’s first response was, “Well, if I knew someone else was paying for my meal I wouldn’t have asked for my steak to be comped”. I excused myself and went to the bathroom, holding back tears of frustration and disgust.
The next day we were getting ready to leave and Ellen was clueless as to why nobody wanted to engage with her. Ellen is unaware of her behavior, never thanked my dad, and is mad at me (the bride) for wanting to go to a nearby pub for a nightcap after dinner.
I needed one, trust me. After I headed home, Ellen and two other girls got into a rollercoaster of a conversation that didn’t end well for Ellen.
I am still so disgusted by the way she treated the employees at the restaurant.
I am so appalled by the way she so grossly discussed money in front of girls who are underpaid public school teachers. My wedding is coming up in under two weeks and I want the day to be drama-free.
I am planning to compartmentalize my anger and frustration towards Ellen and not acknowledge it until after the wedding is over.
At this point I don’t even know if I want to continue the friendship.
I feel so sad and hurt over all of this.
7. Beggars Can’t Be Choosers
For your enjoyment, I give you the story of my very first wedding shoot. When I was just starting out in photography, I took low pay for full-day shoots.
I had a few photos to show off, but not a pro-level portfolio. I got the chance to do a wedding, so I charged the lady $600 for eight hours. I was new and we all gotta start somewhere, right?
I had no clue what I was in for…
It was at this really swanky local place. Old house converted into a wedding venue. She paid the $300, non-refundable deposit a couple of months before the wedding.
The check bounced. It should have been a clue, but I needed the work and the pictures. I called and emailed her to let her know what happened. She apologized. She swears she’ll pay the full balance, in cash, at the wedding.
I get there the day of, and there is no one in charge. Find the bride, she says she’s going to get her money. Vanishes for 45 minutes. Find her again, she says her mom has it.
Can’t find her mom. Find the mom, she’s clueless. A couple of hours go by and I help myself to the free food, wedding starts. At this point, I figure what the heck, I’ll take some pictures anyway for my portfolio.
Her uncle is there with a camera constantly getting in my shots. I had to ask him to move or sit down five different times. Ceremony is over, they’re doing the normal post-ceremony stuff.
Finally get bride alone, says she’s going to get the money right then. Doesn’t return for half an hour, then says her new hubby has it. I finally realize, I ain’t getting paid for this, but at least I got food and drinks and some experience.
I started up a conversation with the DJ, ask him in a joking way if he’s been paid. He says of course, I tell him what’s going on. He checks his bank right then and wouldn’t you know it, his check had bounced too.
He calls her over the PA (he’s clearly done this before) and when she gets there, he informs her of the bounced check. I ask again about my money as well.
She makes some excuse about having to run to the car to get it.
I tell her she’s told me her mom had it, her husband had it, and she’s gone to personally get it twice in the last four hours. So, no. She can call someone over to go get it for her.
She starts whining that we’re ruining her day and she’ll pay us at the end. I’ll never forget what the DJ did next. He said, “Sorry, I don’t work for free”.
He then cuts the music in the middle of everyone dancing and started unhooking his equipment.
She loses it. He tells her she’s got five minutes to get his money, or he’s out. I tell her the same. She runs off, and 10 minutes later, I’m helping the DJ pack up his stuff.
Her, her husband, her parents, and the uncle stop us at the door saying they have us for four more hours, we have a contract and we can’t leave.
We both politely tell her that she hasn’t held up her end of the contract by not paying for services by the appointed time.
We agree that if we get our money right then, we’ll stay. Shockingly, no one had the money for it, so we left. Here’s the best part. She calls me a month later stating that she just got back from her honeymoon, and saw me taking pictures, saw the thumbnails on my site but couldn’t access them without a code and she’d like her pictures and the code.
I told her I’d be happy to give her the proofs, and she could order the individual pictures she wanted from me, once she paid me the $600 she owed. She then spent the next two weeks emailing me and leaving me voicemails stating that I either needed to give her her wedding pictures or remove them from my site because she didn’t give me permission to use them and she owns the copyright, or she’d take me to court.
I politely reminded her of the contract, told her that this isn’t how that works, and said I’d be happy to meet her in court with all of my documentation, including my contract, bank statements showing bounced check, etc.
Never heard from her again. Suffice it to say, now I won’t even put your date down on my calendar until you’ve paid the deposit, and if you’re still not fully paid up on the day of, my equipment won’t come out of my car until I’ve been paid in full, if I even show up to begin with.
8. There’s No Way To Make Up For This Mistake
My wedding was this past weekend in Los Angeles. I first paid for a preliminary makeup trial with my makeup artist in March. I then chose to hire this makeup artist a week or so later in March and signed a contract and paid a deposit with her.
In the contract she was to provide herself and one other makeup artist to do makeup on eight women for my wedding day.
The months go by and about 10 days before my wedding I ran through a timeline and schedule for her for the wedding day.
Everything was fine. Fast forward to wedding weekend, it’s 9:30 am and she’s 15 minutes late, I’m annoyed but not too alarmed and text her. She has her read receipts on so I can see she read my message but doesn’t get back to me…
I start to get nervous. I proceed to message her multiple times.
She finally gets back to me around 10:15 am, an hour after her scheduled start time. She tells me her daughter was in the hospital since 4 am with Covid. I ask her where her other makeup artist is that she was supposed to bring and why she didn’t get a hold of me sooner. She makes excuses.
She ends up sending another makeup artist around noon, three hours after the scheduled start time. This makeup artist only has time to do three people of the eight that she was hired for because she is alone when there were supposed to be two makeup artists.
We don’t get out the door until 3:30 pm. My other five bridesmaids had to pay Ubers for their husbands to bring them their makeup bags. It was absolutely mortifying.
Because we are almost three hours behind schedule, my entire wedding ended up being three hours behind schedule.
This affected every aspect of our wedding and basically thousands of dollars. The wedding coordinator was preoccupied putting out fires because of the makeup artist so there were aspects of my wedding that were executed incorrectly, such as hundreds of dollars in candles not being set up and lit, hundreds of dollars in fresh eucalyptus not being set out, and guest table place cards not being out.
The photographers were only booked for eight hours so most of their time was spent waiting for our makeup to get done and the wedding to begin, this means we didn’t get any dancing pictures of the reception. The catering threw away our leftover food because the planner was scrambling to fix the other things that were incorrect.
Our dancing and reception as cut short because the whole wedding was delayed due to makeup and this effected the money we spent on the hired DJ. Not to mention the emotional and mental damages done…I was crying and miserable most of the day and it shows in the sneak peek of photos we have gotten back from the photographers.
Still, I understood that a sick child takes precedent—until I learned the disturbing truth. This makeup artist was working another wedding on my wedding day.
She was not sick. Just sick in the head. I did get my $100 deposit back from her but we still paid her other makeup artist $300 for the three girls she ended up doing makeup on.
In total, if we are talking about the DJ, coordinator, florals, and photography the total financial damage comes up to $10,000. All because of this one makeup artist.
9. Not Messing Around
My aunt and uncle are scum. They and my cousins lived with us when we were young because they needed help.
When the tables were turned they treated my dad like garbage, laughed when I asked for a ride to my friend’s funeral, consistently ignored their kids so that my dad had to be their parent, and then would act like they’ve done nothing but favors for us.
After my father passed, my aunt tried to make the whole thing about her. We moved out of their house the same day he passed and we haven’t seen/talked to them in the eight years since it happened.
My wedding is in two months. I’ve invited my cousins because we grew up together and are practically siblings. Last night I received a FB message from my cousin—and when I opened it, my blood ran cold.
There was a screenshot from my aunt asking if she’s invited. I told my cousin that I would handle it.
She knew I was going to say no, even her own kids hate her. So I got her phone number from someone else. I sent the screenshot and texted her “Hey this is your niece, my cousin told me you were wondering if you were invited to the wedding.
No, you and your husband are not invited. I will not have terrible people in my life anymore and if you show up, you will be thrown out for trespassing”.
No response from her, but my cousin told me they are freaking out about it and throwing a fit and making threats.
I’m happy, I’m so happy. I don’t care about the ensuing drama, I don’t care if she does try to show up. I have waited since I was 11 years old to tell her off.
That’s when she laughed in my face when I asked if my parents could borrow her car to take me to my friend’s funeral.
If she tried to show up to our wedding, I’ll probably hit her in the face and go straight back to dancing.
I haven’t seen most of my family since I left for college. I have worked hard and made sacrifices to ensure my life and future family will not have to deal with the things my family did while I was growing up.
I do not budge when it comes to terrible people anymore. I banned my own mother from coming.
10. Hashtag Doomed
I am the general manager of a restaurant often rented for weddings and other events. Bride has paid full balance on the event space.
The package she purchased was ONLY for the space and the outside catering fee along with the other service charges, etc. She and her wedding coordinator ran through the contract with a fine tooth comb.
Yesterday we had our final meeting prior to the wedding which is in a little than two weeks. That’s when chaos broke out. At the meeting the bride informs me that the headcount is now 140 instead of 100.
I let her know we would have to amend her invoice accordingly for the outside catering fee. She pouts and her fiancé says “I told you that we would have to pay more, but you didn’t listen”!
But they agree to the new amount and groom is huffing and rolling his eyes at every idea she mentions.
She informs me that the chairs she rented fell through and that she’ll need to use some of our chairs. I inform her that we cannot provide additional chairs other than the seating already in the space she rented because our restaurant is still open to the public
The seating provided is picnic tables and a very nice assortment of lawn and patio chairs. It’s an outdoor area, not commonly used for weddings in December. She’s nearly in tears because it’s not on theme with her vision for the ceremony—but the chairs are acceptable for the reception. Again, her fiancé makes her feel worse with the “I told you so” remarks.
The coordinator and I assure her that while we will have to be creative, we can make it work.
It won’t look traditional, but will still fit into her “Rustic Winter Wonderland” theme. Bride seems placated, but groom is now laughing at her and petting her in a very patronizing way. Not sure if I can describe it, but it’s something my husband does to me playfully and mockingly when we both know I’ve done something stupid or boneheaded and we can equally laugh about it.
That was not the dynamic here.
Finally, as I’m asking for contact information for each of her vendors that will be onsite, she informs me that her photographer backed out. This was apparently news to the wedding coordinator as well.
So I’m helping them brainstorm ways to have their wedding captured, and the coordinator suggests using a hashtag with the groom’s last name.
The bride suggests they shorten the last name because it is a difficult name for a lot of people to spell.
That’s when the groom loses it. Let me tell you, real quick, that these people were already nutty. Also, they are very religious and kept talking about propriety and how there will be absolutely NO drinking allowed because it’s the devil’s poison and how modest they expect the guests to dress, etc.
But then they mentioned the song that will play for their dance is the song they wake up to each morning, and caught themselves and tried to backtrack and say that they call each other and listen to it together.
Anyway, back to the groom losing it. He gets up from the table and says “Forget this! Now you’re trying to butcher my last name!? That’s garbage”!
The bride was mortified and tried to calm him down but he was not having it.
He yelled: “I can’t do this anymore. You keep lying to people about how we got together and why are we paying all this money for a wedding when we already live together” ?! The bride then again asks her fiancé if they can talk in private, but he storms out with “I’m out. I can’t do this anymore. Find someone else to marry in a couple of weeks since you want this wedding so bad”!
When I initially met them, I could tell they were a typical super-religious couple where the man is dominant over the woman, so as much as it annoyed me, I did my sales pitch as selling the vision to the bride while keeping the cost within his budget.
Planning a wedding is stressful, and I’ve seen my share of wedding drama after years of being in the industry.
But this one will haunt me, because—they went on with the wedding, and it was such a disaster. The weather was a windy 40°F and we had fire pits and several propane heaters out there, but the bride wanted a cold wedding, but apparently failed to inform her guests that it was an outdoor-only wedding. So remember that I had to add more money to the invoice because their headcount increased?
Well, they were not happy about that and waited until the very last minute to pay it. But then the day comes (yesterday). They ask to use our microphone and sound setup. No one brings a laptop.
No one brings an aux-compatible device from which to play their Spotify list. Using our sound and sound tech is another add-on we offer, which they declined.
I add that to the invoice they still have outstanding and inform them that the wedding cannot begin until it’s paid. So the groom begrudgingly pays it.
Everyone is freezing. Bride insisted on tall centerpieces, but after the wind knocked over two of them, breaking the vases, the wedding coordinator nixes the tall ones and just lays the flowers on the tables like sprays.
Their designated button pusher they asked to run the wedding playlist doesn’t know what the heck she’s doing. Did I mention everyone is freezing? The outside caterers don’t bring heating trays so the food is sitting on a table getting cold. Bride arrived almost an hour late.
For the unity candle, they only brought the unity candle itself but forgot the taper candles with which to light the unity candle.
They ran an entire worship service in lieu of a traditional wedding ceremony.
Everyone is freezing. Bride sang about four songs, very pitchy, a cappella. Headcount only ended up being 75 people. The groom’s cake was poop emoji themed. I’m not kidding. They brought nothing with which to cut either cake.
Had to borrow our set. They brought nothing with which to serve cake. No plates, no extra forks.
They brought nothing with which to box the leftover cake. They had no music during the dinner or reception because they wanted us to change the restaurant station to praise and worship music, which we refused since the rest of the restaurant was still open.
Their button-pusher left early because she was freezing. Here’s the best part.
The groom pulls me aside and says that they deserve a refund since most of their guests didn’t show up—or left when everything kept getting delayed. I explain to him that I did the pricing based on what was reported to me by his bride and the wedding coordinator.
I also explain how they used much more of our items than was in the contract, without extra charge.
Then he starts feeding me a story about how he was behind bars until just 9 months ago and how blessed he is, but also starts threatening me with God’s vengeance if I don’t get him his refund. He’s literally waving a fist at me as he speaks to me in passionate tones, like he’s trying to preach to me and make me feel convicted, because God believes I owe him a refund since just under half the guests didn’t show up or stay for dinner.
One of my other managers, Ron, is a bouncer-looking veteran, takes-no-guff-from-anyone type, who is very protective of me.
He sees what’s going down and hurries over. I’m doing fine at staying assertive, but when the groom sees Ron, he starts backing down and talking like a human being. He immediately changes his conversation and starts playing the good guy and asks Ron about how he can help move all the patio furniture back.
In other words, groom didn’t want any actual trouble from Ron but thought he could talk down to this “woman”. Ron knows me better and didn’t for once think I couldn’t handle myself. He only stepped in because he thought I might be in physical danger.
I am not refunding anything and if they want to leave a bad review, I’m ready to respond to it.
11. Don’t Rain On Her Parade
I work as a bartender at events and I had a doozy of a wedding this past weekend.
The bride insisted on having her wedding outside, despite the fact that there was a 100% chance of rain forecasted all weekend for the past week. The owners of the venue begged her to let them set up the ceremony in their indoor chapel.
Her response was so bratty.
The bride insisted that she chose the venue for the outside ceremony area and that it’s the venue’s responsibility to…I don’t know. Make it stop raining?
The couple only paid for the bar service to serve a selection of signature cocktails. Nothing else. No sodas. So the guests could either drink cocktails or water. They didn’t even provide us with water bottles to hand out to the guests.
The kitchen staff had to handle the water, but they weren’t contracted to start their dinner service until 7:00. Cocktail hour starts at 5:
00 and was supposed to go until 6:00 when the ceremony was supposed to begin. The couple finally relent and decide to move the wedding indoors around 7:00. It takes almost an hour to break down the wedding arch/candles and move them I doors.
The ceremony takes place at 8:15. Everyone is nearly trashed because they insisted we extend the cocktail hour until the ceremony began. We had to cut people off who appeared physically intoxicated, due to also having not eaten anything.
Since we had only been contracted until 10:00, I asked the wedding planner and owners if we needed to extend the contract to 11:00 or midnight.
Every time I asked, they said “no” because they didn’t or shouldn’t have to pay the extra hours. The ceremony concludes around 9:
00 and it’s finally dinner time. They had ordered enough food and cocktails for 100 people. 150 people showed up. They ran out of food, and by the time they finished with dinner, the bar was closing.
Everyone was furious and kept blaming the venue and my bartenders, when neither issue was our fault. But it all went back to one person. I 100% blame the wedding planner—who was also the maid of honor—who was the one calling the (wrong) shots. Also, the bride and groom trashed their dressing rooms.
Moved furniture, spilled drinks, scuffed up the walls… it was a nightmare.
12. Counting Down The Days—For All The Wrong Reasons
My fiancé and I have been long-distance between states for 4.5 years. We see each other once every two months. We are from the same town, and our families live nearby one another.
Our wedding was supposed to be in August 2020, at which point he would move to NYC with me. However, we called off the big wedding for the safety of everyone involved.
We have been quarantining in our respective states so that we could both work and save money.
We decided that it would be potentially safe for me to visit family in July, and decided to do a small elopement in my parents’ backyard, followed by a distanced garage door movie night of The Princess Bride, our favorite movie, for my parents’ cul de sac.
My father is picking me up in NYC the week before the wedding in a car.
We were able to get all of our vendors to reschedule without a hitch, pick a day, and figure out ways to make things work all from separate states. The wedding is going to be in a state with extremely lax COVID rules, and I am coming from NYC, which is the opposite.
There will be 15 people present. Keeping our families safe and adhering to guidelines is extremely important to us. So we are asking that everyone distance, and only enter the house to use the restroom one at a time where there will be sanitizing wipes to clean doorknobs.
My fiancé REALLY wants to hug everyone after, which I am uncomfortable with because of different homes, but I agreed that if people wore masks I would feel slightly better.
Everyone was super understanding and grateful for the precautions.
Except my mother. I was so freaking excited for this small wedding and feeling good about everything, but now, it’s totally gone. I’ve always been extremely close to my family, but as we near the wedding, they are continually pushing me away.
As we are handling all of this planning, I had a huge falling out with my mother’s extended family, who I have very little contact with.
They were using terrible, disgusting prejudiced language on social media, and I very politely told them it was vile and wrong. This caused me to receive insane amounts of texts from all of them, and they even hunted down my address of where I live and were flaunting it.
I felt extremely unsafe so blocked all of them from social media/having any way to contact me.
Flashback to a week ago. My fiancé and I called my mother to discuss what sorts of burritos we should order, since my parents have very kindly offered to purchase food. Out of nowhere, she immediately turns the subject from if we should get rice and beans or sweet potato burritos into a screaming match about how COVID is fake and she will not come near me or wear a mask to hug me the day of the wedding.
She says her family hates her because of me, I’m keeping planning “secret” from her, and that everyone in both families thinks I’m high maintenance and out of control. My fiancé sat on Skype totally stunned, as he had just finished complimenting me on how surprised he was at the level of chill I have had, and the fact that we were literally calling to discuss the only plan necessary. Burritos.
My father called me after—and what he said broke my heart into a million pieces. He yelled at me about how I needed to elope without them present because he was sick of my mom and he didn’t want to deal with it anymore.
I broke down because my dad and I are EXTREMELY close, and I can’t imagine him not walking me down the aisle.
I’m going to be staying with my family the week before the wedding, so it will be safe.
At this point, I asked my fiancé if we could completely cancel and just elope with no family, but it is super important to him his family is there. He is moving eight hours away from them for me, and I want to make sure that he can spend this time with them, so I understand.
I tried for a full week to talk my mother down, include her in more, ask her opinion. All of her responses were short one-word text answers, and she would refuse to answer any phone calls.
Finally, after watching an episode of Parks and Rec where Ben tells off his family, I told her that all she had to do was act happy in pictures and fake being nice to me.
If she couldn’t handle that, she didn’t need to come and we would pay for everything ourselves and change location.
The fight immediately ended when I called her out, and she is now being actually helpful again and asking polite questions. HOWEVER, today I received a call from my 13-year-old sister who asked if “I really wanted to see her the week before the wedding”.
It’s because a friend invited her on vacation and she would be back the day before the wedding. I never get to see my little sister and we are just getting to the point where she thinks I’m “cool” again—we have a 14-year age difference. I was really looking forward to some time together where we could watch cheesy teen movies she’s finally old enough for and make decor.
When she asked me if she could ditch, I totally lost it and just started sobbing. I know that was unfair to pin on her, but with everything that had been happening with my mother, I was like “Great, no one wants to be here”. I also feel unsafe about her going to a heavily populated beach right now with the dangers it may pose.
She felt terrible and started crying and said that she was just bummed because our family never goes on vacations and this would be her chance. I felt like total garbage after. She is most likely not going on the trip now, but I am afraid it’s going to get chalked up to me sucking, and negate her wanting to spend time with me while I’m home.
I called my maid of honor who immediately gave me a pump-up speech about how I’ve really been the opposite of dramatic through this insane process, and that she was mad everyone is just walking all over me while I make concessions for them. My fiancé finally offered to elope without family, but I could tell he was extremely upset. My family has never been like this before, and I know there is a lot going on right now in the world, so I understand
And weddings always supposedly cause tension, which I also understand. It just sucks, because two weeks ago, I was feeling good and totally relishing in how awesome the day would be. But I’m starting to feel like I am just a passenger on the journey everyone else is taking for this day and I don’t get to drive at all.
I’m not even excited, and I’m just counting down the next two weeks until it’s done and my fiancé and I finally live together.
13. Putting The Cart Before The Horse
I got engaged only a few months ago to my boyfriend of eight years.
We are very happy together and getting engaged has been wonderful, but neither of us are really looking to plan anything extravagant right now. Besides the fact that a lot of weddings have been postponed and rescheduled due to the pandemic, it is also challenging to get a date and a venue.
Most importantly, neither of us have the money to sink into a wedding right now nor do we want to waste money on it. There’s just one problem. My mom and future mother-in-law don’t care. They frequently ask if I’ve made any plans which I always tell them “no” in a nice way, but they’ve started getting much more pushy. The other day my mom told me that she was ready to start making plans for it.
I asked her who she thought was paying for this and she said that it didn’t matter. Like, how does it not matter? I don’t have $30,000 to drop on a wedding, I’d much rather put that towards a house! And my mother-in-law is starting to dictate who is on the guest list and who shouldn’t make the cut. Again, where do people get off thinking that this is appropriate?
Now you may be reading this and think that I’m just overreacting and that they’re simply excited, but I’d like to add a little context to this story. My older brother got married only two years ago, and my mom was a pill for that too.
She only cared about buying herself a dress and showing off to everyone. I don’t use drastic words normally, but she is one hundred percent a narcissist.
She only cares about one person and that’s herself. My future mother-in-law has never had one of her kids get married before so this would be the first wedding for her.
The more I look at the situation, the more I see that they aren’t really happy for my fiancée and I, they want this wedding right away so they can get attention from friends and family. Ugh!
14. Good Riddance To Bad Rubbish
An old friend, who I’d been drifting apart from, invited herself to be my bridesmaid. I was too nice to tell her “no,” although I’d had no intention of asking her to be in the wedding.
Big mistake. She’s been really out of hand, refusing to work, and trying to fake illnesses and conditions in order to get disability. She’s been mooching off everyone in order to keep her lifestyle, which includes a new Mercedes.
She’s had two years to save money for a $30 dress, but has failed to do so. She’s making the rest of the bridal party uncomfortable, and me REALLY stressed. And to top it all off, she’s dictating what is and isn’t allowed at my bachelorette party.
I—as politely as possible—told her she was demoted. I tried to put the blame on myself, telling her it was my own stress and anxiety at her inability to pay, and even offered to treat her as much like a bridesmaid as possible.
Initially, I felt awful, but I just couldn’t handle the drama and stress. And considering what she did next, I don’t feel that guilty anymore. She has been texting not only me, but also my maid of honor relentlessly for the past 48 hours.
Neither of us has been rude. We’ve been sugar coating literally everything because we don’t want to be mean.
At one point we ignored her, but she just kept messaging. Finally, we both caved and responded.
My MOH politely told she didn’t want to be caught up in all this, and backed me up 100%. She’s made all this 100% about her. She doesn’t care about me AT ALL, or the fact this is MY wedding.
Her messages have been ramblings about how she’s heartbroken because she’s never been a bridesmaid before.
She’s BEGGED for the link to the dress, which she can suddenly afford, along with every other thing; dinners, gas, etc, which she couldn’t afford before.
She accused me of punishing her for “being poor”. I tried to explain to her that not knowing if I could count on her was stressing me out, she acted like my stress and my anxiety meant nothing.
Even though I’m angry, I feel like I still can’t tell her EVERY reason she’s been “fired”. How can you say, “Your mooching and scamming is making you unbearable”? She’s obviously got some mental problems, and I won’t want to be the person to push her over the edge.
The longer this continues, though, the more angry she makes me. She’s also started messaging my fiancé, on top of my MOH.
It honestly makes me really mad that she’s made them more uncomfortable when it’s not their fight.
I tried to tell her that it was MY decision, not theirs, but she won’t stop. She’s literally making me out to be a terrible person, but honestly, I’ve been as nice as I possibly can.
Like I said, how can you tell someone that they’re terrible?!
I thought that focusing on her inability to pay was the kinder option, but I feel like it’s just made it easier for her to turn it around and make me seem like a jerk and to guilt-trip me.
I sent her what I considered to be a final message, hoping to reiterate—gently, but firmly—that my choice was final. Well, that final message must have really teed her off, because she blocked both me and my MOH on Facebook—like we were the ones bombarding her with messages?
Truthfully, I was a little relieved that I didn’t have to do it to her.
Since then, she’s been publicly talking smack about me on Facebook. I know that’s nothing I can control, and I don’t really care what her friends think of me, but it just makes me mad that I did my best to be kind in this awful situation, and it has somehow made it even easier for her to make me seem evil.
Why have I felt guilty and bothered being nice when she’s being so awful and petty? To my own amazement, I kind of want to message her something a little bit mean. She’s out there spewing awful stuff about me, so why should I protect her feelings anymore?
I’m overly nice and it’s so out of character for me, but I kind of what to tell her: that it’s really terrible to take advantage of everyone you know, and to pretend to have autism, narcolepsy, PTSD, and agoraphobia.
Because it is.
People struggle with that stuff and to her it’s just a ploy to get attention and money. She’s a terrible (ex) bridesmaid, a terrible friend, and frankly, a terrible person.
15. Until Death—Or Wedding Party Duties—Do Us Part
My friend is getting married at the end of this year and has had some issues with her future in-laws. She gets along with her in-laws but isn’t particularly close to them due to them being very different—as in, they’re pretty nuts. Most recently, her soon-to-be brother-in-law’s wife started telling the family that she was offended that the bride was not including her in her wedding planning and was not asked to be a bridesmaid.
She is not even remotely close to the sister-in-law and they do not hang out and are VERY different people so it would make no sense for her to have to ask her to be a bridesmaid (nor should she have to).
And as for the wedding planning…baffles me that she thinks she has any right to be included. The bride isn’t asking anyone, she’s doing everything herself.
But the best part of all of this is the brother-in-law is now saying he can’t be in the wedding—and the reason why is hilarious. It’s because he can’t walk down the aisle with another woman because it’s against his vows. We have a few months before the wedding so we’ll have to see how this all plays out.
16. When The Best Man Is The Worst
I’m from a small country town, everyone knows everyone.
There is almost always something crazy that happens at the weddings my very large family has. At one wedding the DJ’s wife at the reception just pulled up her shirt and flashed everyone for a full 30 seconds. But let’s get onto the real story…Me and my sister showed up a few hours earlier to help set up for our cousin’s wedding.
The venue is at this gorgeous farm/ranch.
Guests have started arriving and were waiting in the barn that is being used as the reception area, while waiting for them to tell us it is time to take our seats outside. Well, in walks the best man and his wife.
Now a little backstory here about them. They met in high school—we all went to school together—and their relationship is seriously twisted.
He has been cheating on her from day one with any female that will give him the time of day. She knows this—the whole town knows this—and still she chooses to stay. This creates a lot of jealousy and insecurity within her.
Back to the wedding—the best man enters with his wife, and the crowd around me, myself included, loudly gasped.
This horrible woman was seriously wearing a WHITE BACKLESS DRESS WITH SEQUINS! No one said anything to her though, but you could hear the room break out in whispers, as everyone started talking about her in their separate social circles.
30 minutes go by and were asked to take our seats outside. As with most weddings, the bridesmaids and groomsmen were paired up to enter and exit together.
The best man was paired up with the maid of honor, naturally.
Well, his white-clad wife did not like that. She was mad he didn’t walk her to her seat, and was angry when the ceremony was over and he exited the aisle with the maid of honor…as planned, and practiced in the rehearsal dinner the night before. The wedding party was supposed to go back after everyone cleared out to the barn for the reception, so the photographer could get photos of the wedding party.
In that short ten minutes between the ceremony concluding, and the wedding party going back for photographs, no one could find the best man for the pics. The father of the bride went looking. Found them in the parking lot arguing and making a scene.
Best man’s wife slapped him three times in the face—before he backhanded her too.
The father of the bride kicked them out for the remainder of the event. Only the close family helping to run the event really knew what was going on, so none of the other guests even had a clue.
The rest of the night went on without incident.
17. Feathers: Ruffled
I have this coworker who I thought was super sweet. She’s older, around 50, and childless. I’m 25. She and I talked a lot at work and I’ve told her about my fiancé and our engagement. She offered to help with my wedding, and she offered to buy me a wedding dress.
With me being the humble, shy girl I am I politely refused her overly kind gesture.
I told her it was okay, she didn’t have to do that for me. Over time I have been discovering she is someone you have to be very careful with. She loves to bad-mouth other people while being sweet to their face.
So, before I came to the notion above, she decided to buy me a wedding dress after she asked me about the styles I liked.
Yup, lo and behold this lady bought me an actual dress!
I thanked her and tried it on at home while my fiancé was at work. It was even worse than I could have imagined. Somehow, it was nothing like the photo of the dress she said she was going to order.
It was poorly made with cheap material, and it looked terrible on me. I am average built and this made me look like I had an 8.5 months pregnant belly and HUMONGOUS hips!
I was thinking to myself, “No way!
Where did she get this thing”? I was assuming it probably cost like 20 bucks from some crappy China-based website. Needless to say, I will not be wearing it to my wedding. Later on, my coworker surprised me and said she was going to order me a hair piece to go with it.
Again, I politely declined her offer. And? You guessed it.
She ordered me a hair piece. I opened the package, not knowing what kind of hairpiece this was going to be. It was a freaking tiara.
I was like, “Are you kidding me”? This lady knows I’m not super girly, she knows I’m rather tomboyish, and that’s what she got me. It too, was super cheaply made, and it was too small for my fat head anyway.
Then, she started telling me I need four dresses for my wedding. One for engagement photos, one for the rehearsal, one for the ceremony, and one for the reception. This time, with a little more annoyance, I told her that I do not need all this.
She bought me an “engagement dress” anyway. This thing was HIDEOUS. Denim, low square-cut neckline, and 3 sizes too big.
It came from Old Navy, of all places. Furthermore…My fiancé has met her and he does not like her. He is a very good judge of character and he knows something about her is fishy.
I have picked up on it too as time has progressed. Why would this lady I work with (whom I still don’t know super well) go out of her way to order me a bunch of cheap stuff?
I get that it’s a nice gesture but in my mind, if you’re going to buy someone a wedding dress, why would you order something from somewhere that you know is going to be so badly made?
Why would you order a tiara for someone who you know is not into that sort of thing? Why would you buy someone this garbage even though they repeatedly (and politely) declined it?
I feel like this lady has overstepped her boundaries.
I took all the stuff she gave me and donated it. I took a leave of absence from work in order to focus on school for the semester. I returned in May and her attitude towards me was totally different.
She barely went out of her way to talk to me or look at me. Essentially, I picked up on a different vibe from her. I would simply say hi to her now and then if we crossed paths but otherwise I would ignore her.
I discovered the other day that she unfriended me on Facebook. I was sitting back, waiting to see if she’d do the deed herself and to my surprise she did! I haven’t heard anything bad about me via the grapevine (yet) but I anticipate hearing something negative at some point.
18. The Ultimatum
I don’t even have a date for our wedding yet, and I already can’t take my mom’s heat. We know it will be sometime in September of next year. I already picked out my colors and my bridesmaids.
I chose my bridesmaids based on the relationship I have with them and how they make me feel. I chose my two sisters, a close friend, and my stepmom who I see more as a third sister.
Well, my mother became furious that I had chosen her as a bridesmaid. She said it would look bad. That I needed to choose my cousins instead. I haven’t talked to my cousins in years. I have no idea what they’re up to. I saw them once last year during my father’s memorial service. I will be inviting them for sure, but not as my bridesmaids.
Again, I wanted to have people I’m closer with. I tried to explain to my mother how I felt but she just kept going on about how I should have my wedding. What she said next was devastating.
She told me that if I don’t take my stepmom off my bridesmaids list, she will not be attending. I was really upset and shocked to hear words like that come off her mouth.
She’s always saying she will do anything to make me happy, and how much she loves me. Well, this made it clear that she’s making my special day about her. I never understood her hatred against my stepmom.
My parents split years before my dad met my her, and she’s been nothing but nice to me. I’m already stressed and annoyed at this that I have even considered a courthouse wedding to avoid drama.
Should I have to replace a bridesmaid because my mom does not like her?
19. Playing Favorites
There are two key pieces of context needed to understand the dynamic here. One, I’m VERY close with my future mother, father, and brother-in-law. I have a tumultuous relationship with my own family, and they’ve welcomed me wholeheartedly from the day I met them.
Well, except the one black sheep of the family… You see, my future sister-in-law is my father-in-law’s daughter from a previous marriage.
Her mother remarried a wealthy man who gave her literally everything she ever wanted.
She was also allowed to do anything she wanted with no consequences, whereas my in-laws enforced some basic house rules. Nothing crazy, just a curfew and no boys in her room with the door closed.
As a result, she hated spending time with her dad’s side as was mandated by the courts and moved in with her mother full time the day she turned 18.
Because of what she was used to—her mother bailing her out whenever she got herself into trouble—she never really matured past the age of about 13. For additional context, she’s in her 30s while my fiancé and I are in our early 20s. Now on to the story.
My dad is not a major part of my life. He struggled with addiction for most of my life and chose to let my mother have sole custody until he got clean (which he did).
I’ve now spent the past couple of years awkwardly building a relationship with him, but I’m not comfortable with him walking me down the aisle. I joked about this with my in-laws while chatting about wedding plans, as my mother-in-law is a wedding planner and is planning ours.
That’s when my father-in-law told me that my sister-in-law had once eloped with her boyfriend of less than 6 months at age 19 and moved in with him halfway across the US.
They divorced a year later.
As a result, my mother-in-law didn’t get to plan her wedding and my father-in-law didn’t get to walk her, his only daughter, down the aisle. A few days later, I asked him to walk me down the aisle, which he accepted.
This is where the trouble started. Last night, my in-laws invited my partner, his siblings, and I over for dinner. Eventually, the topic of my father-in-law walking me down the aisle came up in conversation.
My sister-in-law lost her mind when she found out. She started screaming and crying. She called me a “stupid, attention-seeking B-word ” for asking her dad. Her logic is that she wants her dad to walk her down the aisle first…if she ever has a wedding. She’s not currently seeing anyone. My fiancé and I left immediately afterward, so I don’t have a first had account of what happened.
But according to my brother-in-law, his parents attempted to talk some sense into her.
Their attempts at reasoning with her failed. Then brother-in-law left, but saw her storm out of the house as he was pulling away. I haven’t spoken to anyone other than my brother-in-law since then.
I don’t know what to do. I got so attached to the idea of being walked down, and I don’t want to let go of that.
This also isn’t the first time she’s pulled something like this, and I don’t want to reward it.
But I also don’t want her to have any ill will towards me because of this.
20. The Less The Merrier
We found out today through social media that my soon-to-be sister-in-law invited her teenage daughter’s boyfriend to our wedding and they are all flying in together. Did I mention my wedding is in a week?
And that’s not all. My fiancé’s cousin insists we (the bride and groom) coordinate a ride from the airport for him.
He also just decided to let us know today that he might be bringing a plus one.
Even though no plus ones were invited for anyone. And when we said that the place cards, seating chart, chair rentals, catering, was already accounted for he told us no big deal that she can just “sit on his lap” and “eat his food”.
21. Revenge Is Sweet
I was supposed to get married to my ex-fiancé Mason on the 20th of this month. But last week, my world fell apart.
A mutual friend caught him cheating with his ex Kim, so I called it off. Because it’s so close to our wedding date, I had already booked everything like the venue, catering and everything else.
I barely managed to get any money back as it’s mostly non-refundable so in total I’ve lost $20,000.
Last year I took out a loan to cover the costs of the wedding, the longer I take to repay it the more interest it gets.
When we first got engaged, Mason agreed to share our finances together, meaning had we got married I would’ve been able to pay it off. This was supposed to be in our pre-nup but because we didn’t get married, it meant he no longer had to share finances.
I asked him if he was still willing to help and told him that I will go into debt if he doesn’t as I can’t repay it alone. He told me ”It isn’t my problem you took out a loan you can’t pay back” and stopped responding after that.
Well, I knew just how to get back at him. When we got engaged, Mason proposed to me with a family heirloom ring belonging to his great-grandmother that was worth $25,000.
When we canceled the wedding, he told me he wanted the ring back but we never got around to arranging a time he could pick it up.
Because I don’t want to go into debt, I told him that if he didn’t agree to help pay it off that I would sell the ring. He didn’t reply and ignored the messages however after talking to a mutual friend named Jake I found out he had actually read the messages and told everyone he didn’t care because I ”wouldn’t do it”.
I asked Jake to tell Mason that if I don’t get a message from him in the next 24 hours that I would sell the ring. Jake told me he again said he didn’t care and didn’t think I would do it.
So the next day I sold the ring to an online website and messaged Mason to tell him it had been done and told him he shouldn’t have underestimated me.
He started cussing me out, saying I didn’t scare him and that he would be around for the ring later.
True to his word, he came to my house demanding the ring and I told him I sold it already and showed him the proof. He blew up at me, saying I was a petty jerk and that I shouldn’t have sold it because it wasn’t just a ring, it was an heirloom that meant a lot to his family.
22. Runaway Groom
I have two older brothers, this is about the middle one.
Our parents divorced when I was very young due to our mother’s insane jealousy. At first my dad was able to handle it but when she started making comments about me wanting to be like his wife he had enough.
She quickly rebounded with a guy with two kids and had shared custody for a while.
But when my Dad got remarried she went crazy, calling his new wife every horrible name and claiming he was cheating on her while they were married.
I was always closer to my brothers and dad than my mom because she was always very mean to me. Long story short, my stepmom was in a bad car accident and she didn’t make it.
My dad called my mom in the middle of the night letting her know he would pick us up earlier so we could attend the funeral.
Her reaction was deranged. She decided to take us on a fun trip to “celebrate“ something. It was the happiest we’ve ever seen her and when we realized what happened and started crying she told us only worthless people cry for harlots.
Needless to say, things went nuclear and my Dad asked for full custody with visitation for her. He always left the line of communication open and paid for us to visit her when she moved away but it was still very bad and as soon as we turned 18 we started to lower contact with her.
Last time we saw her was at my high school graduation where she made a point of letting everyone who would hear we were ungrateful kids and her husband would call us bad names too.
We’ve been no contact since then. My brother Sam started dating his girlfriend three years ago, she has heard all the stories and the reasons we are no contact but she believes we are just dramatic.
They had many issues due to her opinions but she eventually seemed to drop the “you need to reconcile with your mother“ crusade.
But the whole time, she was hatching a disturbing plot. During the wedding planning, there was no indication of things going wrong or fishy.
However, when we got to the church and lo and behold mom, her husband, and their two kids were sitting up front. I immediately panicked and called my brothers. Sam thought maybe somehow she found out and wanted to crash.
He called the bride to let her know of the potential drama but she told him it was fine since she invited them. Sam hung up and called to ask me to come get him while our oldest brother dealt with things at the church.
We went home and barricaded ourselves there even when his ex, her family, friends, etc came to try and “make sense of it with him”.
Mom’s husband even called and said he always knew we were worthless. Now that the dust has settled, most of Sam’s friends are on his side and so is most of our family (on our dad’s side, of course). Sam’s ex’s parents already threatened to sue for the money they paid if he doesn’t marry her, but Sam says he’d rather pay them back for their contribution than marry someone that betrayed him.
My nuclear family 100% supports Sam—but the backlash has been huge.
